Virtual Advent Blog Tour 2012

 

Welcome everyone to A Piece of My Mind!

This is my fifth post for the Virtual Advent Blog Tour. I came across it in 2007, my first year of blogging. In the five years since then, it has been a favorite tradition for me here. So it's with a special sense of excitement that I share with you the most incredible tale of wishes coming true.

Many people, including me, like to usher in the new year with intention. I make a point of including symbolic hopes for the year to come in our celebration. For example, even if our fun is casual and includes just my mom, my husband and myself, we deck ourselves in bling and use the best china and crystal, toast in the new year, open the front door to let the new year in and the back door to let the old year out. That's my mom, below, welcoming 2010. 

 

 

Last year the three of us had a Russian New Year's celebration. Why Russian, you may ask? I thought you were French Acadian.

 

Well, once upon a time - 28 years ago, actually, my sister and I made friends with a Russian cadet from a marine college who sailed into Halifax Harbour aboard the tall ship Kruzenshtern as part of the 1984 Tall Ships Festival. 

 

 

 

You can read about this romantic tale here:

13 Things About the Most Romantic Story You'll Ever Hear

The Iron Curtain was a pretty big obstacle, back in the day. Although we made plans to visit him in his home town of Yaroslavl, he wrote that he’d been drafted into the army and would be there for two years. This was in the late 80s during Russia’s conflict with Afghanistan.

After that, we lost contact with Rashid Kamalov and could only wonder what had become of him.

My love of Russian culture (which had brought us to see the Kruzenshtern in the first place) continued unabated over the years. Of course my passion for all things ballet can never get enough of Russian dancers. I love Russian films, Russian actors, Russian singers and the Russian language.

This led to discovering the completely magical set of New Year’s films, Ironiya sudby and the sequel. So last year, we rang in 2012 with a duplication of the feast shown in those films with a combination of my mom cooking up some dishes, and with us ordering dishes from a Russian restaurant across the harbor in Halifax.

 

 

 

Then we watched the movie.

 

 

We used all the best dishes, the best crystal, the best prosecco from the imported wines store.

 





In my mind was the intention that I would one day make my way to St. Petersburg in Russia to see the Mariinsky Ballet perform at the Mariinsky theatre.

The unspoken longing to hear from Rashid was just a part of me. It was part of everything Russian that I loved.

Fast forward to the late spring. I stumbled upon a fantastic Russian historical series Bednaya Nastya on You Tube which I then watched on viki.com with subtitles. My husband became utterly addicted to it and watched it with me. It was awesome.

My comprehension of Russian really grew. I bought a few learn-to-speak-Russian books, kept watching Russian films, made a Russian-song playlist and listened to it constantly.

In August I appeared as an author at Fan Expo in Toronto with my two releases, SAINT SANGUINUS and BOUND BYDRAGONSFYRE. I held a contest for local Toronto book store gift certificates and contacted the winners by email.

I kept checking my spam folder in case the whole contest thing was driving their replies into that folder.

Otherwise I never would have checked my spam folder.

I never would have seen this staring at me:

Рашид Камалов Hi my dearest girles!!! I very happy get your m...

That’s right. The word that looks sort of like ‘pawned’ is really ‘Rashid’ in the Cryllic alphabet.

All my blogging and all of my longtime readers’ hopes that we would one day reunite, all of the searching online and sending out hopeful ‘Is this you?’ messages

CAME TRUE

Rashid is now my Facebook friend.

For realz.

 



 

My holiday wish for all of you this year: meet 2013 with intention. The universe is listening.

5 on Friday - Set 128

Travis at Trav's Thoughts invites everyone to lay down a short set of music that takes their fancies for his 5 on Friday meme.

Here in Halifax it's Tall Ships time--the vessels began arriving on Wednesday, and will be in port until Monday. I'm planning to spend my lunch hour from work tomorrow down on the waterfront, strolling past those beautiful ships.

So this week's 5 on Friday is a look back at 1984, the year Halifax hosted its first Tall Ships event--and the one that has never been surpassed.

That year there were so many of the Class A ships (the largest and most stately of the square-rigged vessels) including the Russian ship Kruzenshtern. If you missed my tale of The Summer of My Sister's Russian Sailor, first posted here in 2009, follow these links:

13 Things About the Most Romantic Story You'll Ever Hear

13 Things About Travelling 25 Years Back in Time 

EXCITING UPDATE: As I linked up these posts, I discovered a comment in Russian from March of this year. Between my two Russian phrase books and the online translator, this is what it says:

Hello Julia.

Very interesting to read your publication. I was on Kruzenshtern during that journey. The only regret is that I know nothing of value of Rashid. But promise to try to find out. And that is Valery. I saw him a little less than two years ago. He is now on the sea and living in Kaliningrad.

WOO HOO!!!

спасибо! Spaciba!! (Thank you, thank you, thank you!!)

I hope to hear from you again!

~~~~

Back in 1984, when we met up with Rashid and Yuri, we had a ghettoblaster that ran on D batteries which we took in the car with us to play our mixed cassettes. I started taking it onboard the ship when we were allowed on, and started recording our conversations over the music mixes I'd made.

So the following three songs are on that tape, and whenever I hear them I'm automatically thinking about that time and wondering how Rashid is doing now.

1 - Dance Hall Days - Wang Chung 

2 - Safety Dance - Men Without Hats

3 - Time After Time - Cyndi Lauper

4 - стаканы (Glass) - Akvarium (Aquarium)

I've included this song, featuring clips from the Russian historical drama which my husband and I are obsessively watching, because I love the way it sounds remarkably like the Celtic rock style favored by East Coast Canadian musicians.


Plus, I love all the drinking in this show!

Bednaya Nastya




5 - Orinoco Flow - Enya




This is footage of the Kruzenshtern in action.

Added bonus: a short feature on life aboard the Kruzenshtern.

Thursday Thirteen - 133 - 13 Random Shots From 2009

- 1








- 2












- 3












- 4












- 5












- 6












- 7












- 8












- 9













- 10












- 11












- 12












- 13

Summer Stock Sunday - 9

Last week I brought you the story of Rashid Kamalov and my attachment to the Russian tall ship Kruzenshtern.

For today's Summer Stock Sunday, I invite you to take a harbourside spot and enjoy the 2009 Parade of Sail.

Incredible but true - I work right on the waterfront, and headed out among the throng when my lunch break started at 12:00. I snagged a spot beside the wharf where all the navy brass and other dignitaries were sitting.














That meant that I was in the right spot to get a ship's gun salute each time one of the tall ships passed. And Halifax had a gun in place to return the salute. I just loved it.














Two fire boats began their celebratory spray - the signal that the parade was officially started.














As the host country, the parade's lead ship was the schooner Bluenose II. That's her in the background behind the piper.

















If you've ever had a Canadian dime in your hand, you were looking at the Bluenose II.














And here's the real thing.













The Pride of Baltimore II gives Halifax its salute.














Our navy guys return the salute with a farewell.














The Netherlands' Europa glides past the Nova Scotia Hospital, a mental health facility on the Dartmouth side of the harbour. I watched the 2007 Parade of Sail from there.














The Amistad heads out for open water.














The rigging of the Picton Castle towers over the crowd as the three-masted barque sails past.














The Picton Castle














US Coast Guard training ship, the Eagle

At this point, my lunch hour was over and I had to head reluctantly back to work. The Kruzenshtern hadn't made an appearance yet, as she always ends the parade as the last out of the harbour.

One of my friends at work dashed out at 2:00, saying, "The Russian one's going now!"

Desperate, I called another woman from my team to cover my position for five minutes so I could dash out and get a final look at the Kruzenshtern.














Ah. There she was. Even missing the top of her foremast, which broke off on the way up the eastern seaboard, between Bermuda and South Carolina, she's still a grand lady.

I hurried back inside, but my manager knew I was chomping at the bit to get back out there. He gave me the okay to watch the end of the Parade of Sail. So out I went again, snapping away with my camera.














The Mist of Avalon leans into the wind, followed by the sloop Fazizi, and in the distance the Silva, whose home port is Halifax.














The Harvey Gamage is followed by the Unicorn, with the Kruzenshtern in the distance.














The Sagres, from Portugal.


















This is me standing beside the Sagres when she was moored near the Kruzenshtern. Just wanted you to get a peek at the red-cross-detailing on the front of her sails.














Brasil's Cisne Branco rounds the final corner as she heads out to sea. Following her is my final moments with the Kruzenshtern - can you tell I dread the farewell?














The Cisne Branco.






















Until we meet again...

For more Summer Stock Sunday, drop by Robin's blog at Around the Island.

Robin says All those tall ships have me itching to reread the Master and Commander series.

Dina says I enjoyed your series very much. Fancy all those in one place, super ships...

Akelamalu says I will content myself with your great photos of the event. :)

Thursday Thirteen - 116 - 13 Things About Travelling 25 Years Back in Time

1 - Setting the scene

Last week I told you the romantic tale of the first Tall Ships festival that came to my home port of Halifax, Nova Scotia. The year was 1984 - I was 19, my sister was 16, and a trek down to the waterfront to see the huge Russian tall ship resulted in my sister and one of the Russian sailors falling for one another.

We met the Kruzenshtern again when it sailed into Sydney Harbour in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. Michelle and Rashid spent every second together, as if it were the last they would ever see of each other.

Because it was.

After writing to each other for two years, Rashid was drafted into the Soviet army and presumably sent to Afghanistan. Though my sister and I had obtained travel visas and were planning a trip to see Rashid in his hometown, political reality crushed their plans - and we never heard from Rashid after that.


2 - Fast-forward 25 years to 2009.

After living in Toronto for over a decade, both my sister and I returned home to Halifax. I'm now married and my sister is in a long term relationship with a truly wonderful man.

When we heard that the Kruzenshtern was due to arrive in Halifax this summer for the 2009 Tall Ships event, we knew we would go aboard her together - for old times' sake.


3 - Last Thursday, July 16th, all the ships arrived in port and I went down to the harbour front on my own to see them.

It was a heart-swelling moment when I first laid eyes on the masts of the Kruzenshtern high above Pier 23. And definitely bittersweet.

The route for the tall ships event included stops in Hamilton, Bermuda and Charleston, South Carolina - and between those two ports the Kruzenshtern lost the top half of the foremast in nasty weather.


In this 1984 photo, you can see Rashid waving to my sister from the middle yard, just to the right of the mast.


The part of the mast where he stood is now missing.


The remains are now secured on deck.


4 - On Sunday, July 19th, my sister and I drove over to Halifax, parked in the south end and walked down to Pier 23. Though the configuration of the docks has altered in 25 years, the Kruzenshtern was moored in the same basic area as it was when we spent all those hours talking to him over the side of the ship. Its immense size means there's only one real place it can be accommodated - where the modern cruise ships now dock.

Rashid once stood where that Russian cadet stood, at the bottom of the gangplank. That's how we met him in the first place. We just started chatting with him. Imagine.

Of course there was a line-up to get aboard. We had to wait for a bit, until enough visitors disembarked.


This is my sister once again boarding the Kruzenshtern after all these years.


5 - Surreal!


Talk about Flash-back City.


Everything on deck was just as it was when we were last aboard. Except for our missing friends, of course. Especially Rashid.


6 - Some things were exactly the same, but so many things were magically different. See where Rashid was standing in 1984? During the time when the Iron Curtain was in place, most of the Kruzenshtern was off-limits to the public. Only the central section of the upper deck was allowed to visitors, including my sister and me - even when we got secretly waved aboard when Soviet officials were elsewhere.


On Sunday we were allowed to roam the entire length of the deck, from stem to stern. This shot was taken from the same location where Rashid stood in the picture above.


7 - The flag that flew from the stern of the ship in 1984 was of course the red hammer and sickle of the Soviet Union.


This time it was the restored flag of the Russian Federation.


The traditional Russian flag was first flown in the mid-1600's, and was restored to use in 1991. After a 70-year blip, Russia is Russia once more.



8 - In the some-things-don't-change category: apparently I'm a big fan of salmon pink.

This is me wearing salmon pink capris, standing beside Valery in 1984.


And this is me wearing a salmon pink t-shirt, standing beside one of the ship's wheels this past Sunday.


9 - But you can bet there weren't any tables selling souvenirs in 1984. The evils of capitalism, don't you know.

This year, however, I bought myself a lovely baseball cap with a picture of the Kruzenshtern embroidered on the front, along with the name in Cyrillic script.


10 - In the knock-me-over-with-a-feather category: When the Kruzenshtern was here in 1984, the Soviet state was officially atheist. Although when the universe kept smoothing the way for my sister and Rashid to spend time together - when everything was stacked against them - the Russian sailors often pointed to the sky and indicated they believed God was stepping in.


But who knew this magnificent chapel was hiding behind water-tight iron doors aboard ship?


Just amazing.








11 - We'd never seen this beautiful carved bench before. But it looks old enough to have been already old in 1984.


It was up there on the aft section of the deck.


12 - The thing that touched us the most about this visit from the Kruzenshtern was seeing one or two Russian cadets free to roam around Halifax however they wanted.

In the Soviet era, they were barely allowed off the ship - and then, only in groups of a dozen or even twenty. Accompanied of course by official minders.

Not anymore!

Before we left the ship, we talked to an extremely handsome crew member - I'm serious. He was model-gorgeous. We asked whether there was a Rashid Kamalov on board.

We didn't expect him to be there - and he wasn't. Rashid was a cadet from a marine college when we met him, and the sailors aboard the current Kruzenshtern are cadets from the same college. But there is regular crew, as well, so we had to ask. Just in case.


13 - The Parade of Sail took place Monday, beginning at 12:00. Lucky for me - yes, really really lucky! - I work right down on the waterfront. And my lunch is from 12:00 to 1:00. I enjoyed the Parade of Sail with tons of other people. I love hanging out with the masses.

However, the Kruzenshtern is the diva of the tall ships, and didn't head into the harbour until I was back at work. I was quite down about missing her, but my friend Tracy raced past me on her way to see the ships at 2:00, saying, "The Russian one's going now!"

I asked one of the women from my team to cover my position for five minutes while I raced out and caught the Kruzenshtern making her majestic way along the harbour.


I knew it would take awhile for the ship to make its way down to my building. I returned to work for a bit, then asked my manager if I could high tail it back to the waterfront to watch her depart. Of course he said yes!

Here the Kruzenshtern follows behind the Cisne Branco from Brazil.


Goodbye, beloved.





Hope it's not too long before I see you again.



Here's a time lapse camera version of 2009's Parade of Sail.

The tall ships appear at the 1:20 mark.

When the fire boats turn on their spray at the 2:45 mark, the parade is officially underway.

The Kruzenshtern enters the harbour from the right at the 4:55 mark, and is seen best at the 5:12 mark.



Janet in Michigan says I am so happy to find one of you girls. Oh I can't believe how much you look like Aunt Sheila in the photo where I can only see your nose and eyes.

Hootin' Anni says Love the memories, and the time forward to today. Great idea.

Hazel says I must say my heart sank when I read - "Because it was." Can't help wondering where could Rashid be now.