In one of my stories of 2000 I told about moving an old railroad bridge up the Moskva river to its new location where it was supposed to become a modern attraction for pedestrians. Now that old steel construction is all covered with glass and plated aluminum and is a favorite place for teenagers to hang out.
The place was selected by Russian Chapter of Guinness Book of Records for a huge kissing event. Lots of people came here to break into more than a thousand pairs - and to kiss each other marking Valentine's Day.
Clowns and cartoon characters were invited by organizers to entertain the participants - and those who kame to watch, to take pictures - if not to kiss... Kissing holiday was a holiday in the first place.
Now please look at the photos of happy people, kissing and in love, - they are the real spirit of Moscow, and all the nice streets, buildings and monuments are only the background.
The kissing action was named "2002 kisses", but I bet there were many more on the bridge - and would be later, after the end of record-setting events. Because Moscow is full of love and of people in love.
Before the end of the story, let me show a few pictures not of Moscow... We Muscovites are mobile people, and beginning of the year took me to a few short business trips to different locations across Russia. So, a last glance from the bridge at Moscow panorama - and then, a few photos of other places.
-=Nizhny Novgorod=-
...It takes less than an hour to fly from Moscow to Nizhny Novgorod, a huge industrial city on the banks of Volga river ("Mom Volga" as Russians call the river). Almost 2 million people live in Nizhny with suburbs, and their life is quite intense. Some of them call Nizhny "Russian Detroit", because it is one of the centers of automobile industry of our country. Trucks with GAS logo can be found on any Russian road, and Gazel vans are the absolute hit on the market.
But all this is just a formal introduction. Nizhny is worth visiting not because of its industry or science (also powerful here) - but simply as a beautiful place where nice people live.
-=St. Petersburg=-
And finally, two pictures of St. Petersburg. Nothing unusual, but I like the city and cannot miss the opportunity to post even two of them - if I had the time to take only them on that cold night...
...Well, time to say "See you later!" The 8th (!!!) year of this project has started, and I plan to keep the standard pace of approximately one story in two months. It's March now, and sun is shining again, first tens of Megabytes of photos are already on the disk of my home workstation. Life is going on, and this show must follow!
Watch for more stories of 2002!
Andrey - asebrant@online.ru
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