“Sure. No problem.” he answered back and hurried up to help.

Graduated from the Bryansk Technological University with Master of Engineering Degrees in 1966, all life he worked hard: first, as a chief engineer, then as a mechanic and at different positions, but always with the passion for work and care for people. Honesty, integrity and loyalty to the family were those the main traits of Gennadiy’s character.

Look at his hands, carrying a tiny bird having fallen out of the nest, how gentle they are as if embracing the whole sea of love and transferring it to our younger brothers and sisters, those flying fowls.

The other time he was holding the dog as though nursing a loving baby in his hands.

Sincere, strong, reliable hands of Gennadiy are unforgettable, there was a particular touch in them that is what is called “down to earth love and care”.

His sons Danil and Denis and their families, his niece and her son in St. Petersburg and his niece and her family in Bryansk, his sister and Janko as well as those who knew him personally will never forget him.

Watch our photo expose “GENNADIY REMEMBERED”:

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I remember your hands, brother, when we were little, maybe, we did not go to school yet or at Grade 1, so you involved me in a hobby group to learn how to make with a fretsaw the pieces out of wooden plywood, then applying vanish on them as finish-up. Afterwards those our childish “masterpieces” were supposed to go to the neighbors or acquaintances  to decorate their domestic life.

How industrious you were, my little devil-brother! You managed then even to sell one or two wooden home made shelves or boxes for pencils, pens… Our teacher was Alexey Petrovich. That was perhaps who you inherited your tremendous love for wood and wooden products from.

You possessed a very charming soul build-up: never offending anybody, always ready to help, to protect  the weaker  person.

Finished as usual his 5-days’ work week, on Saturday on his way home, he died from heart attack just 10 days after celebrating his 70-th anniversary.

On Thursday, February 2, 2012 at 12-30 p. m. Gennadiy Nikolaevich Filin will be buried at St. Petersburg Serafimovsky Cemetery,

Russia. Eternal memory to you, my beloved brother.

I know our mama loved you so much , she had died with your name on her lips and she would be glad to meet you now in the heavens. God bless you!

I remember hands of yours, gentle and always busy with work, never tiring hands of a Jack of all trades, intelligent and very tidy, Gennadiy.

Listen to: Sergey Trofimov, Guardian Angel

Easy to say: “Don’t be lazy to read books…”,yes, but in reality, at our computerized age, one prefers to play electronic games in stead of reading, having fun, fun, fun-endless fun. Without much thinking.

But books demand thinking and re-thinking. As in this case. The Encyclopedia consists of 294 short life stories of outstanding people of the world, their different quotations in various subjects: life, freedom, liberty of morals, love, the role of a woman in life, arts, music, philosophy etc.

Nice to have this book in one’s hands, go through 814 pages of it, recollecting the facts you could remember from your all reading life, making yourself again and again figuring out the simple ideas which you could not understand before because of early age or lack of information in old times…

On the waves of my memory I am flying away back to Romain Rolland and Leo Tolstoy, a world class literary scholar and intellectual giant. We know their creative works. What is the link between the two? Spiritual enlightenment-”letters from afar” , after the failure of Franco-Prussian War, France was filled with gloomy atmosphere. July, 1886, Rolland was admitted to the Ecole Normal School, the first exposure to Tolstoy’s writings, especially “war and peace”. In Rolland’s mind, after Shakespeare, Tolstoy is the greatest writer in the world, “War and Peace” is a supreme classic through the ages. When recalling his spiritual path, Rolland is full of deep feeling: “I deeply loved, I never stop to love Tolstoy. I have lived in an atmosphere of his thought, I work with him, with “War and Peace’ and “The Death of Ivan Ilyich”, intimacy, than with any one of the important works of French writer relationship. The great kindness, wisdom, absolutely true, for me, he is the spirit of our times, the most reliable to anarchy”.

Later Rolland was shocked by Tolstoy’s booklet “The how we are to do” where he  believes the role of art is the corrosion of the human mind, it will corrupt the people…”

He wrote a letter to Tolstoy and got an answer from him. “Letters from afar” of Rolland are the following points: first. Equality. As a noble writer Tolstoy criticized in the letter that gentleman for doing nothing.: “One does not fulfill everyone’s moral obligation to follow the people, an excuse to love science, love art, and live a parasitic life.

Secondly,Love and happiness. Love is better than love yourself.

Watch our photo presentation: “Wisdom” :

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Third, the concept of art against violence. On the role of art, Tolstoy made a well-known thesis: “Art should be the elimination of violence, and only artistic talent to do so. Art’s mission to rule the kingdom of love”.

Rolland accepted doctrine of Tolstoy, then, when Tolstoy died, full of respect for Rolland he wrote “Tolstoy Biography” (1911).  By writing biography, Rolland bathed in Tolstoy the ocean of the mind to experience the power of Tolstoy and the meaning of life and thought and emotional experience in the mentality of Tolstoy.

Rolland created “John Christopher”. At my student years I remember I read this book through the night, could not get enough of it, and tomorrow arrived: we need to attend classes after sleepless night. And we did. Everything was all right.

Today, with globalization, the dream of 21st century came to us, but the world is not tranquil: personal desires expansion, expansion of national strife, rampant terrorism. Tolstoy and Rolland humanitarian ideas remain up to date.

Listen to:Edith Piaf – La Vie En Rose (live)

On December 6, 1895, the great writer Anton Chekhov, whose stories have gained him a reputation the world over for humane attitudes, wrote to his friend, the publisher Suvorin: “The weather in Moscow is good, there’s no cholera, there’s also no lesbian love…Brrr! remembering those persons of whom you write me makes me nauseous as if I’d eaten a rotten sardine. Moscow doesn’t have them-and that’s marvelous.”

It is therefore not surprising, that the best-known period of Parnok’s life is the eighteen months of her love affair with Marina Tsvetaeva, who is justifiably considered one of the four greatest twentieth-century Russian poets. But Sophia Parnok was also a poet. This is the book about her( photo to the left – front cover, to the right a photo from the book-Marina Tsvetaeva with her daughter at the period of time).

From the book; “Tsvetaeva remembered Parnok from the moment she entered the drawing room, wearing a simple, black-knit jacket with a wing collar. A fire was crackling in the grate, the air smelled of tea and White Rose perfume. A lmost immediately, someone came over to Parnok and said there was a young poetwhom she had to meet.. As she rose, she noticed, perhaps for the first time, a young woman with short, curlyblonde hair, dressed in an almost gold-colored faille dress, who was getting up to meet her with an unforcedmovement.

Later in the evening, Tsvetaeva remembered clinking glasses with parnok above the blue vase. As they toasted and locked glasses for a moment, she thought to herself,”Oh, be my Orestes!” Spontaneously, she took one of the flowerrs from the vase and offered it to Parnok.

From Tsvetaeva’s “Girlfriend’ dedicated to Parnok:

“and still-

what happened, really?

What do I so regret and want?

And I don’t know: did I conquer?

Was I overcome?”

Sophia Parnok was born in1885 in Taganrog in Russia to Alexandra and Yakov Parnokh, middle class Jewish family, who was considered  part of Taganrog intellectual elite. Her mother Alexandra Abramovna was an exceptionally well-educated woman for her time, one of the first generation of women doctors in Russia. Her father Yakov Solomonovich, a pharmacist and the owner of an apothecary,  was one of Taganrog’s five hundred  ”hereditary  honorary citizens”, a title conferred  on persons not of gentle birth for good citizenship and services rendered to the state. Though sensitive to anti-Semitism, he was indifferent to religion, never attended synagoue, provided no religious instruction for his children, and gave frequent voice to his dream of leaving Russia and living in Werstern Europe. The children got an excellent education at home and in gymnasiums.

Watch our photo show “Sophia Parnok”:

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The very book we are looking through, provides us with the detailed analysis of the poems Sophia wrote at different times and as Pasternak put it in words: “The biography of a poet is found in what happens to those who read her”.

Her verses. Unfortunately, I never had a chance to read them in her native language, Russian. Here they are presented in translation to English. Translated beautifully. But where are the originals? Alas, I don’t see them. So, I could not formulate my opinion about them. And appeal again to Tsvetaeva’s “Girlfriend”:

“Parrying all smiles with my poems!

I reveal to you and the world-at-large

Everything in you and that lies in store for us,

Fair stranger with the brow of Beethoven!”

Parnok’s feeling for Tsvetaeva were slower to crystallize and express themselves and are much harder to guess at. She immediately recognized Tsvetaeva’s giftedness, fell in love with it, nurtured and cherished it, and never ceased to love it. The less generous side of her must have envied her young lover’s poetic gift, but she managed somehow to conquer her envy and wisely refrained from vying directly with Tsvetaeva in the poetic arena. She rejected the loathsome role of Salieri and endeavored to be a “Salieri who loved his Mozart” deferring to Tsvetaeva’s desire to write their love into Russian poetry in the “Girlfriend” poems.

“Right away my heart said:”She’s the one!”

At random, I forgave you everything,

Knowing nothing-not even your name!

My only thought was,”love me, love me!”

Sophia Parnok died in 1933 in Karinskoye, village of about forty houses, in the cottage, Parnok and Tsuberbiller rented not far from the Moscow River.

All who knew her remember Sophia Parnok with love and tenderness in their hearts. Bless her!

Listen to: kd Lang “I will Survive”

The front cover of the book is to the left and to the right is the back cover of the diaries of a remarkable woman Sofia Tolstoy that reveal a woman of tremendous vital energy and poetic sensibility who, in the face of provocations and suffering, continued to strive for the higher things in life and to remain indomitable.

But let us return to the excerpt from the book:

“Do forgive me, Countess,  for keeping you waiting for so long,he said. “It was impossible for me to receive you earlier.’

I replied:”I am deeply grateful to Your Majesty for doing me the honour of receiving me.”

Then the Tsar began to talk about my husband. I don’t remember his exact words, and asked me the nature of my request. I spoke in a quiet, but firm voice.

“Your Majesty, I have recently observed that my husband seems disposed to resume his literary endeavors. Only the other day he was saying to me: “I have moved so far beyond these philosophical and religious works now that I think I might start on some literary work-I have in mind something similar to War and Peace, in form and content.” Yet with every day that passes the prejudice against him grows stronger. Volume 13 was banned, for instance,  although it has now been decided to pass it. His play THe Fruits of Enlightenment was banned, then the order was given for it to be performed on the Imperial stage. The Kreutzer Sonata was banned…”

“Surely though you wouldn’t give a book like that to your children to read?” the Tsar said.

I said: “The story has unfortunately taken a rather extreme form, but the fundamental idea is that the ideal is always unattainable if the ideal is total chastity.” Listen to:David Oistrakh, Beethoven, Sonata #9 “Kreutzer”

I also recall that when I told the Tsar  that Lev Nikolaevich seemed disposed  to write literary work again, he said:”Ah, how good that would be! What a great writer he is!”

The ban was lifted up. Lyovochka was displeased about my adventure and my meeting with the Tsar. He said we had now taken on all sorts of responsibilities we could not possibly fulfill. He and the Tsar had managed to ignore each other up to now, he said; all this could do us a lot of damage, and might well have disagreeable consequences.”

Yet nobody knows my real motive for visiting St. Petersburg. It was all because of the Kreutzer Sonata. The story cast a shadow over my life. Some people suspected it was based on me, others felt sorry for me. Even the Tsar said: “I feel sorry for his poor wife”. So I wanted to show that I wasn’t a victim at all; I wanted to say my visit to St. Petersburg was something I had done instinctively. I knew in advance that I would be successful and prevail upon the Emperor, for I haven’t lost my powers of winning people’s sympathy; and I certainly made impression on him, with my words and my demeanor. The Tsar told to Countess Sheremeteva that he found our discussion was so interesting and enjoyable, and he didn’t realized I was still so young and pretty. All this flatters my female vanity, and avenges me for all the years in which my husband not only failed to promote me in society, but actually did his utmost to drag me down. I can never understand why.”

Mother of 9 children she educated them at home giving them lessons in French, German, Russian, literature, religion, had sewn clothes for them, darned socks, looked after them and her husband, being a hostess of the house and a financial trustee.

Look at the picture show “Sofia Tolstoy’s family”:

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As for her personal life, she lived to the fullest, enjoyed love and being loved. She as well as her husband were the children of their time, as all we are, and can do only so much.

Listen to:Sergey Taneev, Cantata “St. John of Damascus” (Part 1)

Look at the photos to the left and to the right: one moment the car is covered with the snow, next moment the Chinook arch is hanging over the city. It is crazy, isn’t it?

So, many legends and folklore stories are in the air about Chinook.

Listen: “The Bear that Stole the Chinook” by Jack Gladston

Native legend of the Lil’wat subgroup of the St’at’ime tells of a girl named Chinook-Wind who married Glacier and moved to his country which was in the region of today’s Birkenhead River. She pined for her warm sea-home in the South-West and sent a message to her people. They came to her in a vision in the form of snowflakes, and told her that they were coming to get her. They came in great numbers and quarreled with Glacier over her and they overwhelmed him and she went home with them in the end.

This is a slide show “Calgary Chinook” about how we enjoy these crazy winds helping to put a kite into the air and glide it.     [[Show as slideshow]]

There are some more famous Chinook folk tales that most people in Southern Alberta probably know from their childhood:

* A man rode his horse to the church, only just to find the steeple sticking out of the snow. So, he tied his horse to the steeple with the other horses, and went down the snow tunnel to attend church service. When everybody emerged from the church, they found that a Chinook had melted all of the snow, and their horses were now all dangling from the church steeple.

* A man was riding his sleigh to town when a Chinook overcame him. He kept pace with the wind, and while the horses were running belly deep in snow, the sleigh rails were running in mud up to the buckboard. The cow that was tied behind was kicking up dust.

* A man and his wife were out during a Chinook. The wife was heavily dressed and the man was wearing summer clothes. When the couple had returned home, the man had frostbite, and the woman had heatstroke.

So that’s how it goes!

Enjoy:Chinook Wind: Corb Lund the Hurting! Albertans-

One.

Two. Ovechkin leads Capitals past Flames. The Washington Capitals won straight fourth time and the Flames – fourth straight lost. Ovechkin and Troy Brouwer scored power-play goals. Dennis Wideman added a goal, and Thomas Vokoun made 18 saves for the capitals, who improved to 9-6-1 under coach Dale Hunter.

Three. Freeks and movie geeks. With 12 films and on DVD between them in 2011, the original Freeks (of Judd Apatow’s Freeks and Geeks fame)- James Franco, Seth Rogen and Jason Segel- ruled the screen big and small last year.

Four. In December 2011 there was released a new movie in Russia :” Vysotsky. Thank God I’m Alive”, produced by his son Nikita Vysotsky and directors: Konstantin Ernst and Pyotr Buslov, writers: Nikolai Popov and Konstantin Ernst, the main role is played by Sergey Bezrukov, the other actors: Sergei Shakurov, Ivan Urgant, Maxim Leonidov, Oksana Akinshina, Andrei Panin.

Watch:“Vysotsky. Thank God I’m Alive.”

Five. Self-cleaning clothes. That’s right. The Jetson age is truly upon us.

In China, using a chemical called titanium dioxide, a coating can be applied to the outside of cotton materials causing them to self-clean, while removing stains and odours. The reaction takes place when the coating is exposed to sunlight and proved very successful in testing.

All this talk of chemicals is scary, right? Think again. According to reports, the nano-particle coating is eco-friendly. When washed traditionally, it doesn’t lose its future self-cleaning effectiveness either, so it could be a great solution for hot and humid climates to simplify control odours.

Let’s be down to earth in these promises to ourselves.

Don’t look just for a goal to achieve but finding the enjoyment in these activities.

As for us, we make this New Year resolution – go to the gym when we can. Use our Leisure Centre passes. Because it is enjoyable to be in the pool or at the exercise room, soc ializing with people or just be around them.

On the photo above is the girl and me at the Olympic Plaza on the eve of 2012 Year. Below is the photo expose of that lovely unforgettable night of the 31st of December turn to the 1st of January.

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Listen: Vivaldi – Four Seasons (Winter)

2012-the International Year of Cooperatives and International Year of Sustainable Energy for all.

It is also Alan Turing Year, commemorating the mathematician, computer pioneer and code-breaker on the centennial of Turing birth.

The Turing machine has become the foundation of the modern theory of computation and computability.

Turing found in the concept of the Turing Machine something that would satisfy the fascination with the problem of Mind that his friend Christopher Morcom had sparked; his total originality lay in seeing the relevance of mathematical logic to a problem originally seen as one of physics.

By this, Turing made a bridge between the logical and the physical worlds, thought and action, which crossed conventional boundaries.

His work introduced a concept of immense practical significance: the idea of the Universal Turing machine.

In 1944, Alan Turing was almost uniquely in possession of three key ideas:

* his own 1936 concept of the universal machine;

* the potential speed and reliability of electronic technology;

* the inefficiency in designing different machines for different logical purposes.

The fourth idea was the universal machine should be able to acquire and exhibit the faculties of the human mind.

Turing was captivated by the potential of the computer he had conceived. In 1946, the Automatic Computing Engine, or ACE, was approved. Eight years later he died.

Let us celebrate Alan Turing Year with all our devotion to the computer world, friends!

Happy New 2012 Year!

Listen to: Vladimir Vysotsky “White Waltz” Happy New Year!

To refute it, on December 27, 1947 janko was born. Right on this occasion the beautiful cake has arrived and Janko eats it and has it.

His Birthday cake was composed in a shape of my hat, with the ribbon-railway trains theme, and lots of roses and a tiny bucket of jasmine. As a true railway man Janko appreciated the tart very high.

“But how did your hat shape penetrate into the tart composition?” asked he in surprise.

“I do not have a clue.” I answered.”Ask the author of the tart : Jana Bochkareva.”

To the left is the photo of Janko with his B-day cake, to the left – a little Christmas tree is lit up in his honour.

Listen:Birthday Cake Song

Watch our photo presentation “Janko’s Birthday Celebration”:

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On the top of that, he received a poem, dedicated to him from my classmates.

“O! Janko! Luminary of our eyes!                                                                                                                                                              

We would like to congratulate

You personally on Your Birthday!

Face to face it is impossible, to our regret,

As we live in different countries.

Although the distances nowadays

Mean nothing because of the

Wonder of the Century-INTERNET!

O! Janko! Luminary of Valya’s eyes!

Warmly congratulate you!

O! Luminary! Illuminate for her

as long as possible                                                                                                                                                                                                        

At your mutual life span.

Let it be your life as full

as the cup to the brim.

We wish you to meet us one day.

O! Janko!

If you’re a friend to Valya,

That means You’re a friend to us.

So we are with you!

Yours,

Classmates.

Bryansk, December 27, 2011.”

Listen to: The Beautiful Birthday Song

“F. Murnau’s 1926 film classic FAUST -with live piano score by Robert Bruce.

Cultural classic aficionados will be thrilled with F. Murnau’s silent film masterpiece FAUST , with live piano score by renowned composer Robert Bruce on Sunday, October 23, 2011 at the Edgewater Community Hall.

The Edgewater performance is part of a 14-date tour of Western Canada. Robert Bruce is a celebrated, self-taught composer/pianist from Hamilton, Ontario. He has had a long career writing music for young children, piano repertoire for students, music for film, television and animation, music for meditation, piano works and music for his performing ensemble, Classical Nouveau, His travels around the world have allowed him to perform with some of the finest musicians, singers and dancers in the world.”

See the poster and the image of Faust of 1926 here.                                                

By the way, what is this all about Faust? What kind of legend?

The story itself tells:

“The demon Mephistopheles has a bet with an Archangel that he can corrupt a righteous man’s soul and destroy in him what is divine. If he succeeds, the Devil will win dominion over the earth.

The Devil delivers a plague to the village where FAUST, an elderly alchemist, lives. Though he prays to stop the death and starvation, nothing happens. FAUST then makes a trial, 24-hour bargain with the Devil. Faust will have Mephistopheles’ service till the sand runs out in an hourglass, at which time the Devil will rescind the pact. At first, FAUST uses his new power to help the people of the village, but they shun him when they find out that he cannot face a cross.

Later, FAUST makes a further deal with Satan, who gives FAUST back his youth and offers him earthly pleasures and a kingdom, in return for his immortal soul. Mephistopheles then takes to the Walpurgisnacht celebration on “Bald Mountains”, to finish his tryst with an Italian Duchess. FAUST seals the deal permanently; he is Mephistopheles’ forever.

FAUST soon grows weary of debauchery and yearns “Home”. Here FAUST falls in love with an innocent girl, Gretchen, but he is later framed for the murder of her brother by Satan and must flee with Satan’s encouragement). The girl has a child (by FAUST) but is cast out into a blizzard where the child dies, and she is sent to the stake as a murderess. FAUST sees what is happening and demands Satan take him there. FAUST arrives just as the fire has been started to burn his lover. FAUST wishes he had never asked his youth back and runs through the assembled mob towards Gretchen; Mephistopheles gleefully grants FAUST his wish and it is as an old man that FAUST throws himself onto the fire to be with his beloved.

Gretchen recognizes FAUST and sees him in her heart as a young man again as the fire consumes them together. The angel reveals to Mephistopheles that he has lost the bet because love has triumphed over all.”

Now we know what Gothe wrote about FAUST.

Really, to deceive Satan is not a sin.

An interesting theme, isn’t it?

Kalderone de La Barka, Pedro (1600-1681), a Spanish playwright, wrote a play “Fairy Magician” which reminds us a lot about the legend of FAUST.

In 2004 British musician and composer, Geoff Smith, composed a new soundtrack to the film for the hammered dulcimer, which he performed live as an accompaniment to the film.

In 2006, a DVD version of the film was released with a new soundtrack performed on the harp by Stan Androse.

Nowadays Alexander Sokurov, a Russian film producer, made a new film “FAUST” and won the highest prize “GOLDEN LION” at the International Film Festival in Venice this year.

This is a presentation of the movie.

Movie “Faust” by A. Sokurov (2011)

Who said that his “FAUST” does not have the positive emotions? Sure, it does.

The main feeling is that the artist SOKUROV is free of self-expression, free of choice of artistic tools, the staff even if this movie is in German. So what?

The sujet is well-known and if you like beauty, watch it, please.

At the end, listen to : Sokurov is telling his Dream

Everybody has dreams and especially before or at the Christmas time. To open the dreams to the public isn’t it wonderful?

Watch:

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Merry Christmas and a Happy New 2012 Year, dreamers!