Let's see with what I am going to come up today... There's no special thoughts. The main news, I guess, is that spring is coming, sloooowly, very sloooowly though. Today is the First of May - back home it always was a big holiday: spring, mood, parade, music... When I think about all Soviet holidays I always think of the holidays of my childhood. I am from a small town where good neighbours mean everything, where everybody knows, who you are and where you come from , your parents, grand parents, etc. We call each other by a "street" name, it means some name that got stuck to you or may be to your grand pa, and some time it's the one that should be rated... 
Tradition was a great thing too. For example, we couldn't do gardening or laundry, or sewing on Sunday. Nobody attended church,(there were no church!), nobody talked about church, religion, believes, but there was God in every house.Some of them had Icons, some didn't , but everybody cherished Sundays, Easter, many other religious dates.... I cannot explain how we knew, because we didn't study it at school, my mom was born in the Soviet state, my dad's dad was fighting for unity of Belarus. But we knew when to eat the first apple, and what flowers to bring for Easter. All holidays were like Christmas. So The First of May was a holiday of hope - don't you have that kind of feeling every spring, when you see fresh green leaves, grass, flowers, when blackbird's song is the sweetest song ever, and the evening is so fresh, and the smell of a bird cherry is wrapping you?... (and note, there's no allergy!) All the neighbours are out - from small to old - because how can one be inside during such evening? (thanks God, there were no computers, iPods, i -anything... and we could live).
All these feelings come back to me when I am in a park, near some river or in some nice neighbourhood...
