WRT Mockba 2007 - Trip Part 3: Friday Night Skating
The new day and new opportunities - I like to say so whenever feeling tired!! To start the day around 4PM is not always the easiest task.. On Friday we had the Friday Night Skating on the program.
Before the skating on the program was a Russian style dinner - and Shampanskoe of course. The core team managed to get into shop to buy Russian salads, vegetables, cucumber, salami and chocklad etc. Olga also joined us as she was our leader to join to the Friday Night Skating later in the evening. The good advise from Olga was not to drink too much Shampanskoe before the skating - otherwise we will be Alco-Drivers.. :)
We decided to take metro to Park Popedy, where the skating route had a break at 24.00. Our communication was based on the walkie-talkies and GSMs..
Olga informed us that it is not allowed to skate in the metro. All the WRT skaters didn't "believe" that and Tero and Petri were trying their skills in a metro car: the floor is slippery, moving metro makes keeping the balance more difficult, breaking should be done long before the car wall (and crash) and hand rails can cause damages to fingers...
We arrived to Metro Park Popedy and the whole WRT Mockba team was ready for the challenge:
- 7 skaters with skills varying from a very good life style skater to a beginner to skate more on this run than in total ever before
- 1 australian crazy unicycler ;) Luke
- 5 persons in the camera crew (thanks Dennis for driving!)
The atmosphere was amazing: 200 hundred skaters gathered in the mid night!!!! Only for this moment it would have been worth while to travel to Moscow!!
The signal "Pajeljahi" was shouted and it was time to skate! The Russian skaters disappeared fast. It was only Petri and Jutta, who were able to follow the tails of the Russian skaters. The walkie-talkie connection was lost quite soon and we had the 5 skaters and Luke coming somewhere behind.. After a while they lost the connection to the FNS group and also the camera crew was lost.. Great start for the FNS! :(
The route went along small roads towards the Kreml and Petri was able to get information from the FNS team leader where the next big stops are. Then we advised the camera crew and the rest skater group by metro to travel to Park Kulturiy where the skater team was suppose to be after half an hour! Then, seeing the whole WRT team again was really cool - we had survived on the first challenge..
The Friday Night Skating organisation was amazing! A couple of skaters were all the time skating before the main group and stopping the traffic. The organizers were communicating by walkie-talkies and also the slowest ones were collected by the scooter man, so no one was left beside the streets.. All the credits to organizers!
The feelings on the pit stops was really cool. Luke gathered always biggest cheers when he arrived with his unicycle to the pit stop - amazing guy unicycling appr. 25km during the night!
As the whole Finnish WRT team had the WRT T-shirts, we were recognised by the Russian skaters all the time and I think we were feeling a little bit famous - not least because we had printed on our backs "ARTIST"! ;) I guess everyone has a small portion of narcism in his sole that it feels good!!!! :)
(thanks someone for loaning the picture! ;)
And of course one of the most special experiences was skating along the Red Square in a queue of 200 skaters - COOOOL! Here is the famous symbol of Moscow Vasilinskiy Cathedral beside Red Square..
(thanks someone for loaning the picture! ;)
And the Kreml from the another side.. WOW!!!
Everything ends on it's time. I can say that the whole skating was like flying with extra portion of endorphin in the blood around the Moscow streets! I had not skated earlier during the night time and it is really cool! I have understood something more on the skating and life - or I hope so!!! The best feelings were the rising sun, the sky getting gradually more and more red from the Northeast along the empty streets, the tired legs (but not too) and the finish after couple of kilometres, but on the other wishing that this will never end.. The life isn't easy - sometimes paradoxical..
And what I may have learned from the life? These kind of feelings I felt during the FNS in Moscow are IMPORTANT! Whatever they are, but the give you so much enjoy, happiness and energy!! Too many people are stuck on their own comfortable environments and WORK! By doing something like Friday Night Skating in Moscow will give you so much MORE out of your life!!!!! :)
The experiences were to continue! The next thing was a picnic beside a small lake and of course we wanted to have Russkiy Shampanskoe to celebrate our special adventure..
What to think of more? Having Shampanskoe with our WRT team and our Russian friends during the sun rise! Life was good!!!!!! :)
The next amazing thing happened, when I was asked to join to the traditional Russian game "Elefant", I do not remember what was the game name in Russia.. The idea is shortly: There are two teams, one at the time is an elefant and the another tries to get the whole team riding on the elefant by jumping on top of it! When the whole team is riding, the idea for the elefant team is to give as long ride as possible and the riding team tries to get the elefant to fall down.. (Russian friends, please correct me if I got the rules wrong..)
The game was really great, masculine, full of testosteroine and sweat! ;)
How the game really looked like, see it in YouTube:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=ZSp7sOOalM0
Also our young charming team members Harri and Toffe were having good life..
The picnic after the Friday Night Skating was so unexpected and fashinating experience. The people were so nice, warm and wished us welcome all the time. I have known this already before, but now I certainly know how warm and friendly people Russians are!!!!!!
BIG THANK YOU for you all who made our FNS and picnic unforgettable!!!!'
Before the skating on the program was a Russian style dinner - and Shampanskoe of course. The core team managed to get into shop to buy Russian salads, vegetables, cucumber, salami and chocklad etc. Olga also joined us as she was our leader to join to the Friday Night Skating later in the evening. The good advise from Olga was not to drink too much Shampanskoe before the skating - otherwise we will be Alco-Drivers.. :)
We decided to take metro to Park Popedy, where the skating route had a break at 24.00. Our communication was based on the walkie-talkies and GSMs..
Olga informed us that it is not allowed to skate in the metro. All the WRT skaters didn't "believe" that and Tero and Petri were trying their skills in a metro car: the floor is slippery, moving metro makes keeping the balance more difficult, breaking should be done long before the car wall (and crash) and hand rails can cause damages to fingers...
We arrived to Metro Park Popedy and the whole WRT Mockba team was ready for the challenge:
- 7 skaters with skills varying from a very good life style skater to a beginner to skate more on this run than in total ever before
- 1 australian crazy unicycler ;) Luke
- 5 persons in the camera crew (thanks Dennis for driving!)
The atmosphere was amazing: 200 hundred skaters gathered in the mid night!!!! Only for this moment it would have been worth while to travel to Moscow!!
The signal "Pajeljahi" was shouted and it was time to skate! The Russian skaters disappeared fast. It was only Petri and Jutta, who were able to follow the tails of the Russian skaters. The walkie-talkie connection was lost quite soon and we had the 5 skaters and Luke coming somewhere behind.. After a while they lost the connection to the FNS group and also the camera crew was lost.. Great start for the FNS! :(
The route went along small roads towards the Kreml and Petri was able to get information from the FNS team leader where the next big stops are. Then we advised the camera crew and the rest skater group by metro to travel to Park Kulturiy where the skater team was suppose to be after half an hour! Then, seeing the whole WRT team again was really cool - we had survived on the first challenge..
The Friday Night Skating organisation was amazing! A couple of skaters were all the time skating before the main group and stopping the traffic. The organizers were communicating by walkie-talkies and also the slowest ones were collected by the scooter man, so no one was left beside the streets.. All the credits to organizers!
The feelings on the pit stops was really cool. Luke gathered always biggest cheers when he arrived with his unicycle to the pit stop - amazing guy unicycling appr. 25km during the night!
As the whole Finnish WRT team had the WRT T-shirts, we were recognised by the Russian skaters all the time and I think we were feeling a little bit famous - not least because we had printed on our backs "ARTIST"! ;) I guess everyone has a small portion of narcism in his sole that it feels good!!!! :)
(thanks someone for loaning the picture! ;)
And of course one of the most special experiences was skating along the Red Square in a queue of 200 skaters - COOOOL! Here is the famous symbol of Moscow Vasilinskiy Cathedral beside Red Square..
(thanks someone for loaning the picture! ;)
And the Kreml from the another side.. WOW!!!
Everything ends on it's time. I can say that the whole skating was like flying with extra portion of endorphin in the blood around the Moscow streets! I had not skated earlier during the night time and it is really cool! I have understood something more on the skating and life - or I hope so!!! The best feelings were the rising sun, the sky getting gradually more and more red from the Northeast along the empty streets, the tired legs (but not too) and the finish after couple of kilometres, but on the other wishing that this will never end.. The life isn't easy - sometimes paradoxical..
And what I may have learned from the life? These kind of feelings I felt during the FNS in Moscow are IMPORTANT! Whatever they are, but the give you so much enjoy, happiness and energy!! Too many people are stuck on their own comfortable environments and WORK! By doing something like Friday Night Skating in Moscow will give you so much MORE out of your life!!!!! :)
The experiences were to continue! The next thing was a picnic beside a small lake and of course we wanted to have Russkiy Shampanskoe to celebrate our special adventure..
What to think of more? Having Shampanskoe with our WRT team and our Russian friends during the sun rise! Life was good!!!!!! :)
The next amazing thing happened, when I was asked to join to the traditional Russian game "Elefant", I do not remember what was the game name in Russia.. The idea is shortly: There are two teams, one at the time is an elefant and the another tries to get the whole team riding on the elefant by jumping on top of it! When the whole team is riding, the idea for the elefant team is to give as long ride as possible and the riding team tries to get the elefant to fall down.. (Russian friends, please correct me if I got the rules wrong..)
The game was really great, masculine, full of testosteroine and sweat! ;)
How the game really looked like, see it in YouTube:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=ZSp7sOOalM0
Also our young charming team members Harri and Toffe were having good life..
The picnic after the Friday Night Skating was so unexpected and fashinating experience. The people were so nice, warm and wished us welcome all the time. I have known this already before, but now I certainly know how warm and friendly people Russians are!!!!!!
BIG THANK YOU for you all who made our FNS and picnic unforgettable!!!!'