Hi, I'm Rauf Aliev.

Kicked off the swimming season in the north of France. The water is still 10 degrees, windy and rainy, but Liza and I are happy!

In a house in France, I found a book with a chapter about the history of the Kremlin, where a legend is told that I had never heard before and seems to be unknown to the Russian-speaking internet as well.

A free translation from French:

Boyar Stepan Kuchka and his lads stopped at a hunting lodge. The next morning, he gathered people for a boar hunt. But the boar was quicker and attacked first. Kuchka and his comrades were about to get scared, but then a miracle bird with two heads appeared, lifted him onto a hill and there pecked the boar to death. Thus, the hill washed by the Moskva and Neglinnaya rivers became the village of Kuchkovo, the place where the city of Moscow and the Kremlin would later emerge. And the two-headed bird became the symbol of the Russian Empire.

Visited Le Radôme near Lannion (Brittany), the largest inflatable structure in the world (50 meters) – a 2mm parachute covering 1 hectare, weighing 27 tons itself + 6 tons of paint, with a rotating antenna on rails inside, from 1962, weighing 350 tons. Made the first direct video broadcast from Europe to the USA via satellite, where a similar device existed (the Americans dismantled it). Cryogenic signal receiver, minus 261°C. Inside the sphere, the pressure ranges from 4 to 12 millibars. The youngest national monument in France.

“Messenger” crashed onto the surface of Mercury…

…as a result of the collision, a new crater with a diameter of 16 meters was formed on the surface of Mercury….

…NASA scientists concluded that there is ice in the craters at the planet’s north pole.

https://meduza.io/news/2015/04/30/messendzher-upal-na-merkuriy

Cartridge World.

In Moscow, 23 degrees and sunny? Ehh, tomorrow I’m going for rubber boots and will learn to enjoy what there is.

And where and when will Progress fall? Day after day, I can’t find an answer to this question. It’s clear that much will burn up in the atmosphere, but still, there are about 9 tons. If this thing crashes at a speed of hundreds of km/h into a major city, it will be bad. I wonder how possible it is to accurately calculate the point of impact in advance?

Today’s lunch in Chartres included a salad with tomatoes, cucumbers, cheese, and… watermelon (pastèque). Quite unusual.

My second attempt to visit the museum of contemporary art, the Pompidou Center. For 14 euros, you get one floor of the museum (the second one is under renovation) and one floor of a temporary exhibition. The museum itself is practically impossible to enjoy, and the temporary exhibition features Jeff Koons (also known as the husband of Cicciolina). Koons has a series of huge steel sculptures imitating elongated balloon toys that are still worth seeing. Part of the main exhibition is dedicated to Hervé Télémaque – it’s simply absurdity squared. In the main exhibition, there’s a room where no more than 5 people can chalk anything they want on the walls (there’s a queue for this). There’s also a room with a piano where the walls are covered with large felt rollers. I tried very hard to understand all this… tomorrow I’ll go to the Louvre to rectify my impressions.

In Paris, almost every train station has a spot where one can play to their heart’s content (and/or the pleasure of others – depending on what and how you play there:). Public instruments are found in airports and train stations, shopping centers and hospitals, parks and bars.