More of the coming and the goings.

Oh my good friends, so long you must bear this burdensome waiting. Anton you have been disappeared for many times a long time ago. Where are you? Come out wherever you are. I heed your calls dear friends and for so long I have not been able to communicate to those of you who long to share in my goings ons. Much has changed for me since I last have ability to write words to you. Maybe some is bad but on the whole face of it maybe it is not too very bad. Maybe it is almost good. To be sure I will concur with sentiments that it is good.

Life can sometimes throw forks at your path. I had big fork thrown at me sometime ago when I take trip with the love of my life Olga to furniture store in capital city Moscow. For long time ago Olga was keeping beating me down with her words of desire to visit with this place. I say to her each and every day. “Olga, you know there is everything here in our beautiful home city of Voronezh.” I explain to her simply that she not want for anything here. She can purchase things here and get culture and eat herself fat with so many choices of food emporia. “Anton, but I am wishing to go to Moscow”, she would tell to me every little second that there is in the day. I grow weary. I am but of the flesh and the blood. You know good friends we must in sometimes be strong, and you know that I am. You know the things I have been doing from time to time if you are following my comings and my goings. It's the truth that I could not keep saying no forever and so a day came that I said: “Yes.”

As visitors will be attesting to, it is easy to get to Voronezh from anywhere in Russia. Flying, boating, bicycle, driving. Many ways. It is like they want you to come. It is interesting to note that this ease of coming also is creating an ease of going. So many people will go away from Voronezh for trips. Remember this when you make itinerary for vacationing here because if you want to visit surrounding area of Voronezh I will say let it be so, and you will say Thank you for showing us even more of your beautiful Voronezh Oblast and its surrounding locales.

As a professional driver and graduated student of Institute of Tram driving, transportation is very closely linked to my heart and I understand greatly what is important for coming and going and coming back again.  On the note of goings I continue forward with my account.

Moscow is maybe almost 6 hours away on the road, if you do not have to fix car on way because of broken rear axle or steering column. So we pack much food for journey and get ready to take to the highway M4 (which you will take northwards to get to Moscow). As you drive you will see much of the countryside think to yourself: “Huh, so pretty.” Olga does so much enjoy a strong sausage that from time to time I am winding my windows because of odor. In the end we reach the final destination. Olga is telling to me all the ways that furniture from Sweden is the future. I laugh in her face at this remark.

The store is much larger in structure than other furniture shops I have seen in my life. 18 long months I spent there. I remember entering the store with my beautiful Olga by my side and my plastic bag containing some bread and sausage in my hand on my other side. Inside this super big place it was like the time itself was being taken away. It is hard to make sensible idea of what is like, time is becoming meaningless, as if the day is no more turning into night on a regular basis. It is standalone universe that exists in itself in IKEA. I am not forgetting that I was for only a moment gazingly looking at Fagleboda handles and when I have completed Olga is not being seen by me anywhere abouts.

I spend hours meandering over and over the place. Olga is not reappearing. The watch on my wrist stops, I grow hungry in my search, it is so I partake of meatballs in canteen. Staring at my meatballs wishingly thinking of Olga: Where can my Olga be?” I am saying to myself in my head quietly so that people around do not think: “There look! A strange man consuming meatballs and talking to himself audibly”.   I finish the eating of meatballs and still I have no more seen Olga passing by. I am making the decision to find the beginning of this place and to then in a methodological fashion by walking check every nook and cranny that there is in this place until I find her.

I try so hard to find the beginning of the store. I follow arrows on floor but they are taking me on journey to other places. I am only needing the beginning the doors which we were going through when we first were arriving. I stop following arrows, I grow tired. I sit down on small sofa known as Kivik in corner of building. I start to sleep. I open my eyes and there is dark everywhere. No people are there at this time. I do not know what has happened to my Olga. It is true, I am not shameful admitting that I cried. Not for long and I did not cry like a baby girl you understand. So it is I sit on Kivik and waited for light to come. I don't know how long it is but then there a groups of people in yellow shirts doing things to make ready for next days trading. It occurs to my own mind that if they see me they will think I am vagrant who is smelly and dirty scum. I will be arrested and thrown in Lubyanka which is not far. If this should happen I will never see my Olga again.

It was at this moment of distress I make plan to hide from all the people there. One day goes by and then another one and then another one, and one more after that. I am still hiding in IKEA. It seems it is not difficult. The time tick tick away but nobody ever see me. I learn good places to hide when many people are around and when they are not I eat well on meatballs and lingon berry juice. I find yellow shirt to wear in case of just in case. Even in this hard times I still have sense. I keep trying to find beginning of store every day I fail. There is no beginning and no end. Time it is meaning nothing to me anymore. There are always enough meatballs. Soon I am knowing the comings and the goings of all peoples in this place. They never find me. I am realising that it is possible to be in store during the day with all the other people hereabouts. It is called the hiding in plain sight. I scour the faces to look and see maybe one is Olga. Sometimes I think that it is her, but no. It is then I apologise for leaping up at woman and hugging her profusely. She think it is just IKEA customer service because of yellow shirt.

It is days then it is week, then it is month. Still they suspect nothing and I am not in Lubyanka. Olga is nowhere to be seen.  One day I am deciding that I must leave this place, I am in need to return to my home. Oh Voronezh I am so much missing it and the sky. Great poet Osip Mandelstam once was writing: “The sky is happy sanctuary, A lifelong, extendible home.” There is truth.

As you are knowing in the fact that I am now able to be writing this I was able to free myself from the lair of corrugated walls and soft furnishings. But how? That my friends is to wait for next time. I now am to be moving on toward the railway station for new guests are being arrived at Voronezh, and they are needing the service of your good friend Anton Petrovich.

Multimedia Extravaganza

There is great news for you my friends.  It is very recent that I have been to put up photographs of Beautiful Voronezh on the website for the entire world to see forever and ever increasing.  You know that it is true we are in the 21st century and as I look to grow the my business adventure it is important to spread the good word about Anton Petrovich Tours.  Olga tell to me just the other day "Anton you are idiot, you need to get with it or else!"  "Olga" I say to her your harrassment and interventions in matter of business are not welcome, but what you say is brilliant, because I am always looking at ways to get with it and that is why I now put upon my clients potential beautiful pictures of our beloved Voronezh.  This is the future Olga, soon everybody will do this.  Olga then is sighing her beautiful sigh like she is being in condition of overwhelmed by my grreatness.

But there is more to tell no time has been passed then I go back to the checking for responses on http://www.antonpetrovich.blogspot.com/ I see that once again the thousands of people are being shy about the love for wanting to know more about what is future of my business.  It is okay people are often being speechless around my person.  I say this so that you are not feeling bad yet.  "Anton!" you are yelling, "what more to tell can there be, the truth is you have said everything you can say!"  Well, okay I will not be have you suspended no more.  I was sent 30 second commercial for Anton Petrovich Tours.  It is unbelievable.  A tremendous gift.  So here I am showing the global community for the first time.  Please enjoy yourselves.

Beautiful Voronezh - A selection of prints

After many times with the potential guests of myself determinadely saying "Anton, Anton we must have the pictures before we are of the mind to come to you, please we insist it be so that you place upon your unique web presence the images so we can be deciding if it is as you say it is to be."  So, without further ado I place herein the photos that I am taking for the viewing pleasures.

A great example of an old church building

The same building but excepting the fact that it is the side.

LOOK! The Poplar Fluff.  It will get into your nostrils and will be to make you sneeze

Hello Stefan my friend my what a great entrepreneur are you

So you can see now that you must come.  You are being missing already. 

You will be pleasing to know that I am working upon my writing of a masterpiece.  It is slow because of my expanding of the business.  I look forward to when next I am telling you of my business exploiting.  Please it is my pleasure always to share my beautiful city of Voronezh.  You are welcome.









My Apologies

Dear reader,

 I say you are dear because that is the thing you are to me. You are being dear to me because it is so that you are taking of the time to read what I only a humble tour guide from the time to time will be writing. You will be acknowledging that for some time I have not been fulfilling my end of the bargain. My writing here has not been very constant. I am sorry for these turn of events but the truth is that I have been feeling out of sorts for some time with best regards to my chosen profession. I know that it is so that you answer back Anton, Anton! What is the meaning of this? Thus this is the meaning of this. I have shared with you my familial problems who are my mother, my brother and sometimes my wife who insist on me staying under kitchen table if I have lived a little too much the night before the morning after - so to say. I do this for the encouragement of the many millions of peoples who experience same experiences that I experience. And of course I share with you my special love for my city of Voronezh. You see I love the things I do and my work, but it is for these many months that I felt out of sorts. I have been thinking that what I really want to be is a writer. For this reason I have been conflicted which makes much sense because very good writers from Russia have been feeling conflicted in the past all the time. I am thinking long and hard that when I reach the end of my days, people will not be to remember myself as the best tour guide Voronezh was blessed to have, which is something people will be doing as it is only natural, and I am a weak man powerless in the face of such a thing to stop them, but rather I would like for people to say: "You know that Anton Petrovich, the one who was best tour guide in Voronezh and perhaps the whole of Russia, well did you know that he is also great writer - not only of short stories but also of plays - and he is as good as Chekhov and Tolstoy." "Yes.", the person's friend and confidant will retort. "I have knowledge of him, there is a museum in his beautiful home city dedicated to his whole life, and so many people come from all places that it can never close."


And so it will be that I am now an author being number one and a tour guide being number 2. It is correct that I continue to be tour guide because it pays the bills and I am the best. Maybe one day I will receive a payment for something I am writing but as me darling wife is always saying I should not count on it. So you see I have been grappling with these two callings as person grappling with two slippery snakes and it has been keeping me busy these days. But rest assured I am getting the grapple worked out and will keep telling to you much about my life once more. I am sorry for all I have put you through with the worry of not being any the wiser about what I have been having the pleasures in these days past. But you must keep coming back because that is life. I am looking forward with smiling to the day I can show you my beautiful city and take you to be full of delight at performance of one of my plays in the future. For now I must leave you. Do not cry! Anton will be coming back soon.

Freedom

Of course I must tell to you that my familial affairs are appearing to begin to be in good working order again.  Olga has taken me back into her bosom after having problem with her husband singing the folk songs with his friend in the dead of the morning.  Even of more interesting notation is the reappearing of my beloved mother in all of our lives.  Until this time she has been being incarcerating in the Voronezh Region Home for Incalcitrant Grandmothers.  We are over the moon in my family.  Happy as Larry, I am feeling like the proverbial cat who has been inbibing of the proverbial cream.  Perhaps I also will acquaint myself with having opportunity for the mastication of cake and not just having the cake.  What wonderous news her emancipation is to our ears these days.  The authorities tell to us she is completely normalised, and she has told myself that there will not be anymore priest bashing.  Believe me or don't she is meeting with priest with whom she became entangled for tea these next few days.  My mother is a saint, surely she is most knowledgable now regarding the turning over of many leaves.

Despite the most happiness we are partaking of, still I am feeling within my body emotions for my brother.  His situation still continues.  But he tell to us soon they will be seeing folly of what they be doing to him, and he also will be free to breath air on the outside and toast many time to many things.

Dear potential guest, perhaps you say, this Anton he is speaking so much of this personal situation.  Yes I will say to you I am because I must.  I am not able to constrain myself.  Just as is the way you will be unable to constrain yourself when you are meeting my family for most unimaginable time here in Voronezh.  Without family  who are we I say.  We are in need of family so that we can be born and have in ourselves succulent foods and emotive supporting.  Without my family I would not be Anton Petrovich, instead it is possible I would not be myself one jot or tiddle.  Maybe I would be Mikhail Stepanovich the most beloved school teacher of the village of Ananova wherever this is.  It is possible I will be finding myself reaping potatoes but this is not me.  It is fortunate for you that this is not me, because if this was being so you would not have opportunity - a fine opportunity at that I put to you - of adjoining me as you sojourn here in beautiful Voronezh.  No we are pleased to know that I am myself and I have big plans for my business.  You will be thrilled to be receiving my knowledge and hospitality also.  This I can tell because you have been showing to me your support for my business adventure.

This I say to you my friends (forgive my informality) we have good days ahead.

Beware Babushka

It is a very important part of being number one tour guide that means I take very serioulsly the task of letting my clients be knowing of things important to make holidays in Voronezh most perfect and SAFE.

It is in being concerned for well beings of tourist that  I have decided to inform to you how is best to be handling our grandmothers.  Also I am having the time on my fingers why because Olga will not be allowing myself for the time being to depart from the apartment.  She tell to me "The next time you are being all of the night in street drunk and singing old communist songs in you will never be eating or partaking of any type of companionship here in our home."  So here I am under the table hiding while my lovely wife watches favorite movie Rambo.

I think you will be surprising to hear that our grandmothers who we call here babushkas are not very soft.  I know it is incredible but it is true.  They can look like maybe they are soft to the touch but really they are not.  When you give them a poke or squeeze you can see that they are very solid and not squishy at all.  Anton, Anton you are saying, why are telling to us this news?  Why is it very important?  It is because if you do not understand the mind of the babushka then you may not long survive in this most beautiful city.  Please do try and be of close attentiveness to what I tell to you next.

They are everywhere always they be looking, and looking some more.  They have to them many tricks up their bulging sleeves.  You will be attentive in noticing them always in groups maybe is only group of two maybe is group of five maybe more.  It is seldom been seeing one on its own, except to say in between the travel from one group of babushki to one other group of babushki.  Information does travel with swiftness among these imparticular beings.

It is difficult to say for whom they be working for.  But mark this foreign guest.  They will be watching to you, and if you have the behaviour which is to be found offensive, they will tell to you this very much so.  You can not be escaping the gaze of the babushki.

They will be monitoring your every coming and your every going to places near and far.  If you stay in prestigious hotel they will be knowing this, yet also if you be staying in shack they know also, and if you are in apartment you must pass by them everytime you enter and exit from building.  You may visit market, store, canteen, post office, opera theatre, they see you.   Even if you find you are angered by their cold dark stares you must not be getting into physical positions with them.  They will break you, do not try this as I say before this, they are not squishy.

Please do not let them stop you from embarking on most amazing journey to beautiful city of Voronezh.  I am containing within myself the knowledge to deal with the omnipotent and omniscient babushka.  It is knowledge that has been hard earned but I am generous in passing it onto you.  So when you come to be my guest you will say you are glad you have Anton as tour guide he really is the best I hope only good things for him and the developmentalness of his business.  Such a shame we will not be able to meet his nice brother.

Of course I say thank you for your thoughts so kind, but also I pass on many thanks to tram driver institute for such fine education I have received at there.  Maybe you will like to be visiting it also.

It is to me so very important thing to acknowledge my coming up short in area of writing the words on my blog.  You see my brother, the one and the very same to whom I have aforementioned was to be coming out from of prison, but we had the communication with important official to say he will have more time to be thinking about his life decisions.

I have had momentous time dealing with emotion that is overwhelming me with sensing of disappointedness at the news.  I am in the place of embattlement I find it hard to shake.  My mother has even been to see the priest.  She say to him how can this be happening for sure Volodya has been learning his lessons?  The priest who is of a wise disposition she tell to her these words.  "If you can't serve the time don't do the crime."  What words of comfort are those?  My mother was not happy.  As she proceeded to beat this priest the local militsia were happening to be coming past in 4x4 vehicle and stopped and put her in the trunk. 

For 2 months she was in home for incalcitrant grandmothers.  This is upsetting to me because how can they say she is grandmother when my marriage to Olga has been most unproductive.  But there is in my heart joy because in a few days she will be normalised and allow back in society. 

So there it is my business plan have been put in the hold for this time, but I know that soon I will be back on the streets of my beautiful city taking back my place as great tour guide.  Then you can visit to this place and I will accept your condolences with humility that you have heard of my struggles.  You will say to me," Anton Petrovich, you have been through so much, and we are so sorry for this, please take some of this hard currency, see how crisp the bills are and that they are not more than a couple of years old.  It is all we have but maybe it will help you to fight injustice in your most beautiful city."  And I will tell to you,  "yes".