Почти две недели наши читатели не получали газету, редакторы были в дальней поездке, а подменных редакторов у нас нет. Трудно найти людей, которые захотели и могли бы помочь с выпуском газеты во время наших отпусков, тем более, практически на волонтерских условиях. Благодарим за долготерпение, мы вернулись и уже выпустили №21 «Единения», и теперь готовим №22.
At the beginning of May 2022, we embarked on the delayed journey to New York, in which we spent just over ten days. Not everything planned was completed, but what we saw will remain in our memory.
Trips to new places always broaden our horizons, introduce us to people's lives, traditions, fashion, architecture, often so unlike what we see around us every day. And most importantly, such trips help to get positive emotions, cheer up. They say that the best state is when you are happy to go on a trip, and also happy to return home. So, almost, it was with us. Returning to Sydney, which has become our home, where birds sing in cozy quiet residential areas, it is sunny and warm even on the eve of winter, brought us a lot of pleasant sensations.
As for New York, we brought home such a large store of impressions and a thousand photographs that we will sort through for a long time to come. We lived on 29th Street in Manhattan, from there we could walk to many of the city's sights, and to those places that were further away, we were taken by the subway, although not so beautiful, but quite reliable. I was surprised by the beautiful architecture of the city, especially the buildings built in the last century. It's hard to imagine the skill of the American architects and engineers who lovingly designed and built these truly beautiful high-rise buildings. Think, back in 1930, the 102-story Empire State Building was built, which until the 70s was the tallest building in the world. And the elegant Chrysler Building, built at the same time, is 319 meters high.
It is impossible not to recall Central Park, 4 kilometers long and 800 meters wide, located in the center of Manhattan, in which, surrounded by practically tame squirrels scurrying everywhere, thousands of citizens spend their free time lying on the grass or riding bicycles. And the wonderful museums of the city, which were brought, it seems, all the most interesting from all over the world. We visited the huge Metropolitan Museum, where you can see 2 million pieces of art from different centuries and even millennia. Among them are numerous exhibits of ancient Egypt, weapons and knightly armor of the Middle Ages, art objects of America, the East, European art, including paintings, drawings and lithographs by famous artists - Rembrandt, Vermeer, Goya, Durer, Renoir, Van Gogh, Picasso, Cezanne and this list can be continue for a long time. Interestingly, the museum is maintained mainly at the expense of patrons and sponsors. Yes, there are a lot of rich people in America.
We also visited the Guggenheim Museum of Modern Art, which presents the most complete exhibition of Wassily Kandinsky, as well as French impressionists. The Natural History Museum has the most complete collection of dinosaur skeletons I have ever seen. And don't forget the New York theaters. We listened to Puccini's La bohème at the Metropolitan Opera. In addition to the wonderful voices of the actors, amazing, complex, multi-storey beautiful scenery should be noted, and during the performance, a live donkey entered the stage, a cart pulled by a real horse drove out, and a military orchestra of about 30 musicians passed. There are dozens of musical theaters in the Broadway streets in the Times Square area, we visited one, Majestic, the production of the musical was of the highest quality!
We also managed to visit the famous Niagara Falls, the most powerful in North America - its height is 54 meters, and the total length is 1.2 kilometers. This is a very impressive sight, day and night, when powerful jets of water are painted with different colors of illuminating spotlights. The waterfall is located quite far from New York, on the border with Canada, but sightseeing buses run from the city, the whole tour takes just over 20 hours. And during the route and stops, we had the opportunity to get acquainted with rural America.
On May 15, we attended a service at the Cathedral, located in the building of the ROCOR Synod. We were surprised to see a lot of Australian friends. The service was led by Archbishop Gabriel Chemodakov, the younger brother of Fr. Nikita from St. Nicholas Church in Fairfield, Hierodeacon Panteleimon (Zhigalin), originally from Geelong, participated in the service, and the church choir was led by the choir director Vadim Gan, who once served in the Intercession Church in the Sydney district of Cabramatta. But Vladyka Hilarion was not there, I learned that he had been ill lately and rarely attended the service. As we were leaving the cathedral, journalist Tatiana Veselkina showed us two windows on the third floor of the Synod building where Vladyka lived, the windows were covered with curtains. And the next day we learned that on May 16, our dear Vladyka Hilarion died in a hospital in New York. So, the last interview of "Unification" with him did not take place ...
Vladimir KOUZMIN
