Varvara Prockopuck (le fabuleux destin de)

Something that I am at a loss to explain about myself is a vague attraction to derelict stuff. Perhaps it's a carnal small boy's need to explore things that look unsafe, slightly spooky, and that you're probably not supposed to go into. And somehow it's even better when it's former communist. Breaching the defenses of Prague's enormous Strahov stadium in 2001 (i.e. climbing up a crumbling concrete staircase and through a rusty gate that some vandal had already forced open) was very good indeed.

The Strahov, decrepit and falling apart in 2001.
Biggest stadium in the world. Space for 250 000 spectators. Major flaw: there was absolutely no need for it.
(Now sadly converted into a shiny new training complex. Capitalism huh?)

Giant examples of Soviet monuments, design, and architecture, are of course dotted around the former USSR and the Eastern bloc. Lenin's statues, Stalin's Palaces of Culture, or outsized sports venues and civic buildings that are disused, uncompleted, never filled. I don't know what it is about them exactly. (To put it in pure essay-speak: I find something very evocative about these concrete carcasses making exaggerated eulogies to a flawed and fallen dream. In layman's terms: they're huge, they're wrong, they're ugly, and I can't get enough of them. Mike's blog features a classic example of this kind of thing.) And then there are the great and proud Soviet technological projects:

The legendary Tupolev-144.
Faster, more powerful, and slightly larger than Concorde. Major flaw: it tended to crash.

So we decided we needed to visit these places. Kaliningrad, Moscow, Kyiv, Chernobyl. And most of all, Belarus, the country that tries to pretend the Iron Curtain never came down. I particularly enjoyed the story about President "just call me Dad" Lukashenka dropping the 500-year old national flag, only a few years after finally regaining independence, in favour of a red-green effort designed by a Soviet committee in 1952. And then, as an afterthought, making Russian the offical language instead of, er, Belarussian. The problem being that I speak no Russian at all, and Mike's grasp of the language is rudimentary to say the least. So it would be difficult to get around.

Dinamo Kyiv.

Brilliantly marshalled side that played scintillating football based on secret mathematical formulae. Major flaw: had to sell all their best players.

So we want to go to the former CCCP, but speak little Russian, so ideally need a competent local to take on tour guide duties.

One obvious solution.

Search for English speaking wenches on Belarus bride agencies.

Of course, Timberblog does not approve of these terrible, exploitative meat-markets, promoting the image of the Sheila as little more than a trophy, promising a fake golden ticket to desperate Rich Western Man or desperate Poor Eastern Wummun. Catalogue brides for plastic marriages followed by VISA obtention and quicky divorce. But it's a fabulous way of comparing who you think is fit. I mean, it's a fascinating study in applied psychoanalysis with regard to male sexual instinct and identity. Hey, girls can join in too - just search for "males, age: 40-99, interests: computers". To start with I kind of liked the exotically named Natalia 61503 from Gomel, but decided she might be a bit of a gold-digger, and then became distracted by Varvara the Kazakh. Varvara Prockopuck. Daft name, no wonder she wants to get married.

Varvara Prockopuck.
Enjoys travel, hiking, and playing the piano - like me. Comes from Kazakhstan - cool. Major flaw: has an itchy neck.

There she is. Now I'm sure it's only a matter of time before she googles her own name and finds Timberblog. So, listen, dear, you're 19, that's far too young to be ruining your life getting married to some property speculator dude from New Hampshire. No, you want to be a tour guide. Your home town of Temirtau sounds brilliant, I've been attracted to it ever since I read -

"a grey skyline of mostly redundant smoke-stacks, blast furnaces, residential apartment blocks made from untreated concrete, and the ubiquitous, Soviet, above-ground utility supply pipes." - Simon Forrester, UNV Programme Officer

I was wondering if you'd show me around some day. In exchange I'll, er, teach you jazz piano improvisation, and take you hiking in the beautiful hill country of Créteil, Bondy, and Melun. Yes. And now I'm going to stop making stupid blog entries, walk across the islands, and buy a crepe from Faybo, who is valiantly trying to have as many jobs as I do.