Blast from the Past:10 Years Together in Love

Boris and I have met on November 10, 2006, ten years ago. We fell in love instantly.
He was the person I have been looking for, have been wishing for every night before I went to bed; have been fantasizing about and imagining a beautiful guy with long dark hair looking like a dream. And I found him.

2007 (there are no pictures of us from 2006)

I have been emotional today, since I am so happy. Boris and I went through a lot, but we've always stayed together. We were and are madly in love, we went through difficult times and even broke up in 2010 for more than half a year, but we never counted it, because we were always together. 

New Year 2009

I am so fortunate and I am the happiest to be with him. He is my best friend, my biggest and only love, my inspiration, my family, my lover and sometimes my girlfriend/ boyfriend.

We have changed so much, we have changed together.

Spring 2009, last year of high school

2010, army time. Pre-breakup

2012, living together, working to save money to move to Berlin

It feels like when we just met, we were children. And we look like children too. I can safely say we grew up together, discovered ourselves together, listened to all the music, watched us and the world change. I could never forget it and give up on it. Boris is the only person with whom I feel like my true self, who understands me, and I understand him and accept him for who he is.

2016

Maria

Uzbekistan 2016 - Bureaucracy, Nature, Architecture & a Roof

My dad gave me a genius program that restored all the pictures on my memory card!!! So now I can finally share all the stuff that happened in Uzbekistan.

And there was plenty! Starting with the first 4 days which were an agonizing adventure going up the bureaucracy ladder. We flew transfer through Moscow and our luggage got stuck in the Moscow airport, for absolutely no fucking reason!! We contacted the lost and found department in the Tashkent airport, who just said we have to wait after the complaint was filed.
Well, someone out there in the Moscow airport was particularly lazy, since out of the several planes that go  back and forth from Moscow to Tashkent daily, we for no reason at all had to wait 4 fucking days for our luggage to arrive.
A trip to the office of the Russian air company (Aeroflot, for the ones curious) to get compensation for the delay proved to be less than hopeful, but we DID get our money back from the little shopping we did for essentials and even an apology letter. Not bad for a story that started so hopeless, huh?
Needless to say that my family lent us everything, from toothpaste to clothes and shoes, but we were still angry as hell. Luckily all the stuff in the suitcase survived (including the Polish vodka we were bringing as a souvenir!!) and we even got our money back. Well, everyone's suitcase goes missing at least once in a lifetime, so this was our turn I guess.

Anywho, after the first 4 days we went to lake Charvaq (located north-east of Tashkent) with my family, which are my parents + brother and my uncle's family. The trip was a blast - we rented a house and made food outside, we even decided to sleep outside and spent the day swimming. Drinking was ensured and one of my cousins brought a hookah. It ended up with my dad smoking hookah with me XD.

After that there were many family visits, eating at my grandparents' place daily and mostly spending time with my (oldest) cousin, whom I haven't seen in our last trip. I usually have a lot to talk with him about. He and Boris had a ton to talk about and I was happy about it.

The weird ass futuristic buildings in the beginning of the post? My cousin had a secret key to the roof and he took us there to see the sunset! I've always wanted to go inside those buildings, they're right next to my uncle and aunt's place and they've always looked so peculiar to me. I was so excited to go on the roof of one of them!!

my cousin wanted to make a moody teenage Tumblr pic. I think we succeeded. 

Among the many fun pictures from the roof:

I already wrote about going to a rock bar in the previous post, so I'll skip it here. Towards the end of the trip I took pictures of the local architecture. Tashkent has a beautiful city center, striving to be modern in the otherwise post-soviet-falling apart architecture. And we all know which part I fancied more. Here are some artistic shots:

my uncle is obsessed with birds and has different types of them on the balcony.

Somehow the trip this time has been a lot more intense than the previous ones. I mostly hung out with my older cousin and my aunt, and a bit with my brother and parents. Usually I try to dedicate time to my relatives who live in Tashkent, as do my parents who fly from Israel for the big family meeting.

Each time I am so happy I have the opportunity to visit such an obscure place as Uzbekistan.

Boris and I might give a visit to Moscow next year, since said cousins are studying there. The family has really spread out.

Maria

Oh wait, there was a wedding as well!! And an epic one:

Ok so, the traditional Uzbek wedding is not only a lot of noise, loud music and beautiful dresses - it also happens to be the most important thing in an Uzbenk's life. So you better make it memorable. In this case, it definitely was.

One peculiar thing is that it was a wedding of a family member's kids. They're twins, so they were marrying on the same day. TOGETHER. Isn't that a little bit... strange? Financially it's a bit more strategic than having a fucking fairytale masterpiece of an event twice in a row.

Unfortunately my memory card got fucked and the program didn't manage to restore the many videos I took from the wedding, but I assure you there were traditional dancing, trumpet blowing, drum hitting and general epicness to last forever!

Minsk and a Funeral

Last week Boris' grandmother has passed away unexpectedly. The next day we found ourselves on a plane to Minsk, Belarus. This is also where Boris was born and grew up 7 years of his life before his parents (just like mine) left everything behind and immigrated to Israel. It's been 20 years since they've been there last.

I was telling Boris a few times that we should pay there a visit, to the place where he comes from, to see the city. He always dropped the idea claiming that it would be another depressing post-Soviet Union country, with unfriendly people and a stark atmosphere.
Now that we had a "reason to visit", we were happy to be wrong.

Orthodox church in the old district. It was beautiful inside.

Despite the circumstances we still had a chance to visit the center of the city. I was surprised by how spacious and huge everything is: the streets are enormous, the buildings tall and broad; everything is very grand and big, and Minsk is filled with many green parks. 

There weren't many people on the streets but the ones we saw were very friendly and "simple" in a soothing kind of way.

The Belorussian language was fun to listen to and, unlike many other Slavic languages - easy to understand. Boris and I felt at ease hearing Russian on the streets too, we've never been to a country where our mother language can be heard everywhere. 

And even more surprisingly - we didn't feel completely out of place there.

"The feat of the people is immortal"

 The heaviest part of the trip was of course the funeral. The day before that we had to go to the morgue with Boris' mother and her sister. And so we saw a dead body for the first time. Clothed but without makeup yet, lying so grimly on a metal table.
I cannot compare the feeling to anything else I've felt before, but to see Boris' mother grieving next to her dead mother has upset me greatly.
I couldn't help but remember all the horror movies and the gothic rock songs about death and dying and to think how mocking those are. You just feel sad, and empty, and you don't even realize the person who's dead used to belong to you. They just lay there, not asleep, but strange and far away. Like a doll. Lifeless.

It was a Christian Orthodox funeral, with a pope and another person who was singing. It was a good ceremony, we felt like we were saying goodbye to Boris' grandmother with respect. I loved the singing, it was very spiritual. I have nothing against the religious ceremony, it was very deep and right.
I have only witnessed a Jewish burial ceremony before and there they lay the body covered in cloth in the ground (ashes to ashes, dust to dust). Here things took a lot more time and we could actually be around the body, to look at it and to personally say goodbye.
I touched her arm, and it was stiff and cold. I could never imagine my mother burying her own mother, not to mention myself being in the same situation. I would die from sadness.

I recalled reading Smoke Gets In Your Eyes (which I most recommend!) and compared things with the book. But honestly nothing could prepare you to the real thing. Being physically there, being close to the dead person is so important. Being close with your family in this time is too.

Railway Station Square in its Stalinist glory

We've decided we would love to come back to Minsk some day. We simply liked it there, something in the atmosphere wasn't completely foreign. And though we came to the city with a different purpose, we would love to check the alternative scene there next time.

I filmed a short video during our rides through the city and the final edit turned out quite psychedelic. I missed my experimental videos!

Music is a song called Fellini by 2 rock legends - Splin and B-2, the latter is a Belorussian band, both are amazing.

Maria

Wedding Pictures

They´re here! We married on the 6th of November with Boris! By far the most pleasant bureaucratic procedure that we´ve faced in Germany.

Fun Fact: Boris´s insanely talented mother sewed both our dresses. We provided her with the measurements and the exact design each of us wanted. I wanted nothing more than to wear a simple, Morticia Addams inspired dress. Boris went for the middle ages.

Fun Fact #2: whenever in queer spaces, for example the pub where I weekly read Tarot, when we would tell a person we are getting married, they would ask if one of us is German, or rather- if we are getting married for the "documents" (must be a typical reason for getting married in the queer community). This cracked us up each time. 

Us and our families. My 16 year old brother rocks.

Fun Fact #3: We married on the 6th of November, and became 9 years together shortly after on the 10th.

Us and our Dearest ♥

N. Finsternis

Photos from Wrocław

Last weekend we went to Return To The Batcave festival, and before I write a post about the amazing bands, I would like to share a few photos from the amazing city. We have been to the city on the last year´s festival, but this time we have discovered a lot more, as we had more time.

The 4.5 hour bus ride was especially cool this time, because we have managed to take the front seats on the upper deck for the first time! We enjoyed the view:

We were very lucky with the weather, it was sunny and warm most of the time, unlike in Berlin where it´s rainy every day and suddenly feels more like winter!

Little gnomes are scattered everywhere around the city

And this is how we went back home lol:

Next post will be about the musical highlights from the festival. Stay tuned!

N. Finsternis

Berlin Folsom Fest

We had seen pictures of it online before but had no idea what it was, until we finally saw the official event in Siegessäule, Berlin´s biggest queer magazine.
Folsom Fest a fetish/ leather/ rubber street festival of the gay community. It began in San Francisco in the 80s, and is being held in Berlin since 2003.
Different events and play parties are held during an entire week, but one day is dedicated to when all gather to show off their puppies, best leather accessories and basically it felt like an October Fest with everyone sitting eating wurst and drinking beer. Only in leather. Or half naked.

I have tried to pick the less NSFW pictures...

We even met Israel Mr. Leather, and I was so excited I didn´t even know what face to make. He was super nice, what an honor!!!

The fest was great, the atmosphere was amazing and there was indeed much to look at. Definitely again next year!

N. Finsternis

How we went to Copenhagen

Still cannot say I am mentally back from a 2 week vacation. We went to Copenhagen to visit our dearest, after which he came back with us to Berlin for another week.

There is a lot to tell- even though is was only 1 week it felt like we were in K-Town an entire month.
Here are some highlights:

• We went to a bunch of museums
• and saw a Tolkien exhibition featuring stuff from The Hobbit and Lord Of The Rings films. It was amazing!
• We went to a gig at Ungdomshuset (a youth house squat) to see a riot girl gig and our minds were blown by Vexx. Check them out now!!
• We did not plan on drinking much during the trip, but were forced to drink Scandinavian style
• and witnessed Danish people claiming to be Jewish as a result.
• We were hosted by our dearest´s family at their summer house outside of Copenhagen, and it was very relaxing with a lot of amazing food. I was looking forward to get out of the city for a while.
• Coming back to Copenhagen, we also went to a beautiful forest/hill in the suburbs, which was one of my favorite parts of the trip.

This video is a decent representation of our adventures as well:

Don´t want to overload with pictures and words, as all of them cannot really express how great that time has been. Places shine in a different light when you have a very special person to explore them with, and Boris and I are lucky for having our dearest.

Also, the three of us jammed one night, and it turned out quite well. This is also my first ever bass recording! We should master it and release it as an underground EP or something. Listen here.

Reality awaits, and hopefully if I get the time off we will go to Prague at the end of the month. I cannot wait!

N. Finsternis

Pride: face and outfit feat. Boris

Last saturday was our first time at Berlin pride. 2 years living here and we somehow did not have a chance to go until now. We were super excited and the parade was amazing, we had so much fun dancing around (for 5 hours, parade was huge!) and looking at all the beautiful people! The atmosphere was perfect.

Boris put on his crossdressing game and did his makeup, he was the prettiest of all the gender nonconforming people out there:

No, I do not have a good location for photos, but look at those legs!

Here is a better view of the dress. It is a very old dress of mine that I wore only once :P

Still trying to figure out if Boris looks like his mom when in makeup

I did not go crazy on my makeup, it is pretty much what I do to every party, only turquoise eyeshadow on the lower lid.

Here is a better picture of the hair. I have recently been trying out a new backcombing trick that a friend told me about.

 At some point we were in a hurry, so there was no time to talk an outfit picture of me. But there is an upper half picture:

I am very pleased with how my roots blend in with the uncertain color of my hair.

 This is indeed a transparent lace bra (best bra ever) and a cut out t shirt. Lower half were shots and teal tipped stockings, but my boobs have not graced the blog yet, so there you go.

I wish everyone a LGBT* week and a happy July!

N. Finsternis