If you'd like, you can pronounce 'festival' like they do in Brazil - sort of like fest-e-vall... just for a little international flair. That's actually about how they say it here too.
Yesterday - I should clarify that I mean Saturday now that I've returned to being half a day ahead of most of my readers - we were busy all day with our second annual children's Christmas festival in Kerch. This year we attempted to kill ourselves with 3 shows scheduled at 10, 1:30 and 5 for 1000 kids each. It was a massive undertaking and the main reason that we adjusted our travel plans to be back here this past week. Here's some pictures with short witty captions....
There is nothing that says protection like a grown man wearing an Elvis apron. This is Sergey from security and one of the aprons that Sarah made for the cooks for Christmas. Elvis in the former Soviet Union is almost as funny to me as my old McLenin's shirt.
Our super-volunteers were absolute animals.... they put in some serious work for us. From the left, this is Anya, her 11 year old boyfriend (ok, he's like 18, but still...) Sasha, my man Sergey M., Yula and me.
We distributed just about 2200 or so of these shoe boxes. I don't want to start a fight but these were from a British organization called Blythewood Cares and they were SIGNIFICANTLY better the OCC version we got last year... more age specific, better items, and wider age range. Extra credit for whoever (between Tammi and Lori probably) can tell the class what the sign says.
The event was at a nearby convention hall type of facility. Kids and their handlers stood outside in the cold for as much as an hour to get in for each show.
The interior was nice by local standards but pictures are always tough in this auditorium.
We got to see Maxim! Here he is with Sergey. His sister brought him and he seems to be doing really well. Hopefully we can get reconnected soon.
Cam came for one performance but spent most of his time messing around with the Aloshas, who have both acquired cell phones since I saw them last. Big Alosha (at right, who is actually littler now but still older) insists on playing Linkin Park all the time while singing into his phone like a microphone. Whoever made the battery for his phone should win a Nobel prize in science.
The hall was packed with munchkins like these who were really the focus of the whole event.
Who would have thought that a person would go through the trouble of filling a shoebox with coal (or so it would seem)?
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