Samara Scene 2

	Samara Friends < click here - 2nd website >
Hey it's me (Seth) with my two friends Mathew (from England) and Anya (from Izhevsk). Whilst out walking along the embankment above the edge of the river Volga.		Most of these pictures were taken at the end of April when my friends from Izhevsk, Anya & Sasha came to visit. Right - on the banks of the river Volga.		Sasha, Mathew and me standing on the hill above the Volga,with the main drama theatre of Samara in background.
	Above- a group of us all gathered at Alec's house a chat and a few drinks at 2am. Mathew is showin us the Tarot		In my flat in Samara, where Sasha & Anya have been showing me how cook some real Russian cuisine!
		Below is a photo from the huge indoor Aquapark in Samara where a group of us spent most of Sunday messing around on the waterslides (some in complete darkness!)
	A photo of my friend Natali whilst we were out walking together in mid-April. The Volga had many icebergs drifting down it which we could jump onto.		Sasha & Anya were looking very nice and posing for a photo when this strange guy popped out of nowhere (me!).

	A rather extraordinary day in April walking along the part of the city next to the river Volga where the long sandy beaches and sunny warm +17C weathere made me feel like we were at the beach somewhere. Except that the edge of the Volga was locked in 2 feet of solid ice and snow and there were icebergs drifting down the river! During the winter the whole river had been frozen under 2 or 3 feet of solid ice with snowdrifts on top. In the photos are my friends from the university nearby- Helen, Tanya, (me), Natali, Lena, Aliona.

	Me and Tanya chatting in the restaurant called 'Zhili Bili'. A gathering of their group to celebrate the final day of their semester and a real jolly time was had by all.		Yes,it's me posing shamelessly for the camera and basically enjoying the fact that I was the only guy in the group!. :)



	In my time here in Samara there have been many great sights such as this awesome cloud vista. (photo courtesy of Tanya).	Samara Sights	A beautiful sunset over the river Volga during May. The river is more like a sea in some places. (photo courtesy of Tanya).

		There are many wooded parks around. These four photos, almost out of a fairytale, at the children's park.


	The city is a strange mix of ultra-modern buildings containing offices, shopping malls, cinemas, bowling centres etc and also many old historic monuments and buildings such as the red drama theatre (top left) and the ballet/opera theatre (bottom right). In some parts of the city there are still some of the old-style wooden Russian homes such as on the top-right, but most homes are in large soviet-style blocks (on right). Like most cities in Russia, Samara has many inspiring patriotic statues from communist times (on left). Photos by Tanya.
	Near to our school stands this original USSR space rocket. Samara used to be one of the centres of the Soviet space programme.		In the park was also this wood-carved statue of an old Russian fairytale figure living in the forest & used to scare russian children - 'Baba-yaga'.

		Here are two photos showing, by contrast, the Russian winter. We still had weeks of snowfall even in early April!


Samara Parties



	On April 29th we celebrated Anya's birthday in my flat and organised a spontaneous birthday cake with a novel candle arrangement. We all agree Russian cakes are the best in the world!		My friends Sasha, Anya & Mathew posing for a photo during a period of calm before the party really got underway and became too rowdy to make more photos.
	Left and right are a few pictures of my friends at the party, shortly before our amplifier and loud speakers succeeded drawing so much power that they blew the main house fuse and we were all plunged into darkness shortly before midnight.		The photos below were taken after the darkness forced us to relocate the party to Alecs house. Everyone's looking quite far gone after a lot of drink. Evidenced by the zany expressions and fact that Scott was trying to feed beer to the cat!




		Samara Culture
In April there was a visiting dance group from the Caucasus region in southern Russia who came to the theatre in Samara to perform traditional old folk-dancing.				The traditional old costumes were really amazing and they changed into a different set of costumes after each dance. They must have performed about 10 different dance styles.
	The music was all live and performed by two old russian men with flowing moustaches holding squeezy-box and drums.		It was wonderful atmosphere all evening! We really felt that we had travelled back in time to a genuine folkdance festival.
		It's remarkable the performers managed to keep up such incredibly vigorous dancing for almost two hours and put such dynamism into each dance.
	The men were particularly impressive with the jumping, dives and rolls and backflips - all perfectly synchronised.		We were very lucky to see such an authentic folk-dance display. It was a one-off show here and hasn't appeared since.






		Easter Samara
	On Easter day, Mathew & me were invited by the Steiner school here to celebrate Easter with them out in a clearing in the forest.		A few hours later a train deposited us all far out in the middle of a forest of Scott's pine & silver birch. It was great for playing games!
	There were about 50 children & assorted parents and teachers and we all built a big fire for cooking and prepared a banquet.		The children all hung brightly painted eggs on the trees around and performed Easter carols with recorders and singing.