Hi there, I'm back on Blogger!
The journey goes on.

*In Moscow, no real changes in my life. Starting mid-September, I'm going to work for the same 2 language schools, the same locations, to live in the same place. In March I took the CAE and got 93%, grade A, meaning my level is C2 (the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages), although the exam itself is aimed at C1. Before I realised I have a document saying 'C2' (the highest level of the current CEF), I'd already registered for the next CPE session. And I know what I must work on.

*In Bulgaria, in 2 weeks we're buying a studio next to Chernomorets, between Burgas and Sozopol, and I'm there now, cleaning everything after the workers and buying stuff. That is a huge change for me! The first time buying something that important, even that it's only a summer time property and, not being citizens of the EU, we won't have the right to live here for more than 3 months each half a year. We didn't have anything here, so step by step I started setting up home. A couple of days ago I bought something like a camp bed (like this) to sleep on, to have an alternative to my mat. Yesterday I had the kitchen installed, today I bought the first chair, for the balcony. =D
People of my age and social strata buy flats in Moscow, using mortgage, but they get married and have jobs in the corporate sector - obviously, I'm absolutely atypical in this respect.

*As for the diet and water consumption, not much change either. I try to eat more seasonal food, from the Moscow region, southern regions, Ukraine, Armenia, Uzbekistan when possible. Now in Bulgaria I buy produce from Bulgaria (2 kinds of blueberries, peaches, tomatoes, cherries, dill, green and red pepper, cucumbers, champinions) Greece (grapes, peaches), Turkey (carrots, lemons) or Italy (white grapes) (well, and almonds from the USA).

*There've been 2 important family-related things so far this year - my granny's death at the age of 82 (? she didn't know her exact age) and my cousin's wedding. The former was foreseen, and when I saw her on Dec 30, I realised it was the last time, as I was going to Scandinavia for the winter vacation planned well in advance. Now I don't have grandparents any more. The latter happened on July 1, and I had been invited only 3 days in advance, incredible. But it was nice to see my younger cousin 'become serious' =)

*Again, there've been 2 important encounters so far this year - Jasmuheen and Eduardo Chianca. Jasmuheen visits Moscow and Saint-Petersburg every 2 years or so, but it was the first time she'd come after I'd learnt about her, and I was very happy to be able to participate in her workshop in May. We did a lot of meditations, I felt connected to/with the Universe. I had an opportunity to ask a couple of questions, out of the so many I have. Eduardo Chianca (pronounced 'shianka') is a healer from Brasil who travels the world giving lectures and workshops on Frequencies of Light (a method brought to us by the Pleiadians) and also giving private healing sessions. And this was the way I got acquainted with him and 2 more interesting people, Premavati and Elena.

*How I learnt of Eduardo is another story. Among all parts and organs of my physical body my lungs are most vulnerable and last winter I had a really bad cough, could hardly breathe. In May it came back even worse, I could walk only very slowly, with pauses to rest between floors. My body didn't want to help itself, and I didn't know which thought patterns I urgently needed to change to cure the emotional body first. The situation was awful. And then one day I receive an e-mail, sent out to many people I don't know, with an announcement about Eduardo's workshop and private sessions aimed at balancing chakras. I called the phone to ask how my e-mail got on that mailing list, but they couldn't answer, then we came to the conclusion that it could have been passed on by somebody who had taken our e-mails at Jasmuheen's workshop. I was interested in balancing chakras and asked about a private session and got on the list. The location for it was a room used by a Russian practitioner (Elena) not far from my place (some 30-40 minutes by marshrutka and tram), a pleasant fact bearing in mind distances and traffic in Moscow). So I got an appointment for myself and my Mum, it was part of my birthday present for her. I felt the session was very useful for me, I felt different afterwards (my Mum didn't feel anything, so we 'closed the topic'), Eduardo answered my questions, his answers and his questions and comments seemed sometimes superficial, sometimes very deep, he confirmed some of my guesses, but there was something which surprised me. Well, the thing about my lungs is related to the throat chakra, I need to express myself, my emotions, not to keep everything to me, to say what I think openly, but in a positive way. With my job I can't do it, I even lie about certain things, I can't say "you're naughty and you don't care a thing about this rule, why don't you tell your parents and don't come here again" to a pupil! And I haven't figured out how to change that yet. And I can't talk about things that really interest me with my dear people because they are not interested at all, they don't feel what I feel, they don't feel energies, they think I should think about money and getting married. It's very difficult for me not to be able to talk about this aspect of my life, and very sad. Any potential father of my future children around me now believes he and they must eat meat and is against my way. I think everybody can choose their way, we are on Earth for different experiences, so I accept both a meat-free and a meat diet and respect (or try to respect) people who eat meat or go hunting regardless. Nethertheless I am yet to meet a man who will accept or, better, want our children to be fed on a raw diet till they're 18 and choose for themselves.

*Premavati is Eduardo's interpreter (English-Russian) when he's in Russia. She is present during the beginning and the end of each session, and waits outside during the main part. So while I was waiting outside and she came out, we talked. There were more people, and I learnt some facts from her biography. She was one of those who brought the Krishna movement to the USSR, spread knowledge back then in the 80s, spent some time in prison for it. She's the director of the related radio station. She seems to know in person everyone I might ask about in this world now (Jasmuheen or the director of one publishing house in Moscow...). And she says she's the current reincarnation of StGermain... Whether it's true or not, I don't care. What's important for me is that I heard this only a couple of days after I had learnt about the violet flame! (The violet flame is said to be the healing instrument taught by StGermain)

*Elena is a practitioner who received initiations from Eduardo and now uses the Frequencies of Light. For my lungs one session with Eduardo wasn't enough.
2 weeks after that session I realised my lungs needed urgent help. I thought I was dying several times, ventolin (the medication for people who can't breathe well) didn't help any more, and I didn't want to use anything else, anything stronger (it was the only medication I used since I became a rawfoodist). My Mum insisted that I should go and see a doctor from the hospital which specialises in respiratory system problems. She found a way for me to get there, and I went. The doctor listened to my lungs, said what I knew myself, made some comments unrelated to the problem, and I started crying, my nerves were really very bad then, I was too sensitive. The traditional pulmonologist wanted to put me on a drip in hospital, I said no, thanked her and went away. I asked the Universe/the Source to bring me a way to cure my lungs, I wrote it down in my diary, and within a week I remembered about Elena, called her, made an appointment to check my chakras as we had agreed and I had such a bad cough while in her room, that she gave me an unplanned free session of Frequencies of Light. We had 3 more sessions and I drank 2 bottles of Si water (silicon dissolved in water in a special way so that it forms gel) called "Унигель". The result is unbelieable! One week of this treatment - and I can breathe again! I can sleep on the back! I feel the smells! It's fantastic. My gratitude was enormous. During the sessions I kept thanking the Pleiadians, Eduardo, Elena and God. Those were paid sessions. And after them Elena gave me a present of 4 sessions of EMF, and they were fantastic, especially the 4th one - one of the brightest experiences in my life.
Then, right before leaving Moscow for Bulgaria, I had 2 more sessions of Frequencies of Light (I love them). I'm so happy I was shown a medication-free way to cure my lungs! And I like the process, so I hope to be seeing Elena from time to time for another session. But of course, without my personal work on myself I won't progress.

*I love the centering exercise by Laura Silva Quesada. I read the free online Silva course, the last lesson is here (the other lessons are on the right)
*I read about Edgar Cayce, a name widely known in America but absolutely unknown in Russia. Some of his advice doesn't feel good to me, but I decided to follow his advice on cancer prevention and eat 3 almonds a day.
*I came across a bioshop in Burgas, a nice place, obviously less expensive than in the Netherlands or Belgium.
*Every day I see a new bird or animal here. There's a brown horse on the field next to Chernomorets. Once right before dawn I saw an owl on the neighbour's balcony, today I saw goats next to that horse. On my way to the beach I saw a tortoise crawling across the road. Some crabs, jellyfish, grey fish in the sea. And of course, kittens in the streets of Burgas, a lot of grasshoppers, spiders and mosquitoes on the field, in my flat.
*I know that people who feel energies much better than me say roses bring good energy, that bad energies don't like being with roses, and as I don't have a cat to let it enter the new flat first (it's a Russian and not only Russian tradition/superstition), I bought a vase with a rose on it and a cut rose. I love flowers! Living, in pots, and finishing their life, cut (they're doing a great job giving people positive emotions), so guys next time you see me, give me some flowers =)

Prices at the Preobrazhensky market

July is a wonderful month! It's warm, the daylight is long, and there are so many yummy things at the market. I've been focusing on fruit and berries recently.

1 EUR ~ 44.5 RUR
Cherries: 40-50 RUR a kilo
Sweet cherries: 50-80-100-120-150 RUR dark, pink&yellow. Yellow sweet cherries from Armenia 200RUR (my favourite)
Peaches: from Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, the Crimea (Ukraine). 40-70-80-100-150 RUR, my choice is 80 RUR
Nectarines: 40-80-90-120 RUR
Blueberry: from Vladimir, Murom (regions in Russia). 70-80-90-110 RUR a kilo
Raspberry: from different Russian regions. 100-120-150 RUR a box (~700gr)
Melons: Astrakhan, Uzbekistan. torpedo, kolkhoznitsa (varieties). 40-50-80 RUR a kilo
Hazelnuts: South Ossetya. a new harvest, those milky hazelnuts, sold still covered with the green part, love them. 150 RUR a kilo. Sold only at one stall.

Nuts and seeds

Yesterday I tried raw unsalted pistachio nuts and loved them a lot! I know only one place in Moscow where they are sold, and not that cheap (165 RUR per 0.5 kg, 1 EUR ~ 43.5 RUR). We ate the 300 gr too quickly =)
Something is wrong with the white sesame I bought. I put it to soak, but today it smells bad and doesn't start to germinate after enough time for this.
After I started to soak all seeds I don't like them dry anymore. They change their taste after the crucial moment of waking up due to water.

Sesame / Sprouts / Weekend Market

Sesame seeds:
Yes! After 2 days they started to germinate. I am content. So sesame milk is going to be my daily drink for the coming weeks.

Really living food:
More sprouts of all kinds when they are up to 1 cm long and wheat grass up to 10 cm. This, the wheat grass thing, will be my next step. Already know where to order and when.

Weekend market:
Hurray, sweet cherry from the Tashkent region (Uzbekistan)! At affordable prices (350 RUR a kilo, 1 EUR ~ 44 RUR), in comparison with the cherry sold at Azbuka vkusa supermarkets (750-1500 RUR a kilo). And strawberry that smells strawberry, from Krasnodar greenhouses.

Soaps / Sesame / Ekadashi / Mum

Soaps:
I like natural soaps, love to choose them for presents =), but it's not easy to find one without animal fat or glycerin. So I am happy now as a wonderful savon d'argan artisanal came to me as a present from Morocco (soap with argan oil by Coopérative Marjana, à 14 km d'Essaouira sur la route de Marrakech). If you have never tried it you don't know how pleasant a soap can be!

Some recent changes:
The colour of my skin is getting whiter and pinker. I noticed it only today looking at my hands and I really like this change! Since several days ago I have been feeling cold. I know this is usual for many people who just start switching to raw foodism. In my case I felt wonderful in September-October, slept with a fully open window with 13C. But now it's 20C in my apartment, and I am wearing a sweatsuit.

My weight is low but stable (obviously, the BMI shows I am underweight). My mum's weight has changed considerably but gradually and smoothly, minus 10 kg since December (~5 months). She didn't limit the amount of food nor restricted the number of products. Just ate everything she wanted, raw, with a bit of salt, then sea salt, black pepper, some oil; during the last 5 months she had, besides raw food, some thin Armenian pita (лаваш), bread, several times she ate boiled potatoes, braised vegetables, stchi (Russian cabbage soup, щи) and puff pastry patties (слоёные пирожки), some cheese, milk, coffee. It was a drastic change in eating habits for her, but she feels much better with her current food preferences, which makes me happy as well. She perceives it as a temporary diet, but how suitable is the word "temporary" when she is going to keep to it for the coming year for sure? =).

Sesame seeds:
Read they are all treated with some alkalies in order to remove a specific taste of their hull. I don't know if to trust this info, but yesterday I put some seeds to soak to see if they are alive. By now none has started to germinate.

Ekadashi:
Still try to follow it twice a month. Yesterday it was ekadashi, but I did eat, so I am having a dry fasting today, on dvadashi, instead. My mum joined me today.

A post with pics

La-la-la, my mum has just returned from Morocco and brought me 3 types of dates and several oranges. In such countries oranges are usually not treated when they are for the domestic market, and you can see that they are different from what is sold in supermarkets in countries-importers. They are not that clean and the orange-peel colour is not homogeneous. The taste is superb.

Tomatoes:
One of the Azeri tomatoes I bought at the weekend market contained no seeds! I couldn't eat it. The rest were ok and tasted good.

I read a comment (#11) by somebody whose tastes coincide with mine :)

My fridge can look like this sometimes:

Black sesame "milk":
Yesterday I prepared it for the first time and I loved it! Surely I'll buy some raw white sesame seeds and try them this way as well. Sesame is a wonderful source of Ca as Ca from it assimilates best. For me sesame milk is a way to drink more water without making myself do it.

Open air market/Dried fruits

Every Friday to Sunday there is a week-end open air market in each part of Moscow. In my area we have one half-way to my mom's workplace and every Friday we buy groceries from one and the same stall with produce from the Oryol region. It is hard to find a farm in Russia that would know how to preserve well agricultural produce the whole winter (November-March) due to low technological level of their storage facilities. And I guess we are lucky to have found some contacts. Their prices are higher than the average prices on that local market, but we noticed we are not the only regular customers of theirs. Thus, good quality (and minimal giving light weight as opposed to the majority) does form loyalty =).
I know that by now apples from this part of the planet don't contain much nutritional value in general, but still it's something juicy and nice. Unfortunately, I noticed that I can eat only Russian, Ukrainian and Moldavian apples, not treated or treated much less than their "colleagues" from Poland (which used to be quite fine before Poland entered the EU), France, Holland, China (uff) or Latin America.
I got hooked on sunflower seeds. Since last week I've been really enjoying some 100 grams of big & tasty sunflower seeds from Uzbekistan a time, some 2-3 times a day. I am really happy we have such good economic relations at the level of vegetables, fruits, dried fruits, seeds and similar with the ex-Soviet republics of Central Asia. They are so poor that they don't treat their produce =) and thanks God the sanitation & epidemiological rules and standards for import to the Russian Federation are adequate, not exorbitant as in the EU.

My food preferences now

Basic stuff (from the regions nearby or neighbouring countries):
apples from the Lipetsk region (to the south from Moscow)
our own pumpkins (grown in the Moscow region)
white cabbage
carrots
hazelnuts from the Lipetsk region
dill from the Moscow or Kaluga region
sun-dried persimmon from Georgia (incl. Abkhazia)
sun-dried apricot (both with the freestone, урюк, and without, курага)
mung bean (green gram, маш) in germination
wheat seeds in germination
sunflower seeds

Products from faraway regions (need to minimize):
sun-dried dates from the Mediterranean region
citrus from Morocco
pineapple from Costa-Rica
mango from Peru
pears from Argentina

There are some products I would love to consume but they are not seasonal meaning too many fertilizers are used (cucumbers from greenhouses in nearby regions or Central Asia, tomatoes from Central Asia and paprika I don't know where it is from). But sometimes I do eat these.

Istanbul

Current location: Istanbul, Turkey
It's such a considerable change in veg quality! Fruits travel a long way to Holland, pass all kinds of treatments to be allowed to the internal market; locally veg and fruits are grown with too many chemicals to taste good. I was used to this neutral taste, and now it feels so good to eat more natural raw food!

I am eating tons of Turkish tangerines. They are simply great, and there was no treatment mentioned on the boxes. It's the season of pomegranates as well, and in small kiosks or cafes they offer freshly made pomegranate juice, a completely new experience for me.

Radish and lettuce, nice cucumbers and wonderful tomatoes - finally! After quite some time in the overcivilized EU! Please, Turkey, don't aim at entering the EU with their horrible agricultural standards!

Not raw. A lot. Recently, in Holland, sushi, seaweed salad (with some colour enhancer), in Turkey, black olives, baklava, Turkish bread, boiled potatoes with spices, several types of jam. The worst was that in the plane I ate some cheese included in the food they serve at 11000m, and I am sure it wasn't vegetarian. I feel guilty, it was the first time I ate something non-vegetarian fully understanding it.

Airport. In the shopping area for passengers at Schiphol there is a kiosk where they make smoothies, including with special nuances like addition of green tea and echinacea in powder. But vegetarian sushi were present only in the supermarket before the passport control.

Galata bridge. While passing by a fish restaurant Balik:
Come and see our menu - Thank you, I don't eat fish - Just come, I will show you vegetarian [dishes]. - OK.
Oh, what he showed... every single dish was with this or that kind of fish. In the end they offered me a glass of still water. And one of the waiters came up to me to talk about vegetarianism and how will I act when I get married and have children - how will I cook meat and fish for them... "Fish is very healthy, doctors say." But "I respect your choice" - this is phrase so pleasant to hear.

Spice market. So many spices, nuts, dried fruits, herbs... Amazing. I tasted and bought, among other things, raisins which were dried on the vine, sun-dried apricots and figs. They taste great.

What is "too much"?

I wonder if it is fine to eat some 600-800 g of different nuts everyday... One week in a row already...
And those 3 melons a day or a kilo of citrus, is it too much?

Temperature and food today

36.7C in the afternoon.

Melons, oranges, tangerines, chirimoya, bananas, nuts.

Today the wind is just fabulous! I walked in the neighbourhood and enjoyed it! And yesterday at night I walked around the town for about an hour. It's a small town, 20 minutes on foot from the southern border where I live to the centre. The air was very nice at night. But there were no stars unfortunately. 

Coconut

They say it is better to eat what grows in your area. I agree but am only in the beginning of my way to the best eating habits =). I love bananas which can't survive in the northern countries, and sometimes I am curious about exotic fruits. Several weeks ago I tried something for what I don't know the name. It has a very bright pink and green cover and tastes neutral (The nasty-looking brown thing is tamarind, produce of Thailand, it's sweet-sour.)


And today I opened a coconut, the first time myself. It took some ten minutes, next time it will be quicker. There are many tips on the web on how to crack a coconut (for example, http://www.wikihow.com/Open-a-Coconut). This is how I did.
First, I made holes in the 3 black spots at one of the ends of the coconut using a screwdriver. Then I poured the juice; I had some 100 ml. Thirdly, I placed the coconut on a flat surface, held it with one hand and hit the central part with the non-sharp end of a big knife several times, but it didn't work out as the knife I had was not heavy enough. So I used a nutcracker - it was the heaviest thing I had, and it opened. Btw, the juice was very tasty and not extremely sweet.



And I am becoming a fan of freshly harvested walnuts.

Open market day

When I asked for raw peanuts the seller said that people buy them for their birds... I found fresh, i.e. yellow, dates. They taste strange, I am used to the dried variant. There was an offer of yellow-and-red pears 1 Eur per bag (more than a kilo there), and my dinner was predetermined :)

Memories:

chestnuts min 2.95 Eur per 1/2 kilo

walnuts min 2 Eur per 1/2 kilo, 3.50 Eur per 1 kilo

raw peanuts 1 Eur per small package

brown dried apricots 3.25 Eur per 250 g

no sodium dates 2 Eur per package (454 g)

chirimoya 2.50 Eur per 2 pieces

coconut 0.50 Eur per piece

Fair trade bananas 1 Eur per kilo

Nuts and similar

Walnuts, pine nuts, hazelnuts, sunflower seeds, sesame - grind everything in a blender, mix with a spoonful of honey! This is the basis. Carrots - grind separately! This is the cover. Cinnamon powder as the final touch. Enjoy!

The second dessert I made was a puree from well ground walnuts, hazelnuts, sesame, sunflower seeds, bananas, with coconut flakes and cinnamon.

I tried a chestnut, the first time not grilled. It is so sweet! Simply delicious.

The season of walnuts has just started. It's the first time in my life I had a chance to buy really freshly harvested walnuts! They are not firm inside, they are almost white. And the shuck is quite wet and oily to the touch.

For future reference: RU/Latin/EN

грецкий орех/Juglans (nux Gallica)/walnuts
пекан/Carya illinoinensis/pecan
фундук/Córylus/hazelnuts
кунжут/Sesamum indicum/sesame
стружка кокосового ореха/fruit from Cocos nucifera/coconut flakes
семечки подсолнуха/Helianthus annuus/sunflower seeds
кешью/Anacardium occidentale/cashew, caju
фисташки/Pistacia/pistachios
миндаль/Prunus dulcis (Prunus amygdalus)/almonds
кедровые орешки/seeds from Pinus/pine nuts
каштаны/Castanea sativa Mill./sweet chestnuts (maybe marrons, not sure )

арахис/peanuts

курага/dried apricots