A slightly tipsy Saturday or two and a half sheets to the wind

So it's 10:30 at night on Saturday and I'm two and a half sheets to the wind.  Two bottles of vodka later, my friends just left.  It was a wonderful day.

I never left the apartment today.  Late morning, Roman came over and then Sergei came over because he wanted to talk to us about the process of making an icon of St. Cornelius.  He is a great guy.  I met him the last time I was in Donetsk but didn't feel I knew him or had a sense of him.  It turns out that he is a very talented artist.  He had a rough youth and got into drugs.  His feels that his art saved him.  He is now 38 but when he was a kid he was heavily into drugs.  He was seeking for something and found the church.  A priest challenged him to paint an icon of Isaiah the Prophet.  The process of preparing to paint this icon saved him, he feels.  The church was an anchor for him until he recognized his sexuality and then he was estranged from the church.  He found the LGBT Christian community here in Donetsk and now is prepared to paint an icon of St Cornelius, the patron saint of this community.  We had a great conversation with him.  Then Andrey called and invited us to the zoo.  We didn't want to go to the zoo so Andrey came over.  That made Roman, Sergei, Andrey and I.  After a while, Andrey went out to shop to cook for us.  He make borsch.  Very good borsh.  We had a salad first and part of a bottle of vodka.  While Andrey was cooking the borsch, Sergei went out to buy another bottle of vodka which he put in the freezer.  We spent the whole afternoon talking and eating and drinking vodka. In the evening, we sang together.  This is something that Americans just don't do.  Andrey has a wonderful singing voice and sang song after song in Russian and Ukrainian.  He is kind of a ham.
In the late afternoon, I made the video for church on Sunday.  It was an interview with Sergei translated by Roman.  My usual video is two minutes.  Today's was six minutes.  I think my church will like it.
We had a wonderful evening of friendship.  Of course as we neared the  bottom of the second bottle of vodka, we were all very very good friends.  Andrey and Sergei headed off to a night club.  I headed off to blog and go to bed and Roman headed off to home.  I will see them all tomorrow. 
I hardly ever drink.  Today I drank a lot and am a bit bleary-eyed.  I had an absolutely wonderful Saturday and I look forward to seeing my drinking buddies (in Russian sobotilniki) at church tomorrow.
Na'zdarovia! (Russian toast - to your health)