Story #1. Saint Petersburg. Part 1. "Но только в двух городах я дома, пока я гость..." More than ten years have been passed since I visited Saint Petersburg last time, and I still associate it with a very gloomy and dark place, crowded with cold and haughty people for whom even "an entrance" is supposed to be called "парадная." A one who understands Russian well enough and ever lived in Saint Petersburg would certainly appreciate a supercilious, and at the same time, amusing irony concealed in this naming. When I was booking a night train, I thought the only wish that will occur to me as I arrive there is to drink a pint of vodka, smoke out a cigarette pack in a row and jump down from the highest bridge right to the Neva river. A stupid thought though, assuming that that bridge is not even within a walking distance from the Moscow railway station. I hope I completely confused everyone and should explain here that "Moscow" is a name of Saint Petersburg central station. We do have the Leningrad railway station in Moscow. Leningrad is the old name of Saint Petersburg just in case. But in order to don't make a mess with all these names, they print it as "Octyabrskiy" on tickets. So, if you purchase a ticket from Moscow to Saint Petersburg, you will get one from "Octyabrskiy" to "Moscow" and depart from "Leningradskiy." A piece of cake. I proceed into a car and found it overcrowded with Chinese. "Fine!" - I thought - "I'll try to borrow some good tea at least!". But it turned out that my room was occupied by Russians. One of them was a beekeeper who lived in a small village deep in Vladimir region. He also played folk music and learned an old Russian alphabet which looks like Chinese characters to me. He also was an expert on pre-Christian Slavs religions and suspiciously knew a lot about our ancient pagan traditions and practices. I decided to ask Chinese to borrow me some vodka instead of tea. The idea was if I drink enough those guy probably won't like to cut away and eat my liver tonight. My other companion was a girl of about my age traveling to Saint Petersburg for a project with Ermitage. "We are producing lights for museums and sell it all over the world. But Ermitage is supposed to get very special ones", - she explained. I don't know who was the third, but he was traveling across the world just like me. And he just figured out he forgot all his money. "Nevermind," told he, shrugging, - "I've been through worse." To be continued...

My little stories I love Russian language and like to write in Russian. I relish writing even though I never considered myself as a writer. When I was a student, I even wrote short stories about something I noticed around me or happened in my own life, and I believe it helped me to improve my Russian skills. On which I'm still working hard even being a native speaker, believe me, or not. Because I believe you can never reach perfection in any language: you can just stop improving it. And I figured if it works for my Russian so why it shouldn't work for my English. And I decided to try writing short stories in English just like I did it years ago in Russian. I do it only as an exercise to improve my language skills so don't judge them too much. Better help me to correct my mistakes, with grammar and stylistic. Or just pass it by. Both are appreciated. I've already wasted a lot of words for the introduction and didn't leave enough space for the story. So, next time then.

About healthy food and diet I'm moving a lot between different cities and countries. Different climate, different time zones, different food.

All these things definitely don't make me feel better. I spent the whole 2017 in trips and at the end of the year, I felt like I'm 60 in my 34. Once got a ride on my mountain bike and it turned out I can't even jump over a fallen tree anymore. It was just a shame. The worst feeling ever. Especially if you figure it out eating an earth. Btw, here is a little tip: if you ride a mountaine bike and not very sure in your shape or riding technique for some reason, just use a full face helmet instead of a normal cap, unless you like how an earth tastes! Believe me, i know what i'm talking about :)

Well, at the end of all I decided it’s a time to change something.

Since I can’t change a climate or time zones, and I still wish to keep doing what I do, the obvious thing to change is my diet.

I decided to refuse all the unusual local products (except some special fruits and greens) and build my diet with products which I can find everywhere. Wherever I am I wish to eat the same food.

I also excluded all heavy and unhealthy stuff like processed meat, any fast food (including fast cooking dishes), sweets and bakery. Next, i almost excluded even unprocessed meat (or very limited it if you like).

Also, i standardized my breakfasts and eat the same every single mornig.

For now, I came to a diet which is probably not as good as professional sports diet, but even my version made me feel much better and energized. I’m also save a lot of time for cooking. Because i made all my couses very simple and easy to cook.

And there is one more thing which is even more important. I realized that nothing affects my mood and state of mind more than a wrong diet. After doing this changes I became much less vulnerable to depressions and bad mood.

There is an example of my regular dinner on the pic. It was in a rented appt that is why the knife is like that lol :))))

The meaning of life A man took a glass of water and drank a swallow. What does it mean? He probably was thirsty. Probably he just wanted to taste it. Or maybe he wished to sleep and had to get a soporific but mistook. We don’t know anything about it so long as we don’t know what was before the swallow and what is after. To figure out the meaning of any activity we have to go outside of itself. If we look inside we can get only meaning of its segregate pieces. So the meaning of any activity is outside of itself. Therefore the meaning of life dwells outside as well. There is no way to find out the meaning of life inside the life itself. We can understand only meaning of our particular cases and everyday events.

The empty and the solid There is the solid things and the empty ones. The solid is something you can always rely. It is words or numbers which you can believe. A person who necessarily lands you a hand. A vehicle which is ready to start and go in any moment. The empty is something you just can't rely. And if you try you fall. False or inaccurate information. A soldier which can run away just because he is scared. A friend which can promise you something and break a promise for any reason. It is important to realise what is solid and what is empty. Maybe the most important in our life. If we try to use the solid and the empty in combination we always get the empty. We just can't get anything else. You can do a hundred solid movements on your way to the goal but if you accept only one empty thing you will fail. We do anything empty much more often in our life than we can imagine. Because we like to rely an empty thing. The hope makes us to do that. That's why hope is a silly feeling. Our heart asks us to follow the hope. And we just close our eyes and go ahead. Everything we get in this way is empty. Empty friendship. Empty relationships. Empty expectations. Empty heart in result of all of this. Empty life. Everyone who didn't create anything true in his whole life could write on his own grave: I didn't see the difference between empty and solid.

About beaty I read a novel and found there a pretty witty thought about woman beauty. A young man, the hero of the novel, was thinking about woman beauty and he concluded that a beautiful lady which knows her own worth and got a good education usually considers herself as the center of gravity of the whole universe. And her confidence somehow actually bend space wherever she was. If you are in the same room with her you are constantly feeling her presence even if she keeps silent. Once he shared the thoughts about beauty and gravity with his own girlfriend and she answered: "Maybe, the physical gravity is a feeling yourself beautiful as well. But beauty of heavenly bodies lends itself to objective calculation. It is just in direct ratio with its weight. With women it's usually other way round."