Moscow 1950's

Last year purely by accident I stumbled upon a fantastic book by John Steinbeck called a Russian journal. I would imagine it is not his most widely known work though it is absolutely worth reading if you are interested in Russia or Soviet Union. Him and a brilliant photographer of that time Robert Capa were the first reporters to be allowed to come to the Soviet Union (1948) to document the life of Russian people. And so this book is a sort of their diary. Brilliant and funny for me it also contained very many little details from the past about things that are dear to me now. I was under the spell of this book for a long time.
I remembered about it today because I found these amazing photographs of Moscow in 1954. The author is a French photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson -the father of modern photojournalism. He published them later as "People of Moscow". I hope you would agree with me that the women of Moscow were stunningly beautiful! Well they still are:)

Crisp winter morning

I took these pictures about a week ago. It was fabulous to wake up to such a beautiful sight! Right after breakfast we were outside sliding down our hill.

Birthday Party

A couple of weeks ago we went to a girl's birthday party at paint studio. Kids had a blast and so did I. Couldn't stop taking pictures with my iphone.

Turkish wedding

I've been moving my data from one laptop to another and so I found the pictures I took this past summer in Turkey. I remember being very excited when I witnessed this authentic wedding. It was not at all what my wedding looked like and since it all was unfolding right on the street where my husband's parents live I knew I had to take lots of pictures.
It was a day long wedding with lots of interesting details so I will try to share with you what I saw.

It all started early in the morning with a lonely sheep tied down to a entryway into an apartment building. And then 2 musicians arrived. They were to announce to everyone in the neighborhood about wedding. That was seriously loud!Towards noon the sheep was pulled away into an empty lot near the house and was prepared for a big event.

When the bride and a groom arrived they watched the ceremony of sheep sacrifice and then with blessings from their guests they went into there future home. The guests meanwhile were invited to their tables that were arranged basically on the street. The bride did not join them. She stayed in her room with all her friends until dusk.

In the evening the men went on dancing on the street . The bride and her girlfriends were still upstairs. When the dusk came the celebrations continued. Another ceremony had to be performed.And then of course more dancing. The bride was just so gorgeous!

Halloween

What a beautiful warm day it was...

Moscow 2003

Found some pictures of Moscow I took back in 2003. Please don't judge the quality since I did not have a good camera back then. Don't you love this lady on a second picture ?