America I Love.

It is Friday and let me wax a bit poetic and personal. From the rubble of the empire in 1990s, where everything is lost, being transferred to peace and calm could be a life-changing experience, and it was. It also endears one to a place and people, especially when your previous place is lost with everything in it--I will, at some point, write about it. Russia is a very beautiful country, in fact--it could be stunning. I know. But even magnificent rocky mountains of Altai are 5 hours... of flight from ocean. Kamchatka volcanoes are stunning, I know--we played Pink Floyd's Time at the edge of Avachinsky's caldera in 1978 on portable reel-to-reel tape recorder. It boggles your mind. But 16 years later you are a changed man without a country. 

And suddenly you settle in deceptive peace and calm which seemed impossible and what you had dreams about suddenly comes alive. 

American West, its landscapes and people, suddenly get into you, wrap you up, until you understand that you cannot escape and you surrender, because you want to. 

America is a breath-taking beautiful country (as is Canada), and even deep in the Rockies you still feel the breathing of an ocean and you gravitate to it--I was born and lived all my life on the shores of the seas and oceans. I need to see every morning mountain peaks covered in snow and feel a giant water. I don't like American cities, I love one-story America--with its diners, people, chit-chats and rumor-mills. I guess that is why I love both The Groundhog Day (yeah, yeah--Pennsylvania) and The Postman. I recognize places and people, who I love. I feel the peace coming to an end but I don't want to wake up. Sorry for the pathos...it is Friday, after all. 

Remember this?

But, of course, Russian version was still better;) 

Enjoy, the awe and beauty of this country...I still have to get to Southern Chicken Fried Steak.