never a dull moment

Yesterday we had a leak in the bathroom that caused a flood.  The electricity went out.   The plumber showed up last night just after midnight.  The electrician came early this afternoon.  Just after he left then people showed up to get the rest of the furniture and appliances that they had purchased.  During that same time our neighbors came over and brought us lunch and some goodbye gifts. 

I am ready for a nap!!

locks and keys

For several days our front door has been tricky to open. Tom tried to lubricate it to see if that would fix it. But, no such luck.

Spencer came home the other night and he could not get the door open. His key would not turn and he could not get it out of the door. Tom had to take off the back panel to reach the lock itself.












Without the panel on the door it is just a shell of metal.

















Tom took the lock apart to open the door.

















We had to use the slider to keep the door locked.

We needed to find a repairman to come out and tell us where or not we needed a new door or if we could just put in a new lock. Anotoly, the repairman came and decided that a new lock could be put on the door. He went with Tom and Spencer over to a little hardware store in the market not far from our building to see if there were any locks available there.

They only lock they were able to find fits the bottom part of the door so the top lock still does not work. But, Tom has the door put back together and we are safe and secure once again!

today's sighting...

I saw a beautiful young blonde today taking out the trash. She was wearing a pair of high heeled knee high black leather boots and a fuzzy purple bathrobe!

Oy! more graffitti

Spelling, grammar and the message are all in question here. Goodness!

it's all good in my 'hood!

Yesterday coming home from teaching I met up with my neighbor, Tanya, who is always feeding the stray cats outside of our building. She is not one of Tom's favorites because we have a lot of stray cats close to our building, due to the free food she provides, who have decided to use the boiler room as their cat box.

Tanya was filled with stories about cats needing to have surgery and how sorry she feels for them. As she was speaking another neighbor, a long distance trucker, walked up behind her carrying a crowbar. He asked me if she had offended me. I laughed and told him everything was fine. He pats the crowbar against his other hand, like they do in the movies, smiled really big and said "if she gives you any trouble just call me!"

We all laughed together and after listening to one more story about cats and discussing our kids, Tanya and I said our goodbyes and I came inside our building. As I reached the 3rd floor where the crowbar carrying truck driver lives with his family, I was just in time to see him having a conversation with his cat about going out of the house or staying in!

our neighbor's garage

The first time I saw this garage I had no idea what it was. Tom, of course, knew right away!

the playground near us...

This little play area is situated between three apartment buildings. Everyday it is filled with little ones and those who are watching over them. Mothers, grandmothers, aunties, uncles and granddads coax little ones on slides, coach them on playing with others and calm the ones who have suffered an offense from a playmate. We love listening to the sounds of kids laughing day after day!

Hot water update...

We finally have hot water again... this year it was off for 3 weeks. In the past it has only been around ten days or so.

oh well, such is life! I am off to take a hot shower!

you know it's spring when

You know that it is spring in Krasnodar when the water in your apartment either doesn't work or it is coming out brown... ah, the joys of spring!!

Repairs are almost complete!

The wallpaper was carefully pulled back and taped down to keep it out of the way. The old pipes were cut out and replaced with new. There are other repairs going on in our building so all of the water is shut down for the radiator system. When everyone is ready the water will be turned on so the repairs can be verified as successful. If so, the guys will come back and fill the wall back in and reglue the wallpaper. If not they will fix whatever needs to be adjusted and then close the wall.

There is a light at the end of this tunnel and this time I don't think that it is an oncoming train!!

water leakage again!

Each year that we have lived here there has been a leak in a pipe somewhere in our apartment... this year is no exception.

Tom just turned off the water to all the pipes and we are waiting for a plumber to get here. Oh, the joys of being the owners and not renting!

how high would you climb?

"Alida come here and look at this!"

Tom called me to come over to our balcony... there were two boys up in the tree literally right outside our window. No big deal you might say. Except that we live on the fourth floor!!!

The tree is a cherry tree. One of the boys was stuffing cherries into his pockets as he climbed from limb to limb. The other one, Vladik, was eating them! We know who Vadik is because he introduced himself to Spencer shortly after we moved here. Vladik is an amazing boy. He has one arm and never lets that stop him from doing anything... even climbing 4 stories up a cherry tree!

Vladik is also the polite one... he yelled "hi" to Tom as he took a break from eating his cherries!

all is well!

Yesterday I called Kolya to see if he could come by and work on the toilet... it would either not stop running or it wouldn't flush. Tom was fixing it just about every other day.

At first Kolya said that Friday was the soonest he could get here. He surprised me this morning with a phone call saying that he would be in our area today and could come over after 4 o'clock. He was able to replace the flushing mechanism and now it works like a charm. He even bargained at the market for a fairly large discount on the part!

When we paid him for his labor he told us it was too much... but we felt like the work he did was priceless!! In America we would have paid at least 100 dollars just for the service call. We paid Kolya 40$ and it was worth every penny.

spring cleaning!

As I was trying to study on Saturday afternoon...


I heard the rhythmic whacking noise of my neighbor cleaning a rug!

family fun!

Fortunately the flood in our bathroom didn’t last 40 days and 40 nights… it lasted just long enough for there to be about an inch of water on the bathroom floor. There is a pipe at the back of the washing machine that worked itself loose. The three of us had to work together as a team to get all the water cleaned up off of the floor. And Tom secured the pipe back into the wall. All that is left to do is to wash up all clothes that were soaked by the flood along with the towels that we used to dry up the floor. Just another day in apartment land!

the weather...

Snow, snow and more snow! This woman is one of the people who take care of the grounds around the apartment building... Tom was able to get a photo of her hard at work.

new garage

Saturday, December 8, 2007

Tom saw this the other day and asked me to get a photo. A new garage was just added to the field across from our building. We have been told that for a Russian man a garage is his sanctuary. Some men go there to avoid being at home, to hang with other men or just to have their own space.

The silver garage was lowered in by the crane and then moved forward to be even with the rest on that row.

what is in your stairwell?

Friday, November 2, 2007















We are not quite sure what our neighbors are up to... fixing their piano? Anyway this has been in the stairwell for the past three days!

rerouting traffic

Tuesday, October 30, 2007















Despite the rain and the weather turning colder... this machine is still in residence on our street. How long will he be there... your guess is as good as ours!

under construction

Sunday, October 21, 2007














The street that we live on is closed. This is how it looks between the supermarket and the pharmacy.

When they finish widening the road and extending the trolleybus lines further out... we may actually be able to catch the bus closer to our apartment instead of having to walk 4 blocks to the bus stop!

See Nathan, I said there were lots of changes here... so much happened while we were gone!