2 cultures fighting in 1 country or Make Love not War

Good day, everyone. 

It has been a while since we wrote here last time. These were very busy several months.

First, East and West represented by us had some difficulties understanding each other, close cross-cultural relationships are not that easy, on the other hand, it is definitely worth it. For the year, that I know Marco, I understood much more on what European culture and style of living is about, then with all my University studies and travels. So yes, we were slowly getting to know each other better.

Another big thing distracting us from our initial plans was the Revolution in Ukraine. It took all my attention and energy and so it is only now that I decided to post something else in this blog.

It is amazing how big historic events change the lives of people. We initially decided to start this blog to tell about the journey to Russian Baikal Lake, that we planned this summer. We wanted to hitchhike the whole way to get to know the country and people. Right now Marco left Donetsk because after glorious Maidan the aggressive pro-Russian movement started here and it appears to be not the safest place to be right now, especially for the Europeans. He left when the first demonstrations were organized. Now they already kill here and the real war is going on.  

I understand that probably the whole world does not understand what is going on here. If we need to be very honest, neither do us. Just suddenly, we found ourselves in the middle of heavy propaganda and totally taken by the severest information war I ever experienced. Some part of our society became crazy for no evident reason. We believe Russian Special Forces played the main role in creating this sudden fire in a very peaceful place. Big geopolitics, fight for areas of influence, big players creating their puppets who kill each other fooled by propaganda – this is what is happening in Donetsk, Ukraine. Still my heart is with those, who want to keep our country united. Whatever imperfect it is now, with all our resources and huge potential, adopting European values we believe in and inspiring our politicians to be honest and effective we can achieve excellent results quickly.

When we started the blog, we did not know that this theme would be bigger than the relationship of two people. Right now East does not MEET West, East fights West, this is exactly what is happening on this small spot, where I chanced to be born – Donetsk. Fortunately for us as a couple we found the way to unite, to make love not war. We appreciated each other’s value and uniqueness, respected that, and embraced that in each other. The volume of happiness it brought us was immense. I hope this experience will be a good example for the whole city, country and the whole world, who is now standing on the edge of the spheres of influence revision minimum or new world war as a maximum. Alternatively, there could just happen big significant changes in the minds of people all over the world. I pray for the last variant. Meanwhile I enjoy my inner East and communicate daily with my beloved West, who is now in Denmark, and join whom I dream the soonest.

Yours with love,

Natalika

PS. A couple of videos with Donetsk on. Peaceful times. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=share&v=8qRpUtDMsHU

http://rutube.ru/video/615b842c0a464b8f8443ad8401befb2d/

PS2. The Author of the photo is Sergey Orlyck https://www.facebook.com/amanitofilm The photo is named "Our Donetsk"

East meets West. Introduction

Hello, world!

We welcome all readers of our blog.

Nataly>> I am Nataly Veremeeva, a soul, craving for adventures and full life. I come from Ukraine and though I work in software, coordinating projects in IT Outsourcing industry, I am dreaming about travelling and I perceive my whole life as one big multilevel quest game with some RPG intrusions. I went East and West. My eastern destination was India, where I spent time of my life going around Himalayan mountains. My western destination was Holland, where I went totally alone to find my lifetime partner, Marco, in a train somewhere between the Hague and Amsterdam. Love at first sight in a train between representatives of 2 different cultures, united by the road – this feels like the symbol of our whole relationship.

Marco>> And my name is Marco, a free spirit that already has been travelling and living in different corners of the world. This got me through many challenges that life has thrown at me. These challenges made me into the person that I am today, with an inquisitive, curious and adventurous mind.  My main passions in life are longboarding, good food, barefoot running, teaching, juggling, movies, and last but definitely not least, my love for my Natasha. That is why I am extremely happy that we set out to go on this great adventure. We both have huge love for new experiences and I know that no matter what it will be the time of learning and enjoying everything that will come on our path.

Nataly>> So we have decided to start our mutual blog, in which we are going to post our impressions about the exciting events that we always encounter wherever we go. In this blog East meets West. We have very different cultural background, education, and even cartoons that we watched in our childhood. But still at the very basic core of our souls we are very similar, madly attracted to each other and eager to share our different visions and perceptions of life with our readers.

We both believe that our life should look like a big adventure. Sometimes this road can be physical, sometimes metaphysical, but the main idea that we want to enforce and share is that we all need to meet and step over our boundaries and realize, that life is a wonderful road and our world is a great place to live. All the boundaries and restrictions are in our minds and so “Grow UP and Dare” – this is the message that we want to make the motto of our trips to different parts of the world and of our life in general. We want to dare and we welcome you, our readers, to join our daring experiences.

Marco>> I am more streetwise and have been learning everything on the go. That is why sometimes the visions on life that Nataly and I have can be totally different.  While she has been learning at several schools and universities, I’ve managed to get as much experience as possible by going through the hard-knock life. This makes our interaction very special and amazingly beautiful and I know that there will be a lot of people following us just because of this. We also have a natural tendency to attract a lot of interesting people around us. Nataly does this with her almost childish innocence, and I do it by my observation skills which I’ve learned through all my adventures as a soldier, bouncer and security guard. This is a long time ago and I became much milder, but still it is inside me and it affects the way that I pursue reality.

Nataly>> I am not streetwise at all, I am academic and more formal. And yes, there are a lot of differences, I come from former Soviet Union, Marco comes from capitalistic West. I love yoga and eastern spiritual practices and his matra is e= mc~2 and he is really fond of quantum physics and modern ideas about the Universe. Strangely, these ideas of spiritual East and scientific West do not contradict, but amazingly complement and enrich each other, and so do we in our interaction as a couple. So, here we are. Like us, follow us, comment us and let’s stay in touch.

Your Nataly and Marco.