Kids' Archstoyanie 5.0

For the first time, I went to Kids' Archstoyanie with all my children. Misha joined us this year. It was his third Archstoyanie, the second for Masha, Leya, and Sonya, and my fifth.

Work kept us from arriving on Thursday; next time I'll take those days off. But we still managed to escape the everyday worries of Moscow. This year Masha insisted on choosing our accommodations herself and bought a tent I wasn't allowed to see until the very last moment. When I finally saw it, I gasped—it was enormous! The good news was that it unfolds very quickly and is reasonably easy to pack up. My wife made it wonderfully cozy, with sleeping pads, different lanterns, chairs, tables, air mattresses—the full setup.

The festival was incredibly crowded this year. Tents were everywhere, and the lines for the showers and newly remodeled restrooms were huge. I don't understand why the organizers combined the men's and women's restroom areas; now men had to stand in line too. In previous years, the women's line was usually short, and the men's barely existed. This year everyone waited in the same long line. At least the stalls themselves were more comfortable.

The weather was the usual mix: rain gave way to sunshine, wind to blazing heat, one night was cold, and the next was warm.