Sjona is married

the girl from Chile that I replaced in our office got married. I am so happy for her:):):)

Dinner at Cesaria

Amir is contemplating on marriage life after seeing a bride and a groom passed by...:)
Sunset - a little more... Enjoying the sunset...ah...beautiful....
The food is delicious
Salad is simple but very yummy...

Beautiful evening...

Flowers of one garden

Beautiful flowers in the garden of life and faithful servants of the Blessed Beauty Samarih and Quddus got married last weekend. Samarih used to be my flatmate:)

Camping in Tiberias

Around 30 people went last weekend to camp on the beach of the sea of Galilee . We swam in the sea which was quite wavy that night, witnessed a gorgeous sunset and had some fun playing games, singing songs and doing yoga exercises under the starry sky:) Pictures courtesy of Tatyana Satpayeva and Patria Aquino.

Happy birthday, mama!

My sister wrote a beautiful poem for our mom. This is just a part from the poem, sorry my clumsy translation:) Мама... Сколько тебе мне нужно сказать.
Мама... Твои руки к сердцу прижать.
На себе ощущать твой усталый взгляд,
И понять, что твои глаза говорят.
Теплей и нежней твоих рук не найти -
Всегда они могут тебя спасти,
И сердце с волнением бьется в груди,
Чтобы выразить все, где слова мне найти?

Mama… how much I would love to tell you.
Mama…to hold your hands by my heart.
To feel your tired gaze on me,
And understand what your eyes are trying to tell me.
Your hands are the warmest and tenderest,
And they can save you any time.
My heart is bitting with excitement-
Where can I find words to express myself?

Tanya and Ilya

First Day of Ridvan

Home cinema

One of my good friends compared a life before marriage to watching a TV set that has a black and white image with some interference. And then she continues that marriage life is like having a colored three-dimensional wide screen home cinema. Of course this is something very subjective and individual but I found this comparison quite neat. I think married life opens up this world from a different perspective on many things and in all aspects, spiritual, emotional, intellectual and physical (wow, that makes it a four-dimensional cinema!) given there is love, harmony and unity in a family:)

Zhenya's birthday

Yesterday was a birthday of my close friend Zhenya, a.k.a. Dj. 9 May is also a Victory Day that is celebrated by all former Soviet Union Republics, it's been 61 years since Soviet Union beat (thank you, Leila -- see comment) Hitler in 1945. That is why children born on this day during Soviet time usually are named like Victor, or Victoria, or anything else containing the word Victory in different Soviet languages. Zhenya's real name in Kazakh sounds like Djenisbek, djenis - is victory, so, here you go, see the connection?:) We went to a Japanese restaurant Litchi and had a blast. We were the only ones on the second floor, some of us could even run around and play duel (6 years old Ilya and 29 years old Nuri). All of us ordered different dishes and kept trying from each others' plates, it was so much fun! The food was delicious! It was my first time there, and definitely not the last:) I am posting a picture of Zhenya not from yesterday, but the one I used for the email inviting everyone to celebrate his birthday. He is always like on this picture, with big smile and kind eyes, I mean ALWAYS. ONE HAPPY CRAZY GUY, happy birthday!

Do you like corn soup?

I loooooove corn soup, the way our cook Manu makes it, yummy! Despite of wide variety of soups we have in Russian culture, I have NEVER tried corn soup before coming here. Last night was the night for trying to cook it myself using the recipe I found on Internet. I must say it appeared to be much easier than I expected. It turned out quite well for the first time, not as good as Manu's one, but I am learning...:):):) In any case, Amir's biggest excitement was about me actually cooking for him for the second time since we got married as all this time he was the one feeding me with his delicious Philippino dishes:)

My Green World

Since I have known Amir, everything around me assumed kind of a green character. He works in the gardens and loves everything related to plants. Our new little flat is full of different pots with a lot of flowers and trees, real and bonzais that he grows himself. I am loving it because never before I was so much exposed to nature in my own flat. I can say we are having a little garden in our living room, too bad there is no balcony to put them all on fresh air. He is so patient with them, keeps the windows open to get some breeze, trims them and waters them on time, makes sure those of them that need a lot of light get it, and gets so excited and happy when they are doing fine and start to bloom:) Amir loves to keep some fresh flowers in our bedroom and every morning we decorate our bed with some dried roses' petals . It is interesting to watch Amir doing all this and finding myself enjoying this green and healthy environment more and more. Yesterday I even remembered about plants' reaction to the classical music and now want to experiment by playing some music from Austrian and Italian classical schools and may be some romanticism music as well and see which one they will prefer:)

Dinner last night

Last night we had a wonderful dinner with friends who helped us to organize our day one month ago:) Almost all of them could come except for Mara and Mark who, I think haven't checked their email as they were on pilgrimage for 9 days just before that. We truly missed them, but, nevertherless had a lot of fun. I cooked Russian Borsh (beet root and cabbage soup), a vegetarian version of it, Russian salad "Sunny" with crab sticks, and some Russian style mini sandwiches which we call "buterbrody" (roll your "r" while trying to say the word). Amir cooked Pansit, an Asian style noodles, Chinese spring rolls FROM SCRATCH! They were soooooo yummy! He also fried some fish- and shrimp-balls for a snack. We had a watermelon for dessert with some tea and cookies. We finally tried to use our coffee set that was given to us as a wedding gift, it was fun, as I have never made coffee before on the reason that I don't drink coffee:) Everything turned out so well, and it happened that we did this dinner on 6 May, which is one day away from our 1 month anniversary, and, it was Amir's first cousin's birthday who just came here three days ago for a 18 months service. He is such a sweet guy, his name is Quddus. I was so happy to meet one more family member of Amir after tatay (Philippinos call father "tatay" and mother "nanay").

Hopeful...

When I see a man shedding tears,

I see in it his strength,

the strength to be sincere and genuine,

to recognize his weaknesses,

to be able to be detached from what others say,

to be able to express his true self,

to state that there is something much mightier and powerful than a human being
and that a human being is able to briefly touch upon its essence

by learning how to love,

by making mistakes, fall down and stand up again,

by dealing with life's everyday tests ever hopeful for a better day,

by praying to Him,

by admiring little silly things that surround us,

by respecting women and not only that, by supporting them and admitting that we are equal, that human soul really doesn't have a gender and in God's eye we are His children with the same worries and joys, with the same abilities to be strong and week at times.

I have seen men shedding tears a few times in my life,

but whenever I see it

I never think about him as a "girly weak creature",

I ADMIRE ...

Dinara and Kanat

My dear friend from back home, Dinara, got married the next day i did, on 8 April. She sent me her picture and i was so excited that decided to share this news with bloggers:) She looks so happy and beautiful.

Behi's photography

honey, have some cake:)
gorgeous sisters Mandu and Emem
friendly handshake
singing away
let me look at your earring
very nervous Amir
i am going crazy
much pleased Serghei
Happy Pash
ALWAYS happy philippinos:)

sitting in one armchair and playing Maryam and Ruzanna
beautiful Kara
sleeping father and listening father-in-law
" HALLO", said Thobeka
"hmmmm, how else can i help", Stephanie's thinking
Behi takes unusual pictures, in particular, he likes faces and little details like noses, eyes, ears. etc. He is also very good at capturing moods and characters of people.

3 weeks and 17 months

Today we have a double anniversary, 3 weeks of marriage and 17 months since we started seriously investigating each other. It's interesting how we count every day and week and month now, I wonder how long will it continue for:) I know that this kind of dates make relationship special and add a flavor to everyday life. For me I always keep track of time as I like to kind of look back and see how much was done and accomplished over a certain period of time and, of course, it kind of reminds me of those days when everything just started, was unknown and intriguing, fresh and exciting and how we both felt about the whole thing:) It's a nice thing to remember, don't you think, and to try always bring back to life that freshness and excitement of first dates:) But the good thing is no matter how much we know each other we still find some new things about each other every day, and it is always an exciting process of bonding with marriage partner and learning more about myself and him on the way because through it one is able to establish stronger bonds with his Creator and learn more about Him which is a purpose of life for Baha'is.
This picture was taken in spring 2005, i was not feeling well and Amir came from Akka to visit me. We were just starting talking about marriage at that time:)...

Galiya and Seid

Galiya and Seid are here for a brief visit with their lovely children that were born in the Holy Land one after another. When I came here, Galiya was pregnant with her son and her daughter Janet was one little cuty, didn't walk and talk yet. Now, after a couple of years it was very nice to see Janet and Hushmand running around and talking away. They have grown up a lot since last time i saw them. Here I am, a few minutes ago, sitting on the steps of the ITC building and holding Janet in my arms.
Seid also took a picture of Galiya, me and two children on a background of the Seat.
And these are two beautiful keychain dalls that came all the way from Kazakhstan in Galiya and Seid's suitcases to proudly guard the keys from the BWC flat for now occupied by myself and my beloved husband. They are so excited to take over their new service in the Holy Land. The guy in his cute little green traditional dress will be my key assistant and the girl in pink with nice hair style will go to Amir.

More pictures from the BIG DAY

My beloved sister Maryam
My beloved sister Ruzanna

Don't we look alike?
My beloved husband and father-in-law
My beloved mother
My beloved father
I and Baboosh during the reception - I loooove this picture...

Ruzanna is reading an extract from Abdul-Baha's Writings about marriage translated into Russian
Amir with friends Franco and Bernard
The wedding favors The birthday girl Kara with her birthday gift - my bridal boquet. She said that from now on her every birthday she will remember our wedding, isn't it nice?
Family trio (when we learnt this song, my other sister was not born yet, and after she was born, she never got her own part in it, may be that is why she became a beautiful dancer:))