Two days ago, Marta and I visited our local children's clinic, to get an official confirmation of Marta's lice-free status. We obtained a piece of paper there that should allow us to spend a month or so at the state-run sanatoriy in Pushcha Vodytsya (fresh air and all that), the one we were at a year ago.

The place has had some repairs since I was there last (don't remember when); the biggest improvement is that they no longer have that horrible thing on the ceiling in the room where they see everyone from newborns to elementary school kids. Otherwise, the place looks more or less the same.

Also a couple days ago, I learned (RUS) that the head of Kyiv's municipal health department, Lyudmyla Kachurova, had been arrested for allegedly mismanaging some 1.5 million hryvnias (around $190,000) of budget funds meant for doctors' salaries - and she's at a psychiatric clinic now (RUS), watched over by the police. All I can say is I hope it's a state-run clinic, not a private one. That would teach her.

Here're some pictures from our children's clinic (a few more are here):











And yes, Marta doesn't have any lice.

Khreshchatyk:





P.S. A quick note on what made me stop, get my camera out and take the first picture: a middle-aged Muslim couple stood there, staring at the passionate kissing that was taking place by the fountain, incredulous but smiling - smiling the way you'd smile at naughty kids and also when watching a movie. By the time I took my camera out, the Muslim couple was gone, but the kissing couple was still at it :)

Just a random photo from July 2008 - I'm cleaning up my archives...



This is where I spent much of my childhood - but it looked so much nicer then, and papa was with us, too.

The forest where the bleachers would normally be was actually full of rather unwelcome spectators - male patients of the army hospital nearby, in their blue pajamas, and, every now and then, masturbators.

The Russian Patriarch's fans:

Salt:

Kyiv:

A man who earns his living by collecting bottles for recycling:

Women selling sunflower seeds:

Dynamo Kyiv graffiti:

FC Dynamo Kyiv fans:

Hüzün is the word of the day, I guess...

A bunch of pointless, blurry, ugly shots from my today's walk - something I wouldn't bother posting here normally, but I need to distract myself somehow now, after having been nearly run over by a car on Khreshchatyk sidewalk:

Waiting for a bus:

Ukraine is the country of women - impossible not to stare sometimes...

Ahmetçe:

My vacation is almost over, and this year's trip to the Aegean Coast is almost over, too. I'd like to be able to fast-forward the year ahead - especially the winter - and come back here already.



Today is five years since Misha and I got married.



And then it'll be three years since I last saw my father.



Still, here's what we look like, five years on:





And here are a few random pictures from where we are now - and I keep adding more here: