Welcoming the Golden Autumn (hopefully without rain)

Summer is definetely at an end and autumn is opening in front of us, if the weather decides to give us a couple more sunny week ends there are few activities that I would recommend to try. In the city at the underground stop ЗАЭЛЬЦОВКА (zaeltzovka) a nice, wide park has been open with roller blades routes, place for skate boarders, runners, play grounds for kids surrounded by green which always helpw and it is much needed in Novosibirsk. A good attraction in this park and from this park is also the fact that you can get the train from there and get off directly at the Novosibirsk Zoo Park, another place definetely worth a visit with lots of attractions, well kept and pretty impressive.

For something a bit different Экосапиенс (here is the link with some info details http://akbeli.ru/about.html) a group of people who organizes outdorr activities is inviting everybody who would like to play, spend some time outside, try some wood land challenges in a beautiful part of the forest not far from Morozovo, this saturday for a ''Golden Autumn'' event. Entry fee is 350r for adults and free for children. I would highly recommend this place and to get in touch with them, they can organize team building events, birthday parties anything will be with a bit of adventure. If you can't manage to go there this saturday, they are open all year round just need to book the place as it can get pretty booked up.

I also want to recommend a couple of events ''indoor'' just in case the weather turns out to be pretty bad.
At the Opera&Ballet Theatre this Friday, September 18 a great premiere ПРЕМЬЕРА!
Князь Игорь А. Бородин from 18:30 - 22:10 (we have to highlight that in the coir one one of the foreign expats will be singing!!! and we have an interview with him coming up soon)
To give you a bit more time to get ready for it on October, 27 also at the Opera&Ballet Theatre will take place a concert called ''Solisti from Moscow'' playing with Stradivari violins on a program that includes Bach, Mozart, Brahams and more....

Half Marathon in Novosibirsk sees 3 foreigners running

Yesterday, 12 September as part of the Interra Forum 2009, Novosibirsk hosted the yearly Half Marathon event. After few problems with registration (you can read more on Bruce Lenorf blog) myself, my husband Jonathan Abbott and Bruno Lecerf managed to get to the start line of the Novosibirsk Half Marathon and complete it successfully.

The event saw few runners participating (not sure how jogging or running is popular here, I think Russian prefer hockey or figure skating) running up and down Krasni Prospect, exactly 6 times.

The run started sharply at 10am for the women ( a bunch of 75 of them) and at 10.10am for the man (almost 350 of them). The organization wasn't bad at all, there was quite a lot going on around the race and even if I couldn't see much as I was running, it sounded like the non-runners were having some fun.

The foreigners didn't do too badly. Bruno, with good training in his legs managed to achieve a good result with 1h39min. Jonathan Abbott after a business trip, a week fighting a bad cough and only few weeks of training in his legs finished at 1h.55min

And what about me??? Well... few older women beat me and that wasn't great but I completed the race in 2h.5min and thanks to my elegant and fast finish I got also a little interview at the end but I was almost too tired to speak.

My impressions: the half marathon route was kind of boring considering you had to go down and up the same way for 6 times, the up part especially... I didn't enjoy!!!!

They had one water station which was much appreciated and quite a lot of photographers... I think a couple of them got a good one of me!

Overall I was a bit sad that so little people actually run it, if I compare it with other runs I have done this had the least amount of runners involved and effected the atmosphere around. Myself and the other foreigner runners thought that there could be a nicer route in Akademgorodok and the run could be a bit more interesting.... well this is a suggestion to take in for next year.

Pictures and results on http://www.marafon.nsk.ru/

A special thank you to the support team: Nicolas Droger, Nadine Skale and Natasha Eltzova (they delivered water, took pictures and videos and most of all got up very early on Saturday morning to be with us from the very beginning!!!!)

Young Californian Dancers looking for hospitality in Novosibirsk

A group of 43 young artists who are part of a Californian Dance Company will be flying to Novosibirsk week commencing September 20th for a Dance Festival for children.

They will train and perform during this week 3 days in Akademgorodok at the theatre Ynost and 3 days at the Globe Circus in Novosibirsk and they are looking for hospitality.

Each of them need a place to live during those 3 days in Akademgorodok and 3 days in the city and they are looking for free accomodation as from what I understood they are young and poor and the company doesn't pay for hotels but only for their trip.

So if you are interested in hosting them, providing breakfast and dinner for them for free, you might get a ticket to their performance in exchange, let me know and I will get in contact with them.