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500 kilometers to the north-east from Moscow in Kostroma region there is a smallest village of three houses only called Ryzhevka. It is standing on the right bank of one of the sleeves of the great Russian river Volga in a very picturesque site among green forests and fields. Each year, Vladimir Vasiliev spends one or two months in his house in Ryzhevka. And he considers this place to be the best in the whole world ( which he has seen so much) for a genuine rest and enjoying nature. And that is where Vasiliev and his wife - legendary ballerina Ekaterina Maximova, are having their holidays from work. Though Vladimir Vasiliev is never at rest - here, in Ryzhevka, he paints. Everyone who knows Vladimir Vasiliev, knows also that he is fond of painting with oil or with water colours. There are numerous paintings - big and small - the landscapes, nature morts and portraits. These paintings decorate his house and his dacha, close to Moscow,- Sneghiri. Sometimes, his friends are lucky to have them as presents. But Vladimir Vasiliev is always reluctant to different proposals of exhibitions and refuses from any requests to sell his paintings, saying that these are only amateur works and, thus, can not be taken seriously.
There is another hobby, which may be called occasional, as Vladimir Vasiliev writes poems on from time to time and on certain occasions . Usually, as he points out himself, poems are born when something goes wrong in your life and then emotions are bursting out. There is a book of poems "A chain of days" published for his 60th jubilee in 2000. Sports is also among Vasiliev's hobbies. He was going in for different kinds of sports for his whole life: boxing, football, volley-ball, table tennis, big tennis, swimming. And big tennis is what he is going in for now.  |
