иван купала

Today is a special day. It's 7/7/07 but more importantly its еван купала, a Russian holiday that is celebrated by an all out free-for-all water fight between everybody. I prepared the night before by placing a water bottle next to my bed but luckily my uncle forgot what day it was when he woke up. Two minutes later, he remembered and got me good but I still had my defenses up and got him back.

We caught the train to Novisibirsk and I found out I'm allergic to first class, seriously. It didn't stop me from enjoying an old fashioned train ride on the Siberian railways. It also didn't stop the passengers on the passing train from spraying water into our open windows and getting us wet. I told you it was a free-for-all.

Andrey and Raya met us right outside the train and after a 10 minute metro ride and a 5 minute walk we were at their place. I don't know if I've ever used the Novisibirsk underground before but it certainly beats San Francisco and London in every respect. After a light lunch, we caught the bus to the Novisibirsk zoo and on the way there I saw a boy standing on the corner with his mom spraying passing car after passing car with his water gun.

In addition to animals, they had wooden and stone sculptures at the zoo.

This is a stone sculpture of a bull with a basket of flowers hanging off his horn.

We saw some very exotic animal but I swear this bird couldn't possibly survive in the wild cause it looked like its colors were painted on.

King of the jungle.

This is the coolest monkey I have ever seen. Not that I've seen that many monkeys but I am a monkey so I should know.

I admit that I was very depressed at first. I couldn't help feeling terribly sorry for all the animals in cages. Some drunk bastards were going around spraying animals with water guns too.


Atleast the animals still have each other.

I forgot all about the pity I felt when we got to the feline section of the zoo. I'm definitely a cat person. They are just such gorgeous creatures.

I hope I'll be a cat in my next life.

This is a liger, the offspring of a male lion and a female tiger. Ligers look badass and they are the biggest cats on the planet.

Andrey and Raya's cats are still my favorite cats in Novisibirsk.

After the zoo, we went home for dinner and waited for the temperature to drop before venturing outside again. Outside their apartment are two junked cars sitting on top of a garage. Nobody knows why but they looked pretty cool in this lighting.

About half past 7, Andrey and Raya took me to the Novosibirsk "skatepark". On the way there I saw people get whole buckets of water dumped on them from a bridge.

It was actually a bikepark because there were cracks everywhere to get your wheels stuck in. It wasn't skate friendly at all but there was a grind box off to side about 10 meters long that provided me with grinding pleasure for two solid hours until I couldn't jump anymore. The park sat on the river and provided a beautiful view of the other side of Novosibirsk.

I was shot the butt by a kids water assault rifle when taking this photo. His mom tried scolding him for it but I was hot as hell from skating so I encourage thekid to soak me completely.

Maybe it was all the adrenaline from skating or the festive spirit in the air but I was feeling really grateful for my Russian roots that brought me here on this lucky day of 7-7-07. Its strange how in America I'm Russian but in Russia I'm American. It's like neither culture will ever fully accept me. Even though I spent most of my life in America, I know I can never be American. It's nothing against America its just not who I am. It finally hit me that this is my true home. I was born here and I was raised by this culture and I'll be damned if I don't spend more time here, learn my culture, and find out what it means to be Russian.