Olga Meunière

This is Olga Meunière from Ostende, Western Flanders, Belgium as I met her munching a sandwich on Corso del Orso in Florence, the other day. She is the sweetest kid you ever want to meet, great sense of humor and a bright sunny disposition. Olga has three passions: travel and food and food. She lived in many places in Europe and cooked and eat her way through lots of diverse cuisines,  a regular Anthony Bourdain female clone if you wish (of whom Olga is the greatest fan). She is a great eater ... and I mean great, persistent, continuous and passionate ... rarely you see her without food in her hand or close by. Once, she went to the Universita di Pavia, Medical Centre to take part in a study of who eats and does not get fat ... the doctors were puzzled and could not explain the quantity of food she would eat without gaining one gram. The best time of her life was when she lived in Paris and met Vincent, a tall, dark, handsome American who lived on a diet of milkshakes and cheeseburgers (which he insisted to call "Royale with Cheese"). He became her boyfriend and they were very happy until, one day, Vincent got a phone call from California, packed up and left the next day. Olga never heard from him again and never had another burger (cheese or not) ever.  

Xenia Yakovleva Zaharova

This is Xenia Yakovleva Zaharova as I met her recently in the GAM in Milan and there are two reasons this is the only picture she agreed to - first: she believes her nose is too big for her face (it is not); the second reason will reveal itself as you read on. Xenia is an anthropologist and one of the world's foremost researchers of all things cultural, she lives in Nürenberg with her two cats and her brother Serghey. She is highly intelligent, devastatingly quick and utterly thorough: she will find all facts and present them totally unbiased. Now: Milan and Viena have a rivalry going back many years which resulted (sometimes) in statues of Generals in public squares and cemeteries filled with dead young men and, at other times, just heated verbal claims and disputes. Many of these have been settled: best Operahouse (Milan), best Symphonic Orchestra (Viena), best coffee (Milan), best pastry shops (Viena) but one item is still debated: where was it first that they deep fried breaded slices of veal called Wienerschnitzel (Viena) and Cotoletta Alla Milanese (Milan)? This is what Xenia was determined to determine (she is a vegetarian, so her interest in the subject was purely academic), it took about a year and a half and trips to Viena, Milan, Paris, and Budapest (where she found the final clue in a letter, dated August 21st, 1832, from Grof Janos to his cousin about a dinner with his friend Karl-Heinz von Gumpelholtz). Xenia's monograph was recently published by "Flyehans et Fils" in Geneva, in a beautifully illustrated bilingual edition and now she, as they say, "can not have lunch" in Milan anymore. 

Ayako Watanabe

This is Ayako Watanabe (38) of Ōtsu, Shiga Prefecture, Japan as I met her at the "Velvet Lounge Bar" on Via Stelvio, in Monza (almost a suburb of Milan). She was very happy and so totally proud for she was celebrating her second cover on the Japan Yogini Journal, the only person under forty to have had two covers. Ayako ordered a "Tequila e Red Bull" with a twist of line and a twig of Rosemary and I got myself a dram of Gray Goose. We talked about Yoga and life ... by the time I had four (Gray Goose) she'd had six ("Tequila e Red Bull") and had to excuse herself as being "Oh, so tired, oh so suddenly". The next picture is at breakfast the next morning ... Ayako had a terrible headache but she also had the absolute cure for it: her own Asana of her own invention: sitting in full Lotus, right-hand massage top of head pressure point (Bai Hui), left-hand in Karana Mudra. Her, it helped ... me, not so much! 

Lila Ma Uvelian

This is Lila (Ma) Uvelian in her pop-up store on Isola Madre, on Lago Maggiore ... she called it Lavanda Del Lago (wouldn't put it past clever Lila, to have made a play on "Lady of the Lake").  It is a souvenir store with a theme ... Lavender-Violet ... color-wise. It smells violet, it looks violet and it tastes violet too. Lila is an exceptionally pleasant young girl with a sweet voice, sunny disposition and great people skills. She runs the store more to meet people and talk, to exchange ideas and impressions about life and the universe rather than for commercial profit ... she does alright though. For a while, I couldn't figure why she stayed so deep in her, relatively dark, store until she stepped out into the light and I saw (more ... felt) the color of her hair. My head started spinnig, my throat choked and I floated into the air upside down seeing things down-side-up snapping mouthfuls of air as if most deliciously high ... couldn't decide if this was pleasant or not but I knew two things: it was dizzily nauseating and I did not want it to stop. After a while, I came to and went to take the boat to Stresa, but kept craning my neck looking back.      

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.