CURRENT MISSION

Learn from others more about ourselves.

ABOUT ME

We love discovering new places and different cultures, meeting interesting people, sharing life experiences, learning new languages and new cuisines. Also we enjoy hosting friends at our place. We traveled as backpackers in different parts of the planet, including rural Russia, Mongolia, China, Egypt, India and Europe, as well as around Northern America. We met wonderful people on our travels. We also learned different skills as how to build or how to fix about anything. We are both vegetarians.
Lena has years of professional experience in art & antique restoration, as well as writing for local newspaper about art and community. She also likes to draw, to paint, to knit, to make collages, and to sew her own clothes. Vic is very curious by nature, altruistic, sensitive and very loving person. He is an environment-friendly, recycles about everything; he is health-conscious and a nature-lover. Vic doesn’t smoke or drink; he loves his daily exercises – yoga and weight-lifting. Vic has a good eye for catching the right moment in his photographic experiments. He is a master of details – in art as well as in life.

PHILOSOPHY

Have faith in people and enjoy every moment of our life because we all deserve it.
Life is short. Kiss slowly, laugh insanely, love truly and forgive quickly.(borrowed from Paulo Coelho who borrowed from somewhere else)

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

Doors of our house are never locked – we are always welcoming friends and travelers. We will do our part to build more faith, harmony and support for each other in the community by meeting new people and sharing our life experience and different skills.

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

We mostly traveled as back-packers and stayed in hostels. This is just the beginning of CouchSurfing. We are very excited to become a part of Global Community and to host new friends at our place!

Interests

we like to see different countries, to discover various cultures and traditions - no matter how many places we went to - we still want more! So, traveling is a major interest for now, and once we hit the road again - we love meeting new people - from all walks of life - city dwellers, rural folks, artists and scientists, prosperous professionals and the drifters - it's always exciting and ever changing. We study different languages, and when traveling at least picking up phrases and expressions in places where we go. We both love cooking and experimenting with different ingredients, learn new dishes at every place we visit. Both are the readers - mostly spiritual books, philosophy, history, and geography.We enjoy classical music – from Mozart to Vivaldi, Indian classics as well as contemporary tunes. We like contemporary art, murals, graffiti, and no politics at all.

• animals
• horses
• arts
• humanities
• writing
• books
• contemporary art
• environment
• dining
• cooking
• vegetarian
• yoga
• drinking
• gardening
• shopping
• clothing
• politics
• traveling
• restoration
• knitting
• painting
• drawing
• music
• classical music
• geography
• history
• languages

Music, Movies, and Books

Movies - all by Pedro Almadovar, Woody Allen, Wim Wenders, Federico Fellini, Stanley Kubrick, Coen Brothers, Jim Jarmush, Sergey Paradjanov, Andrey Tarkovskiy, Akira Kurosava, Marcelo Gomes, Joao Pedro Rodrigues, David Lynch; Deepa Mehta, Indian old movies with Raj Kapoor & Nargiz; Matrix, Pulp Fiction, Orlando… documentaries by Michael Moore too many to name.
Our favorite music - Indian classics (instrumental - santoor, flute, sitar)- played by Ravi Shankar, H. Chaurasia, Shiv Kumar Sharma. Jazz&Blues (Nina Simone is the best), Charles Aznavour, Salvadore Adamo, Joe Dassen, Eminem, salsa and folk tunes of aboriginal nations, drums.
Books - all by Osho; Paulo Coelho, Carlos Castaneda, Henry Miller, Virginia Wolf, Margaret Atwood, George Oshawa, Allan Watts, Yoga-Sutras, Nisargadat Maharaj, Maharishi Ramanna, J.Krishnamurti, S. Suzuki, Lao Tzu, Gregg Braden, Gary Zukav ...too many to name - we're the readers

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

while traveling throughout Asia, we stayed with Mongolian nomads in the desert, with no electricity nor any other comfort - just simple life in yurt under open sky with zillions of stars above and wild horses and the camels around. We felt so much in union with the family who we just knew for few days, felt oneness with their children and animals. Great Happiness and Tranquility of Life! it's unforgettable!

Teach, Learn, Share

Lena can teach you how to fix things and how to grow organic garden. We can share our experience in vegetarian and micro-biotic cooking, if you are interested in it. We make our own food from scratch, no preservatives, and no “frozen dinner”. At home we use whole grains, herbs and different spices in our kitchen - it's absolutely delicious and healthy! We also believe in Reuse and Recycle. In our well developed world there is so much over-production of everything – people barely use things before they buy next ones. We do not shop for new stuff – always for the “second hand”. We are eager to learn more ways how to live and enjoy our lives with minimum resources, and we want to know more about leaving less foot-print on our planet.

Countries I’ve Visited

Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Egypt, Georgia, Germany, India, Latvia, Mongolia, Nepal, Netherlands, Russian Federation, Ukraine, United Kingdom, United States

Countries I’ve Lived In

Canada, India, Russian Federation