Greetings from Tatiana Titarenko
Dear family and friends,
About time we start exchanging our annual New Year letters with each other. It is so nice to receive X-mas wishes from so many of you, hear about your news and actually just knowing that you are ok is great, as I receive mail from even those who have been silent from the previous Christmas. A lot has happened during that time and I’m looking forward to reading your NY (and not only) letters.
Main event for us is that we have a baby in the family - Andrew Stuart Breese! Wonderful little guy. Olesya became a mom and I became a grandma. Now even more than before I’d like to be closer to them and spend less time working to witness the unique moments of watching him grow and change. Alas both are still dreams to come true.
Andrew is 7 months old now. Olesya got back to work for 5 hours a day and meanwhile the baby stays with the nanny.
Yulia graduates in 2008 so this coming year is important and challenging for her - graduation exams, diploma and looking for a job.
Other big event this year was our KomiArcticOil reunion in July in St.Petersburg, river cruise to Moscow and a party there. It was as impressive and unforgettable as our trip to Canada in 2005. If anything it was even more uniting as we were together the whole trip - Russians and Canadians (actually it was more international than that with Ukrainians and English there as well), which gave us a chance to communicate a lot. I think it was a great trip, the program was interesting, there were no unpleasant organizational issues and we again felt like one big family with the proud last name KomiArcticOil! It was a very emotional trip for almost all of us. I’m grateful to those who helped to make it such a PARTY OF THE SOUL! And thank you all for coming and participating.
Before the cruise Flora (Popova) and Don Bell, Bob and Beth Morrison went to the Great Novgorod for a couple of days to see Sasha and Irina Samsonenko, who were wonderfully hospitable and showed us around a lot for such a short time in their spectacular city. We are very thankful for that. By the way they both have temporarily moved to UAE (Dubai) and Irina has found a job in a real estate company.
In November in Usinsk we had a traditional party to celebrate KAO birthday, over 50 people attended, and you have probably already seen the pictures from the party. We have also brought there pictures and video from the summer trip. After the cruise in August I went to Kursk to see Irina Demidova, Galina Kozhevnikova, Tatiana Korobkina, Lena Rudenko who live there, Galina Degtyareva has also been there at the time, and btw in January she leaves Novy Urengoi for good and moves to Kursk. I have recorded their hellos to Usinsk people and this video was greatly cheered at KAO party.
As for my work there is still so much trouble because of the continuous mess with the supervising bodies established in the course of the administrative reform. Open fights for power as well as carpet wars between different authorities, landslides of paper which make us forget why we are doing it at all - to save our environment, to bring some practical help, get a result for people and nature! But for the authorities that hasn’t been an objective for a long time. So working in this area gets less and less interesting and engaging, I just don’t feel that we are useful anymore for the society, concrete company and people because we spend so much time doing useless paperwork. Nevertheless we received even more orders this year and in June I have certified one more – already third - lab dealing with radiology control.
In autumn we had a big problem - a pipe burst at night (our office is a former apartment in the living premises) and all rooms were flooded 15 cm from the floor. At least it was cold water and at least we are located on the first floor! Still it was a huge stress for me because in a week I planned to go on a business trip and then on vacation, so before that I had to make sure everything gets dry (heating was turned off still), change floors, get all office equipment started as some of it also suffered from water, and get everybody back to work in the shortest possible time. I managed to accomplish it all, but later when I went on vacation the stress caught up with me. Alas this year I didn’t make it to Mexico like planned. In September my sister and I went to Italy (it was her anniversary and we wanted to make it a special time). But this trip unfortunately became special for a different reason - on the third day I suffered sever abdominal pain. It was a non stop nightmare for the next three weeks, when I got back to Moscow they failed to diagnose appendicitis, and I got very lucky that it didn’t burst. When the doctors finally diagnosed it in Usinsk it was so bad that they couldn’t operate. Now having undergone several courses of antibiotics I’m waiting for the surgeons to allow an operation - and so I had to cancel all trips until better times.
That’s how it was for me this year.
Coming year is of the home-loving rat and it will bring us all comfort and welfare in our homes and families. So may it be the most important and central thing in this turbulent world - my home is my fortress and my family is my back up.
I wish you and yours happiness and health! Nappy New Year and Merry Christmas!
With lots of love,
Tatiana Titarenko