Night from Saturday to Sunday in the last week of February 1982.The night after spending the day in foggy and slightly rainy Washington D.C. When I inadvertently came across the back door of the White House, without a line, and I walked through the corridors and halls where decisions are made about the destiny of…
Tag: adventure
The Mulberries in Brooklyn
Morus nigra, called black mulberry is a species of flowering plant in the family Moraceae that is native to southwestern Asia, where it has been cultivated for so long that its precise natural range is unknown. The black mulberry is known for its large number of chromosomes.Morus nigra is a deciduous tree growing to 12…
Morning Prayer in Bukhara
From the beginnings of Islam, there have been three types of mosques: Djuma mosques, which are intended for the large crowds that come to Friday services, Namazga country mosques (musalla idgoh), which are used by the male population of both the city and the surrounding countryside to celebrate the two Muslim holidays Qurban and Ramazan,…
With Alamut on Alamut
“I wrote for a modern audience, and yet! I had the feeling that I was simultaneously writing for an audience that will live fifty years from now, and almost also for an audience that lived fifty years ago.” – Vladimir Bartol about his novel Alamut Alamut is a novel by Vladimir Bartol, first published in…
Ayurvedic Fennel Soup
Let’s cook some soup today. Fennel one. With some Indian spices to make it look Ayurvedic.What is fennel anyway?Fennel (Foeniculum vulgare) is a flowering plant species in the carrot family. It is a hardy, perennial herb with yellow flowers and feathery leaves. It is indigenous to the shores of the Mediterranean but has become widely…
How to Open a Bottle of Wine
Of course, we are talking about those real bottles of wine that are still closed with a cork stopper. Unfortunately, many bottles today are closed with a metal cap. Some with plastic fake cork. And wine in a tetrapak is also available… without comment.So to open classic bottles we need a corkscrew.The Cambridge Dictionary records…
Having Capuccino in New York
New York in the Gay Eighteen Nineties had almost everything, except for a place where an opera lover, after a night of Verdi or Puccini, could relax, play a Neapolitan card game called “Scopa” and drink a cup or two of espresso.The story behind the opening of the oldest paticceria in the U.S. in 1892…
Samarkand Bread
One hot July in 2015, on the way from Andijan to Tashkent, I came across a roadside bread stand.What a wealth of smell, shape, taste…Samarkand non or “Samarkand bread” is a traditional bread from Uzbekistan. It is a very popular bread that accompanies the numerous dishes of the traditional Uzbek cuisine.It differs in its sizes,…
How I Swallowed the Beating Heart of a Cobra
What can we say about eating cobra meat?A particularly high content of linoleic acid in snake meat has a certain effect on the prevention and treatment of vascular sclerosis. Snake meat is rich in calcium, magnesium and other elements. It exists in the form of protein fusion, so it can be well absorbed and utilized…
Crossing Ukraine
Odessa, Ukraine, August 1992.In the late afternoon, I should take the train to Lviv. But it turned out that there are no free seats on the night express.So me and five girls spent the night in a hotel built during socialist era. There was a bar on the tenth floor. A few locals and the…