A Whirlwind Week

August 29-September 2, 2016

Lots of stuff going on this week in and out of the office; meetings, events, dinners, volunteering. Okay, I am not a huge fan of meetings but not all meetings are bad and life is most definitely good!

Monday night, I went to Red Square to see the International Military Music Festival “Spasskaya Tower” with some colleagues from the Embassy. We had purchased VIP tickets so we would have an unrestricted view of the arrival of the individual bands against the backdrop of St. Basil’s Cathedral. 

The Tattoo was fantastic with a number of bands from Russia, surrounding countries (Kazakhstan, Belarus, and Mongolia), Europe (Austria, Greece, Italy and Slovenia), Asia (Singapore, Japan) and Israel. As each band took the field, the lighting on the cathedral was changed to match the colours of the country and two large orbs on either side of the cathedral were turned into screens for images of the country. The production was beautifully done and the backdrop spectacular.

One of the many Russian bands

Pipe and Drum Band

Greece

Some of it was pretty much what you would expect but there were a lot of unexpected treats. My favourite, other than listening to the pipes and drums while watching the whirling plaid of the highland dancers (Flingons as Vance would say) was the band from Belarus. The majesty and precision of their marching and the “waves” that they did were simply spectacular.

Singapore

Massed Bands

Interestingly, the music for many of the bands was not all military marches and such – many of the songs were adapted from current popular music. The penultimate act was the Cadet Band of the Military Institute here in Moscow and their set was a bit tongue in cheek including an enthusiastic rendition of Pink Floyd’s “Another Brick in the Wall”!

The grand finale brought all the bands back onto the field en masse and was punctuated with fireworks. I have inserted some of the pictures below but they truly do not do justice to the evening. This is an annual event so potential guests should look at dates for next year and consider attending!

When a week starts like this you just know it is going to be good! On Tuesday, I was asked whether I would be a co-champion of Canada Club campaign to collect donations for a local charity in recognition of the International Day of Charity (September 5) to which I promptly said yes. The Embassy has done this before so there are excellent templates to follow and reminds me of the Little Bags of Goodness campaign that I have helped with the past few years in Ottawa. I am sure that there are a few things in my limited inventory that I will be able to spare.

Wednesday night I was invited to an impromptu dinner at Jack and Shirly’s. Who could say no!  We had a great meal with wine and conversation flowing in equal measure. It is past time for me to reciprocate so I am having a few of the folks in my building over for dinner next Wednesday. As I am typing this I think I need to invite a few more so no one feels left out!

I am in the process of staffing a new assistant for the Agriculture trade Team but the potential office space is jammed with discarded office equipment and junk so I organized a clean-up crew (including myself) for Thursday morning and we spent an hour throwing away junk that had been hiding in a nearby closet so we could organize the useful materials and make room for our new assistant. I did find some treasures including great recipes for lobster (if only I had some!) and maps of Nova Scotia.

Clearly, I am better at throwing away other people’s stuff than my own … or maybe the last several months of sorting through the junk in my house before I left Ottawa has changed my approach.  Time will tell. The Dvornicks arrived Friday morning to build some shelves in the closet to allow for more effective storage space and we are well on our way to getting the office cleared out.

Friday morning my first email is from Alex wondering if it is 3:30 yet! Alex, Eva and I are headed to St. Petersburg for the weekend right after work. We are all very excited for our first foray to the Venice of the North and have been gathering information and advice from anyone in the Embassy that has ever been there! We have booked rooms in a luxurious hotel right in the center of things to make the most of our short time there. I’ll develop a separate post on our adventure there so that I can regale you with details of the weekend. Stay tuned …