The vacation is going great. I get up at 6:00 a.m., lights out at 10:00 p.m. I love it. In Moscow, that never works out. Come to think of it, among all my acquaintances there are only two or three people who would describe themselves as “morning people.” On the contrary, everyone seems to take pride in how much they suffer when they have to get up early. Politics is even worse: in all the years I’ve been involved in it, not once has a meeting been scheduled before 11. All public and political life starts after 2 p.m., and most of it happens after 6 p.m. And not because anyone is actually “working.” My rare and timid attempts to schedule a meeting with someone for at least 10 are met with more astonishment than if I suddenly announced I was joining United Russia (the main pro-Kremlin political party). So instead, you end up carousing with everyone until midnight and then sleeping like a mole until nine or ten in the morning. Say what you like, but I’m convinced this idiotic twilight-evening mode of existence is one of the reasons the opposition keeps losing. You can’t be asleep while most of the country is already at work by nine. Not to mention those wonderful voters who started the first shift at the factory at seven in the morning. If we want to live like bohemians, then we’ll only get the votes of bohemians—unwashed longhairs who count themselves among the enlightened class, plus liberal hacks (who are even sleepier than the opposition politicians). At least on vacation you can live like a proper human being. Though my family, to be fair, tells me to get lost with these energetic six a.m. wake-ups. So I have breakfast without them, in the company of cheerful British pensioners. And that’s just fine. Hello, everyone. Sorry if this post doesn’t quite match the general mood of the friends feed. I hear the crisis is still going on and all that. But nothing more exciting is happening to me than, “Damn, we forgot the sunscreen in the room... Who’s going to get it?”