Helping Our Planet Together with Kids

In Europe, it’s quite an ordinary things to use different garbage bins for different kinds of garbage. In Russia, such a thing was organized only in the cities where the WIFA World Cup was held and only for the period of the Championship.

Why cannot it be done everywhere on a permanent basis is still a mystery for me… The happier I was to learn about a social and ecological campaign “Kind Caps” held by the “Eco Truck” Company. The goal of the project is to involve children and adults in the joint solution of environmental and social tasks in order to show that each of us can take care of the other and help somebody without any special material means, and that the usual “trash” may a valuable and necessary resource. At this time, the money received from the collected caps will go to the aid of a little boy. Such a project exists in every Russian city.

Any of my walks about the city or in the woods brought back about 20 caps. Then how much plastic remains in nature given that bottles are not as easy to collect as the caps?! Maybe then it is better not to throw them? I understand that this problem is not so topical for Europe and the US but it is still topical in Russia.

With the active participation of the children, we have already collected quite many caps for the campaign. What I have noticed is that the children seeing me collecting the caps have started thinking over the whole issue on a deeper level: first of all, they have become more conscious of the idea of taking garbage to bins and not throwing it at any place one likes. And of course, it influenced them that there are kids like them who have severe problems with health and who really need help from other people.

An Autumn Trip to Lenin’s Places

As Stanislavsky said, “while you are young, you should take a toothbrush and go where your eyes want to go”. So, last week we went to Uliyanovsk, Russia.

Everything is “saturated” with Lenin in the center of Ulyanovsk. It is quite clear: the city gained true fame due to the fact that V. I. Lenin was born here. All the most significant sights, one way or another, refer to this famous revolutionary. By the way, Simbirsk where there was born Vladimir Ulyanov (Lenin), was renamed Ulyanovsk in 1924.

Music and Painting Combined Together in Action

To read the article in Russian scroll…

Yesterday I conducted a work-shop “The Influence of Music and Painting on the Inner State and Personal Development” for adults and children in one of the music schools in our city. I told the parents about how music and painting are used in the modern world to relieve stress, what kind of music is considered healing, how one can use music and painting in daily life to relieve tension and bring our inner state into balance. The parents were also told about the influence of color on a person’s state, about how one can learn the real internal state by color and how one can be driven into a state of calmness or, on the contrary, dynamics through color.

The main part of the work-shop was devoted to

Children’s Upbringing through planting oaks

On April 21, the children gathered sprouted acorns in the forest. They brought them home and almost forgot about them, but … we didn’t give them a chance to do it.

As they had collected living plants, they should be aware of responsibility. On April 22, My daughter and I went to the forest for the soil. It was raining that day but the more fun it was.

The oaks were growing and gaining strength on our balcony for two weeks, and on May 12 we planted them in the forest.

It Is Your Choice

It’s amazing how everything in nature struggles for survival. As if striving for something positive is originally built in: surviving in any case.

And what about the man? A wise man once said, “Our destiny is in our mind. Two people react to the same situation in different ways: someone will quit and stop trying and the other will smile and see a lesson from God in it. Our life is predetermined in some way but our freedom is in how to react to it – so thus creating our present we also create our future… There are always a few moments between the stimulus and the reaction, within which we are free to choose our reaction.”

PS It has been long since I wrote here last! Many things have happened in my life hopefully making me more mature. And I am starting writing again. Suprisingly, just on the day of my birthday! It is so nice to meet all of you here, on the pages of this blog, again!

In Russian: Удивительно, как все в природе борется за выживание. Как будто изначально заложена установка на позитив: выжить любым способом. А человек? Один мудрец как-то сказал: “Наша судьба заключена в нашем уме. На одну и ту же ситуацию два человека реагируют по-разному. Кто-то поникнет и перестанет стараться, а другой улыбнется и увидит в этом урок Бога. Многие события в нашей жизни предопределены, но наша свобода заключается в том, как реагировать на это – создавая свое настоящее, мы творим свое будущее. Между стимулом и реакцией всегда есть несколько мгновений, внутри которых мы свободны выбрать свою реакцию”.

Nature vs Humans

When in most parts of Russia it is still snowing (though it is already May 12) and the bloggers, one by one, are writing how tired they are from the 7-month winter, we are happy to enjoy flowers in the forest living in 900 km from the capital. Frankly, I have not expected there can be such a great variety of flowers in the forest just at the beginning of May!

 

Just My Bike and Me

There are periods in life when nothing goes as has been planned. Meetings cancel, results are not gained, replies are delayed… And at this time the bridge to frustration is quite short…

Today in the morning something in me did not want to give in and persistently continued looking for positive things in what life suggested. And I did what I had been longing for… Took my bike and went to the river… Wouldn’t be possible if not for the unexpected changes in my daily timetable.

The view is absolutely awesome. A deeply blue colour of the water has obviously soaked the indigo tinge of the sky. A loud intensity of the small curly waves of the Volga chains your attention. The sand is being combed by the piercing wind and it is really dazzling because of the too bright sun. And there is nobody. Not a soul… And you just sit down on the so-far-not-very-warm sand and feel completely peaceful – just yourself in the nature.

First Snow. April

19 April 2017

Seems winter has decided to strat again.

The Greatness of the Nation

One person said today, “I just cannot live without birds of prey!” This man, Alexander, is the initiator and motivator of the shelter for wild birds. I had not known before that such a shelter exists in Togliatti (though it has been even shown on the central TV channel). But, judging by the number of cells and pets in them, such a shelter for birds is really required – a refuge from people, from their cars, guns, hands, especially for those who cannot fly any more.

After all, man is higher than birds and animals not because he can torment them but because he is able to pity them. The man sympathizes with birds and animals because he feels that in them there lives the same thing as the one which lives in him.

I cannot say that

Striving for Nature

“The man made a huge mistake when he imagined that he could separate himself from nature and that he might not reckon with its laws“. (V. Vernadsky, Russian and Soviet scientist, thinker and public figure)

We are created according to the laws of nature, and therefore it is foolish not to follow them. Not knowing the basic rules and laws of nature, mankind will not be able to subdue the elements, to manage them and to become excellent in relation to other creatures on earth.

Another Russian publicist and writer said, “Great things are done with great [financial] means. Only nature makes everything for free“. (A.I.Gertsen)

All the ideas mentioned above are especially intelligible when winter comes to its end. There appears a strong desire to become closer to nature for it to clear and balance you.

Thus, it was not an odd deed of ours (mine and my daughter’s) when we tried to overcome the mud and puddles of early spring striving to turn out in the forest. A little bit soaked feet and dirty hands were really worth it! And in such weather when the sun is shining and everything is melting it is even more pleasant to be in the forest realizing that you can hear birds’ singing and not people’s voices as not many of the latter are ready to start for the forest along the muddiest road ever.