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This is why I love Timuk2 bags	2010-03-12 20:38:42 My Life

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Kicking the habit	2009-02-25 00:00:00 My Life
Today is a great day - it`s been a month since I had my last cigarette. I began smoking at the age of 17 when I immigrated to the United States - moving to a new country without family, learning a new language, starting new school, etc... - the combined stress of all those things got me smoking. A few years ago I realized that I needed to stop - I could no longer go hiking or rock climbing without running out of breath every few minutes. Quitting was difficult, especially given the fact that my wife smoked as well. In June of 2008, when my wife and I decided to start trying for a baby, she quit smoking cold turkey. It wasn`t so easy for me. I slowly went from smoking about half-a-pack every day to 5 cigarettes to 2 cigarettes. Unfortunately, I could not give up my "after breakfast" and my "I-am-so-stressed" cigarettes. I was down to 2 cigarettes per day, but could not completely kick the habit. Finally, with a baby on the way, I made quitting completely my Yew Year resolution. As of January 1, 2009, I stopped buying cigarettes. At first I wanted to smoke to the point of being nauseous. I fought the cravings the best I could, but I still slipped a few times and bummed cigarettes from nearby smokers. I bummed my last cigarette on January 25 and have been smoke-free ever since.
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Falling in Love with Banjo	2009-02-24 00:00:00 My Life
Last year my coworker Chris and I went on a business trip to Chicago. I love Chicago – it’s one of my favorite cities. It turned out that Chris is as much of an audiophile as I am, so after a long and boring Ajax workshop we headed to Buddy Guy’s Legends – a famous blues club just a few blocks away from Michigan Avenue and the Loop . I’ve always loved the blues and have quite an extensive music collection in that particular genre. However, I have never heard the blues played on a banjo. It was amazing. There was this old black dude, probably played the banjo since before World War I. I was not able to find the song that they played anywhere – I should have bought a CD at the time, but listening to this guy play made me want to learn how to play the banjo. I’ve had the instrument for about a year prior to my trip to Chicago – I expressed interest in learning a few years ago and my wife gave me a banjo as part of my wedding present (she really rocks!). I finally bit the bullet in January of this year and started taking banjo classes offered through Calliope (www.calliopehouse.org). I had five weeks of classes and I am having a blast. I am falling in love with banjo more and more with every week and even though I still sound pretty horrible, I think I am getting the hang of the whole bluegrass thing. I even figured out how to play the Stewie Griffin banjo song (if you don’t watch Family Guy, start right now) on my own. I’m pretty damn proud of myself, y’all.
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My grandmother	2009-01-27 00:00:00 My Life
These photographs were taken with a 23-year-old Soviet-made Zenit ET with a 135 f/3.5 Industar lens and Kodak C-41 ISO 400 B&W film.
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Learning The Banjo	2009-01-27 00:00:00 My Life
A few years ago I decided that I wanted to learn how to play the banjo. I`ve played guitar for about 18 years and really wanted to learn something new. I`ve no idea why I picked banjo as the instrument of my choice. I`ve never known any banjo players nor have I ever been particularly interested in country or bluegrass music. However, I managed to convince my wife (back then she was my fiancee) that I absolutely had to have a banjo. Last year, quite unexpectedly, my wonderful wife gave me a banjo as a wedding present (as well as a very nice and very expensive BreedLove guitar). I got the banjo, but with this and that I could not find time or get motivated enough to actually study. Finally, in December of 2008 I decided that learning the banjo would be one of my New Year`s resolutions. One of my co-workers suggested that I take a class with Calliope, a local folk-music group (www.calliopehouse.org/). Yesterday was my first class and I thoroughly enjoyed it. It was a bit slow for me, but I finally managed to get semi-decent sound out of my banjo and the instructor was great. Of course, when I got home, I immediately proceeded to annoy my wife playing "Oh, Susanna" about 20 times in a row. Good times:)
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Polina	2008-06-28 00:00:00 My Life
I first met Polina in 2003. I was hanging out at the 61C coffee house in Squirrel Hill, Pittsburgh, when I saw a tiny girl trying to eat an oatmeal raisin cookie that was about the size of her head. I immediately snapped a few pictures. The girl`s mother, Maria, asked me if I would be willing to give her the photographs. We quickly became friends, so I got to hang out with Polina more often. She is by far the brightest child I have ever met in my life. When I met her, she was about 18 months old, and she already spoke in full sentences in both Russian and English. By the time she was 3 years old, you could hold adult conversations with her. Unfortunately, Polina`s family moved to California in 2005 and we lost touch for a few years. We finally reconnected a few months ago on my trip to San Francisco. Polina now has two siblings and she is still the coolest kid ever.
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Car Accident	2008-02-12 00:00:00 My Life
On December 18, 2007 I left work early because of a pounding headache. I took a couple of Ibuprofens and went to bed. An hour later my headache still wouldn’t go away. I got up and drove to Giant Eagle to get a bottle of Excedrin. Two pills later my headache began to subside and I started nodding off. Suddenly, I was jerked away by a loud crash outside of my window. I jumped out of bed and after a minute of searching for my glasses looked outside. I saw a burgundy Mercury Sable next to my car, and two people running around. I put on my jacket and went outside. It turned out that the lady driving the Mercury swerved to avoid an oncoming car and hit my parked car instead. I was very upset since I had to leave for Tennessee the next day. At first, the damage seemed minor – most of the impact was concentrated around the rear fender and tire on the driver’s side, as well as a broken side mirror (I guess she took it out when she sideswiped my car). I tried to remain calm, even though the lady’s husband kept running around my car, pointing at the damage and saying that it was like that before the accident. I looked the car over and barring what I though was a flat rear tire, I decided that the car was drivable. The lady and I exchanged insurance information and she left. When I took off the damaged wheel to replace it with a spare, I realized that the wheel was the least of my problems – the rear axle snapped from the impact. I called the lady and told her about the damage. Then I called her insurance company and filed a claim. About half an hour later, the lady called me back and told me that her mechanic said that there’s no way she could have caused the damage and that my axle was broken prior to the accident. I patiently explained to her that I drove the car about half an hour before she hit it, a task that would have been impossible with a broken axle. The next day her insurance company called me and the adjuster said that the lady’s policy has been cancelled two weeks before the accident for non-payment. Since I only carry liability insurance on the car, my insurance company won’t cover damages either. The dealer estimated the damages at $1100, plus I spent almost $600 on a rental car. While driving the rental car to Tennessee, I called the lady and told her the amount she owes me. A few minutes later, her husband called me, told me that I was a liar, threatened me with legal actions and hung up. In a later conversation, the lady apologized for her husband’s behavior and told me that she would make payments. That was a month and a half ago, and every time I call her, she tells me that the check will be in the mail in two weeks, in a week, etc… I even found a shop that would repair the damages for around $800, saving her $300 from the total amount. I feel bad that she does not have the money, but I am stuck with a car that’s rotting in front of my house. So I made a decision – unless I get a check from her by the end of this month, I am taking her to court and suing her for the amount she owes me. As much as I hat the idea of a lawsuit, she really leaves me no choice – I’ve made every possible concession and still haven’t seen a penny.
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Grandfather`s watch	2008-01-12 00:00:00 My Life
My grandfather passed away on May 18th, 1998. His death was probably one of the most difficult things that my family and I had to deal with. He had a very difficult life – Soviet Army, German prisoner-of-war camp, escape, arrest, death row substituted at the last moment with 11 years of hard labor camps. Freedom after 11 years of back-breaking labor in the coal mines of Vorkuta only to find out that his entire family died in German concentration camps. My grandfather was not the easiest man to live with, but he raised me, played sports with me, and taught me how to fix and build things. Towards the end of his life I was the only person that he trusted and he insisted that I have the power of attorney over him. During the last two days of his life my grandfather never regained consciousness – he looked like a mummy, sustained only by morphine drip and an oxygen mask. I was 20 years old at the time. One day a very polite doctor called me at work and said that there was no chance of my grandfather coming out of the coma and that I should talk to my family about disconnecting him from the machine. I can honestly say that that decision was the most difficult thing that I have ever done. And even though no one in my family blamed me for it for years I still felt guilty about pulling the plug. Shortly after my grandfather was buried my grandmother gave me his old watch. Apparently the body of the watch is solid gold – it was the first expensive thing that my grandfather bought after being released from GULAG. When she gave me the watch it was broken – the wind-up knob was stuck and there was no way to wind the watch. Years ago I went to several jewelers/watch repairmen but everyone I asked either told me that they could not fix a half-a-century old Soviet-made watch, or they looked too shifty and I didn`t want to trust them with my grandfather`s memory. For 8 years the watch sat in a box in my closet. Occasionally I would come across it and entertain the idea of fixing it. And then the watch would go back to the closet. A couple of weeks ago my girlfriend gave me a beautiful rosewood watch box for my birthday. Even though I don`t have many (actually any) expensive watches I`ve accumulated quite a few that have sentimental value to me. As I was going through all my watches to place them in the box I came across my grandfather`s watch once again. This time I did not simply put it in the box – I wrapped it in a bit of soft cloth and took it to a Russian jeweler in Squirrel Hill – he came highly recommended as an honest dealer and not overly expensive. Ten days and 60 dollars later I had my grandfather`s watch back and in working condition. The weird thing is – after I put the watch on my wrist I felt the guilt that I carried all these years soft of fade away – it was as if my grandfather patted me on the shoulder and told me that everything is going to be OK.
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My Grandmother Olga	2007-05-16 00:00:00 My Life

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Diaries, evolution and rude people	2007-02-24 00:00:00 My Life
I am well past the age where I feel the need to commit such wonderful and intimate experiences as a crush on a girl or the first kiss to paper. Moreover I am (and probably has always been) too cynical to believe in the therapeutic value of writing down my life?s greatest events. However, I do keep what could be loosely called a diary. For the past 10 years I have never left my house without a notebook and a pen. I do not harbor hidden fantasies about becoming famous at some point in my life (or even after my death), nor do I believe at any given time my diaries will be worth anything to anyone. I simply like to keep track of certain events and anecdotes. Sometimes I go months between writing anything down. Sometimes I get cases of what my mother refers to as "verbal diarrhea" and fill page after page with pseudo-intellectual ramblings. Most of the entries refer to people I`ve met; in order to qualify for being written in my notebook the new acquaintance has to be a) an extremely interesting person, b) an extremely annoying person, c) an extremely scary person, d) and extremely stupid person, or e) all of the above. This weekend my girlfriend had to work on both Saturday and Sunday. Having so much free time to myself I decided to look through piles of notes and photographs that I`ve made over the years and organize them in some fashion that would be at least somewhat useful to me. While flipping through the pages of a notebook from 2003 I came across a short blurb regarding a person who qualified for becoming a subject for my wonderful penmanship by the virtue of being extremely arrogant. As I recall (and my recollection is supported by several paragraphs in a notebook) I was sitting at the Coffee Tree coffeehouse in Squirrel Hill, peacefully reading a book by Richard Dawkins. The book was titled The Blind Watchmaker. A middle aged gentleman moseyed over and asked if he could share a table with me. Seeing that the Coffee Tree is a rather popular place and that table space is somewhat hard to come by, I graciously nodded and went back to reading my book. For a few minutes the gentleman sipped his coffee; then he turned to me and asked me what the book was about. I explained that the book was about the argument on the subject of Evolution vs. Intelligent Design and that the title is a pun on the famous William Paley`s analogy that if a pocket watch is found on a field, it is most reasonable to assume that someone dropped it and that it was made by a watchmaker and not by natural forces and therefore complex structures, such as living things, must be the work of God. I also explained that Richard Dawkins uses examples from biology and genetics to prove and to extrapolate on the theory of evolution. When I uttered the word "evolution" the gentleman`s expression quickly changed from friendly curiosity to one of frustration and anger. He told me, and I quote: "People who write and publish this garbage should be publicly punished. They stand for everything that`s evil in this world. God created our planet, God created you and me. Whoever doubts that will burn in hell forever. And that includes you, young man!" Even though I consider myself an agnostic, to quote a friend of mine, "I am absolutely sure that I don`t know." I have always tried hard to be respectful of other people`s religious views and beliefs. However, this guy`s angry outburst brought out my "rude asshole" personality and I replied with what I though was a witty repartee: "Do you think that God put fossils in the ground just to screw with your head?" My response was definitely rude, and if the man with whom I had this conversation ever reads my blog, I would like to apologize. However, the question of Evolution vs. Intelligent Design is still far from closed to me. I have unbounded fascination with why people chose to believe that humans were created by a higher power regardless of the overwhelming evidence to the contrary? So, to answer my own question I decided to do my own survey/documentary. I will not be able to start working on this immediately - I still need to finish my Chernobyl documentary before I undertake a new project. When I have more free time, most likely sometime in July, I would like to procure a camcorder and interview a number of people of different faiths, upbringings and educational backgrounds. I would like to talk to priests, rabbis, ministers, scientists and just random people. At some point I will add a section to my website where everyone who wishes will be able to leave their opinions on the subject. Hey, maybe I`ll even make a movie out of it.
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Hanging out with a friend	2007-02-22 00:00:00 My Life
This is me hanging out with my buddy Sasha. He`s 6months old and for a while there he started going through a phase where he wouldn`t let anyone except his mom and dad pick him up. Now he seems to be over it.
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