Aurică (Aureliu) Agavriloaiei

This is Aureliu (Aurică) Agavriloaiei also known as Rică or Ricu or Rico sitting on his favorite bench in the Giardino Publico in Milan the other day. He lives with his wife Ludmila, very frugally,  in a small apartment, they bought close by, on via Carlo Teneca. You wouldn't be able to tell from looking, but Rico has great wealth, an unbelievable memory for numbers and a very volatile and violent temper. He is the principal of the largest scalper network in Milan - they resell hundreds of thousands of tickets a year for, mainly, la Scala, AC Milan and Inter for hundreds of thousands of Euro in profits.  Ludmila runs a group of Russian hackers who write bots to buy up tickets at face-value and Rico runs the distribution: street vendors. The couple has two kids: Enrico (28) who owns two Auto Repair shops and Profira (30) who owns three Fitness Clubs. All family enterprises are very successful because they launder money for Rico, ship containers of hot Audis and BMWs to Uzbekistan and Azerbaijan and sell illegal steroids on the side. Both Enrico and Profira drive high-end Mercedes-Benz cars and live in luxury villas just outside Milan. All-in-all this is one European Union family success story. Rico plans to retire and return to his native Târgu-Neamț to spend his time hunting and fishing.

Yagella, Yagella, Pawòl and Pawòl

These are Yagella (29), Yagella jr. (6), Pawòl (28) and Pawòl jr. (5) from Wrocław, Poland but they live in Alicante, Spain. They drove to Milan for a week's vacation to their Airbnb, in a nice old building just off Piazza di Risorgimento. When you look closer at the Piazza del Duomo, you can see Yagella, she is the tall handsome girl next to Pawòl, the big, athletic guy in the blue t-shirt, in front of them, their two kids. The idea to come in such summer heat to a super-touristic city with two small kids was the worst they had: the kids are, in turn, bored or hyperactive, always want something and when they don't get it, they act up. The idea to come in such summer heat to a super-touristic city with two small kids was the best they had: the kids happy, they hug a lot, laugh a lot, take lots of selfies and pictures and have a great time. You couldn't help noticing a slight contradiction between the two previous sentences, and said WTF, right? The explanation is simpler than you think - it has to do with the sun and the moon and the stars and the way the Universe is put together, but also with the frequency and quantity of PIZZA that you are getting 😃. 

Giuseppe Costanza III

This is Giuseppe Costanza III, in Florence sitting and sketching the Duomo. His grandfather, Giuseppe I, came back in 1961 from Russia, where he was held as a war prisoner. He had great knowledge of Russian language and literature, a missing left leg, and an old icon, about 60 by 80 cm showing an old frowny Saint with a white beard. The missing leg made the Italian government give Giuseppe I a decoration, a pension and a license to sell tobacco, it also allowed Giuseppe I imaginative sexual positions. The icon went on the wall behind the counter of the new Tabacheria on via dei Fatebenefratelli, Milan. Giuseppe I, who prospered also due to the sale of smuggled cigarettes, had a son, Giuseppe II who, in time, took over the store. A guy who worked around the corner on via Brera and bought his Chesterfields at Giuseppe's several times a week, asked one day, about four and a half years ago, if he could take a picture of the icon on the wall, next to the Tabacco License and the first 100 Lire note that Giuseppe I earned. Next day the guy came back and asked Giuseppe II if he knew Andrei Rublev. Giuseppe II said that his dad may have known him in Russia all those years back. There was laughter, the guy said that the Rublev he is talking about died almost six hundred years ago. There was even more laughter when the old frowny Saint with the white beard went into Sotheby's fall catalog and, later, sold at double the estimate (four and a half Million Euro). Giuseppe III, who doesn't want anything to do with selling cigarettes, has now the money to travel around Italy and sketch churches. Giuseppe III makes horrible sketches.

Felix (Fra Bertoldi) Cantiriani

This is Fra Bertoldi as I met him at the ancient church of Santa Maria Delle Grazie. He lived for 28 years as Felix Cantiriani, a quiet, bookish slightly religious young man with obsessions and fears (mostly of fear itself) on via Melloni, in a small apartment on the fourth floor of a five-floor building. His door had two locks and two deadbolts that could only be worked from inside, the windows had solid iron bars. Felix always made sure he took the elevator alone or only with neighbours he knew and, once at home, he shut both locks leaving the keys in and pushed the deadbolts in place. One late night, about four and a half years ago, Felix woke up and only half opened his eyes, his bedroom was cold, there was a faint smell that he could not identify. In the corner he could see a tall dark shape, like a man with a hood. He quickly closed his eyes again and pretended to be asleep but still peeked. The shape moved closer, he felt the air move and heard a deep voice, more like a grunt, saying "I am dangerous". Felix shut his eyes tight and lay there for a long time prepared to die. The dawn broke and nothing further happened. He got up and checked the apartment, windows: locked, door: locked! He was even more terrified now than he was when it happened, in the night - he knew it had not been a dream. He got dressed and ran to see Padre Paolo. The father heard him out, was silent for a long time and then told Felix to go pray and come back the next day. Not many of his friends and relatives were surprised when Felix became a novice for the "White-Robed Monk of St. Benedict" and was ordained a year and a half later as Fra Bertoldi. Now he gets up at the 3:10 wake-up bell and has a small cup of coffee followed by prayers followed by more readings and prayers and cleaning and cooking and his general purpose in life is to let the world be a more compassionate place, inviting peace and joy. He sleeps well. 

Mina, Rina and Tina

These are Mina (9) and Rina (7), their mother Tina (38), was so upset that it was impossible to take her picture; her younger sister, Simona (Sysy, 36) was getting married today to Stefano (Fyfy, 37) at the ancient church of Santa Prassede, Rome where we all were waiting for the last 48 minutes. What is known is that Sysy and Fyfy decided against tradition and planned to come to church together. What is not known is that while dressing, Fyfy holding one cufflink, asked Sysy if she knew where his other cufflink is, Sysy said that it is called your cufflink because you should know where it is; Fyfy said he did not ask for attitude, Sysy gave him more attitude and Fyfy, angrily, threw the one cufflink against the wall, it fell on the floor (the cufflink, not the wall) and rolled under the sofa. Sysy ran into the bedroom and banged the door shut. Twenty minutes later, Sysy opened the door to give Fyfy some more attitude and found Fyfy on his knees crying, so Sysy went down on her knees too and they kissed after which, being on their knees anyway, they scuttled to the sofa to look for the one cufflink. They found two cufflinks next to each other cozy and happy, as cozy and happy as inanimate objects can be. They finished dressing quickly and got a cab to be only 64 minutes late ... all frowns and raised eyebrows and knowing nods vanished, Mina and Rina threw petals most expertly and Tina smiled again. The cufflinks also smiled (as inanimate objects can, sometimes, smile too). 

Gianni and Tomasso Barbaini

These are the Barbaini brothers as I met them in the Galeria Vittorio Emanuelle the other day. Their surname comes from their forefather, a Greek ship Captain called Barba Iani, who sailed to Genova, Italy in the mid-thirties and stayed because his ship was confiscated by the Mussolini fascists. Their fortune also comes from the Captain who had great skills in cooking fish and started an extremely successful restaurant in a suburb of Milan. The restaurant is still doing very well to this day and the brothers prosper mostly due to the special sauce they serve with their fried fish, nobody can make the sauce like them (the secret ingredient is nutmeg). After they studied the diner's traffic carefully, they noted that the lowest day occupancy is on Wednesdays, so that is when they keep the restaurant closed and everybody takes their day off. Gianni and Tomasso Barbaini relax by dressing in women's clothes, go shopping and hang around in bars. They have great success at it.

Vanja (Five-Strings) V

This is Vanessa (Vanja) Heinz from Boston, MA, a busker in Milan, at the Duomo, where we met. You look closer and see that she plays an Ibanez SR505 5-String Electric Bass, which is definitely, not her first choice instrument as she struggles to keep up with the stupid drum machine. Vanessa actually plays the harp (42 strings more) but she was left high and dry by her bass-playing boyfriend, who took her to Milan and then, one night, disappeared without a trace. She shrugged it off, picked up the abandoned guitar and figured: Kismet, "V" as in Vanja and the Roman numeral ... you gets the gig, you plays the gig. It is enough money to pay the rent and buy groceries until Jimmie finds his way home ... Vanja was always a great one to roll with the punches. Passers-by threw her  few Euro coins as she got her fingering straight and plunged into a soulful rendition of Gaėtano Bottesini's Andante sostenuto, she brought down the house!