Paintball & Victory Day Celebrations

The first part of our project is complete and as a celebration, the bosses took the team out for a few games of paintball. For those of you who don't know what paintball is, it is basically a war game against two teams and you have guns loaded with balls of paint & you try & shoot each  other ! I didn't partake in festivities as we were going away to Crimea that weekend and I wanted my knee to be as good as possible. Knowing my luck, if I had played, I would have fallen over & hurt something!

Sasha and Maryna, looking a little unsure !









Nice gear Maryna..... Promod?

Maryna & Sasha

Mishka and Sasha preparing to do battle against the red team.














The breifing... Aim low, not for the face !
Yeah... right !







One very brave.... Russian Soldier!













Dima, ready for battle








The battle field !











Who won? I think it was a draw! Its not much of a spectator sport and looked to me like a lot of running around. Some of the games only lasted a short time & I'm not sure I would pay for it myself..... but still, It got us out of the office for a few hours which was nice. Food followed !

Maryna, Dima










There is that brave Russian Soldier
again..... Surrendering !!








The Polish Lads... Jozef & Mishka

Maryna & Lech find a friend








Sasha (Sulim), Wim, Maryna & Lech









Yevgeniy

Sasha

Christina & Sigi








Dima, Alina,Maryna, Behzat









 Iv'e never seen Iurii so happy !















Victory day in Ukraine is celebrated on the 9th of May and it commemorates the capitulation of Nazi Germany to the Soviet Union in the Second World War (also known as the Great Patriotic War in the Soviet Union and some post-Soviet states. Its a big day & this being the 65th year, the celebrations were huge throught Russia and Ukraine. Celebrations in Kharkov were held around Freedom Square and it was packed to the rafters (good name for a TV series Mez!), so we weren't able to see much. But I likened it to ANZAC day celebrations in Australia just in a bigger format..... remembering those who lost their lives and thanking those who fought and survived.

 This is the Saint George Ribbon that everyone displays, constitutes one of the most recognised and respected symbols of military valour in modern Russia. It is widely associated with the commemoration of World War II and especially with the units who were awarded the collective Guard battle honours during the conflict.



Some of the Harware on show.....New and old !

Forr those of you wondering, the sign at the back, апteka means pharmacy or chemist !

It was quite warm, the soldiers must have been hot ! Some of them are wearing blankets

It was a good day but as I said, very crowded & I hate crowds, so I had a bit of a walk around, & called it quits.

There is that guy again with thousands surrounding him !










I think we are all getting a little tired now. We are not going out as much as work seems to consume most of our time, even on weekends. Ive developed, over the last couple of days a bad chest cough and sore throat & I'm aching all over, so I guess I am a little run down. I'll have to ride this thing out without drugs as I cant just walk into a pharmacy and tell them what my symptoms are and get something to releive the crappiness that Im feeliing ! 

Mum reminded me the other day  that there is only 7 weeks to go ! I cant beleive it has gone so quickly! Looking back, the winter months really seemed to drag, but now the weather is better, time is flying!..... Typical. I guess the timing of the project was not the best!

We go live in a few weeks time with the second part of the project deliverables, then we have a month of 24 hour support....which will be fun for us non Russian speaking folk !  The first of July is when I fly out of Ukraine for the last time and come home to my third winter in a row !!  Something to look forward to !

Happy birthday to Tim Clay for yesterday 15th May. George, I cant beleive he is 14 already !

Congratulations to Jessica Watson on completing her round the world journey ! She started just a few days after my journey began, so I have been following her blog. It was a good read.

Its coming up to 2pm Sunday afternoon, I'm going to post this & fall into bed & try & catch up on some sleep that I havent had over the last few days. Not much planned on the immediate horizon in terms of travel or adventure although I would still like to sneak in a trip to Prague or even spend a little more time in Vienna (rather than just see the airport)!

Until the next blog

xm