15 June 2007 Flashmob Near Red Square

Okay, let me explain this for a second, I got off of work and met some people near Red Square. They gave me some chalk and said, "at exactly 7:30, start drawing on the ground for exactly 10 minutes and then stop" I thought it was a wierd idea and I figured the 8 of us would be the only ones doing it and all of the hundreds of people who were hanging out by Red Square would think we were crazy... It turns out,,, everyone was in on it and at exactly 7:30, everyone hit the ground and started drawing.... the wierdest thing.
After exactly10 minutes, everyone stood up and went on their ways.

When in Rome....

Look at the little girl in the center of the picture. I thought it was hillarious that she came with her little bag of chalks, participated in the festivities, and went around afterwards gathering all the chalk that everyone left behind

I don't know who wrote that...

Right to left: Lane, Alla, Chase, Nick, James, Alyona

Just me and some fly hunnies... No big deal

No time for pouting,,, It's happy time

13 June Walking around Moscow after work

With shrubbery

Without...

In this photographic masterpiece, you'll notice the old to new contrast of this cathedral which is being refurbished.

Throw a little shaddow action in there

A little dom action. ( I swear, every time i take a picture and think it is lined up properly, it ends up being off-center.)

Lubyanka (KGB headquarters)

Lubyanka from the side... Apparently the building to the left and a building to the right(not pictured) are also used by branches of the former KGB. But if you ask the cop whom I talked to a few days ago, these three are merely "administrative buildings"

Picnic at Butovo 12 June 2007

Picnic with people from Kaxhovski branch. (used to be Yuzhni branch)

President Protopopov jamming.

Shashliki baby yeah. Laney likey kabobi..

Yummy
Nelli Protopopova and Tatiana Seruto Diaz
I can't remember his name, but he's awesome. I think he and his family just started taking the discussions when I was leaving almost 5 years ago. They're strong members now. He makes one heckofa mean kabob too.

Today, I wandered around Moscow. 11 June 2007

В нескучном саду

I began today's journey by walking through the park to get to the Moscow river. I had to stop and watch the fella's playing chess, dominos, and cards.

I thought it was interesting seeing the old school vs. the new school. The man with his hand in his back pocket was smoking cheap filterless russian cigarettes that come in a little cardboard box. The guy accross from him had slim, fancy cigarettes with plastic wrapping and fancy case.

Cathedral of our Saviour the Redeamer

This guy has been selling matroshka dolls on Arbatskaya street for the last 18 years. I got a picture with him 5 years ago when I bought some dolls from him so I figured I'd get another one. He made me buy a 30 ruble keychain before I could take the picture though. I figured that was fair since 30 rubles hardly buys a soda pop in Moscow these days and a man's got to make a living right?
These two kids were jamming away on Arbat street today. They were both pretty young. The kid playing the violin was really good. He told me that he is studying at a music school. I got the impression they were orphan kids.
I recognized a couple of the songs they played. One was the birthday song from the Russian cartoon Cheburashka. I also recognized one of the songs from a movie that we watched in my Russian film class "Burnt by the sun"

Sunday 10 June 2007

Bogdan Rudenko and I outside the meeting house on Novokuznetskaya. He served in my mission. He came up to Moscow for the weekend from Kiev to visit.

Pyatnitsa Concert 09 June 2007

The last band of the evening. Things got a little crazy when they played.

The beginnings of a mosh pit.

The backs of people's heads

Just some other band whose name I don't know

This is what we came for (and probably everyone else there) Pyatnitsa, these guys are awesome. It's just two guys and a guitar but they sound like a whole band. They've got soul.

Beat box dude,,, he's pretty good

The crowd seemed to like these guys, I didn't think too much of them

Пятница Concert 09 June 2007

So I was told that we were going to the Pyatnitsa concert. I figured we'd have to sit through 1 or 2 other groups before Pyatnitsa played. It turns out there were some 6 or 7 groups. It was a standing concert and we were pretty close to the stage so I'm sure pretty much everyone behind me was upset that the big funny looking American was in the way. It was fun.

You can't see it very well but the base player for this group kind of looks like a Russian Snoop Dogg.

I think most of these groups are kind of famous, I don't remember what their names were