Within days of Serbian culture the play “Folk magic” of Serbian State theatre was performed

We weren’t going to go there because we just didn’t know about it. However, thanks to a wonderful woman – Maria Dozmarova, who works in a puppet theatre Demmeni, we were invited as special guests to watch the play of the Serbian theatre, which  was on tour in our city and performed in that very theatre. How could we resist?

And we set off.  It was Sunday, warm and sunny September day. In order to save money and energy we decided to go in a small group to fit into or volunteer driver’s jeep that helps us frequently.

At that day the play was on twice: at 2 p.m and at 5 p.m. We promised to come for the first performance, but on the way we realized that we were late. What could we do? We had to decide: to go back home or to spend three extra hours somewhere.  Of course we chose second variant. “Let’s go to Park Pobedy (Victory park)”, commanded our coordinator E. Shtil. “We’ll ride a sightseeing wheel”. We had to call the theatre and say that we could come only for the second performance.

Now a few words about our passengers. Igor Zelenchuck is an active, straight-back, but lame boy with consequences of ICP. One Igor’s arm almost doesn’t operate.  Alena Artemova is an older girl who walks with the help of walking frame. We’ve recently written about her. And Valya Petrova , our capricious princess.  Like two previous children she also has consequences of ICP and walks with adult’s help. In this group we decided to ride the sightseeing wheel! (We’d like to calm those who are eager to accuse volunteers for being mad. We never go for the things we can’t manage to do. However, sometimes we have to pull up our sock).

So, the sightseeing wheel. When we bought our tickets we started jumping into the flying cabins. Children and volunteers (there were only 2 of them: driver and coordinator) had to overreach themselves to climb into the flying by cabin. Administrator of the ride tried to help us, slowing down the wheel, but anyway we had to jump into the moving cabin. It seems to be the most extreme thing the children ever did, but they coped with it with the help of the volunteers. We saw the city like a bird’s eye panorama.

Having ridden the wheel we went on. We had quite much time, so we decided to go to a café and have something to eat, for we hadn’t eaten at the orphanage. We parked the car close to the Nevskiy prospect and lamely went down it looking for a suitable café. Hardly had we passed 20 meters when we ran across our acquaintances. First we saw volunteers Alisa and Zhenya, then coordinator of volunteers from the charity organization “Perspectivy” Masha Mordovina. It was unexpectedly and surprisingly: do we have so many friends that we meet them literally at every step or is it just because every third in the city is somehow connected to  the support of charity projects.  Probably, both reasons are possible.

We had some pancakes (the only one who had a sweet tooth was our only gentleman, all girls had pancakes with minced meat) and went to the theatre. Maria Dozmarova met us and gave us seats in the first row. The play was very special: wordless,  accompanied with Serbian music native Serbs wearing national costumes showed miracles, which can be done with simple village utensils such as baskets and brooms. These were utensils that became the main heroes of the play: they transformed into swans, bears, or into a cow. All of them had their own character and were charming. It seems to me, we have never seen anything like this. The play passed in one breath. We had a long way home ahead of us. Almost sleepy we came home after 7 p.m. and once again felt surprised by the day we spent: a year ago such a walking-out was even difficult to imagine.