The Chronicles.

You know, when I think of my town I, especially when people ask me why it is so good, why I love it, I alway say that my town is a very green one. There are lots of magnificent trees there: poplars, birches, fir trees, even some apple trees... We have a great alley that runs along the main street with huge trees on both sides. Here's a picture of Arkhangelsk. I guess it is some time around 90s.



And from the other side. My house is also hiding behind the trees.



Nice, isn't it? But I guess I should have said "we had a great alley". The said thing is, the authorities of the town don't like polars. Yes, those great treas, those fascinating giants... And so they are regularly chopping them down. Sometimes they say it's because people can get allergic from poplar fluff. But that's total crap, many specialists have already said that you shouldn't blame poplars at all, but just some flowers that bloom in the same month with poplars. And then they also say that the trees are getting old and during a storm a torn off branch can injure someone.

So now, having finished off the alley, they've come to me. A big old tree that had been standing in front of my window even since before I was born, or maybe before my parents were born... that big tree was almost killed. No, it didn't die. It was worse. It became an invalid, a defective tree. Like a child with beautiful hair, it was standing there so innocent. But then the adults came and they've clipped his hair off.. And he couldn't do anything. And they will come every year, to make sure no one sees him in full beauty again...

That's the picture I've taken in December. Just imagine all those wide-spread branches full of leaves!



And that's what I've found some days ago...



Just an ugly carcass of a tree. And every year I find more and more of them in my town. And you know what I think when I see them? I think that if I'd been given a choice, a real choice to bring back all those trees to the way they looked about ten years ago, I would not hesitate. Not even for a second. And fuck all those precautions. Even if I'd get hit with a branch or a falling tree, injured or killed, I'd be happy that I've spent my life in a nice green town, not in a glass-and-concrete garden we are about to get now. Honestly, one of the best things that I knew about my town is almost gone now. And this is the time I would have gladly sacrificed safety for beauty. Would you not?


P.S. Just to finish with something nice, here's the midnight snack I've eaten some days ago.



And I dunno why my monitor looks so dirty, it's not.