Category: travel

Prague Postgres Dev Days

When I planned my trip to Prague, I thought I would be able to take extra days off for an “unpaid conference,” but in 2026, the PTO tracking changed, and as a result, I no longer received “unpaid conference time.” I am still going to contest it, because I still took my work computer with me, and I still did quite a bit of work while there.

But as for Monday, it was a legit working day. I didn’t go to co-working because I had to leave for the airport before 3 PM, and I still wanted to have some time with Boris. I worked from 7:30 AM to 2:30 PM, with only a break for a 30-min walk, and then we headed to the airport, where I kept doing things from the lounge, and still did one work meeting from the hotel, and still dialed in to work a couple of times on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Aside from that, the whole trip to Prague was uneventful in a good way and very productive. The hotel where I stayed (Vienna House Diplomat) was much better than the one I stayed at last year, in all aspects. The room was better, and the gym was on-site and very well equipped. The reception told me that there was an extra charge of 10 euros per visit, but it was totally worth it. The gym had everything, was way more spacious than the one at my Helsinki coworking space, and opened at 6 AM (actually, even a little bit earlier than that!)

This time, I knew what the venue looked like, so I didn’t spend time wandering around the University campus. There were no technical issues with my workshop; the class was full, people listened, reacted, and thanked me many times.

Also, this time, I didn’t have to leave on the same day, so I could stay for the speaker’s dinner and for two-thirds of the talks on Wednesday. I met with everyone I planned to meet, had some unplanned meetings, and all conversations were very productive. I hope that I secured a couple of new sponsors for PG DATA 2026.

My friend Gulcin promised a birthday cake for my belated birthday celebration, and brought a box of delicious pastries! Everyone who was there tried at least a little bit 🙂

People still can’t believe that I turned 63. Gulcin asked me what the secret of my youthfulness is, and as usual, I responded that the secret is that I always do what I want to do, and never do the things I don’t want to do :). She and another person who was there even posted about it on LinkedIn, which was funny.

I brought cookies for those people who didn’t want to rely on the mercy of the Postal Service

Also, the Lighting talks organizer convinced me to submit a lighting talk, so I gave a five-minute into to my new project, and used this opportunity to advertise PG DATA.

Overall, despite many problems I currently have at work and with many of my non-work activities, my mood is significantly better than before the conference.

Speakers and volunteers photo

I am finishing this post on my flight to London, and for some reason, my Google Photos is not available. I will add more photos from the hotel when I am on another provider 🙂

Helsinki Appendix

Firstly, I added more details about the Finnish presidents (and one more picture), so if you are curious, you can revisit this post.

And secondly, I wanted to show the interior of a new Helsonki tram. These trams can go back and forth without turning (like trains); they have doors on both sides (like trains), and they have charges 🙂

All Presidents Of Finland

Helsinki has memorials for several Presidents of Finland (possibly for all of them, and I just don’t know), but unless you know that they are president’s memorials, you would never recognize them. On Sunday, Boris suggested we visit all the presidents he knew, and since it still felt not as cold as in Vienna, I agreed (and barely made it, because it was actually pretty cold!)

Relander, second president of Finland, called “Upwards, Outwards.” Symbolises stability and growth
Risto Ryti, the fifh president of Fonland, served in 1940-1944. His personal history is really tragic, and the memorial symbolises it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Risto_Ryti
The is not a president’s memorial, but the only building which survived after the old sugar factory was demplished to give place to the new Ppera building.
A memorial to Finnish sugar industry 🙂
A memorial tp Urho Kekkonen, the eight and the longest-serving Finnish President (from 1956 to 1982)
A closer view
100 years of Finnish democracy monument, The sculpture was initiated by a women’s organization to honor the first 19 women elected to the Finnish Parliament in 1907; first ever elected women in the world
Mauno Koivisto, nineth Finnish President, memorial, dubbed as “Mediator,” reflects the role of Koivisto “between East and West”
Juho Kusti Paasikivi, the seventh President of Finland, served from 1946 to 1956, right before Kekkonen. The memorial is dubbed “East and West”, because he had to balance between the demands of the neighboring Soviet Union, but he still tried (successfully) pull Finland towards integration with the West. The inscription reads: The start of all wisdom is acknowledging the facts.

In short, all post-WWII Finnish Presidents had to balance between being the USSR neighbor and trying to do the best for the people of Finland

Why The Soviet Union Didn’t Annex Austria?

During our Vienna walks, we came across this monument (which was not recommended to us as a point of interest by any app), and stared at it, puzzled, trying to make sense out of it. It’s not like you won’t expect a wartime cemetery in Vienna, but what shocked us was the monument’s size. Somehow, I didn’t even hear about this monument, not exactly the size of Berlin’s Treptow memorial, but still massive. We were even more shocked after we read the sign saying the monument was erected in August 1945, when, as we already knew, the whole of Vienna was in ruins. We couldn’t imagine how anybody would invest that much resources in a monument at such a moment.

When we visited the Albertina museum, we learned that Austrian independence was only declared in 1955, and we realized that we didn’t know anything about that part of history, and why Austria was not made a socialist country after WWII. Somehow, we assumed that Austria was “in the western territory” and didn’t realize that, actually, there were Soviet troops that were there, and they were there for a while.

Since the House of Austrian History was closed on Tuesday when we tried to attend, I did some reading on the topic. From what I read, it seems like it was almost by accident. Yes, there was a Moscow Treaty of 1943, which technically didn’t allow the Annexation of Austria, but we all are aware of multiple cases when no treaty would stop Stalin. I also read that, since Austria (and Vienna) was divided into four parts, similar to Germany itself and Berlin, the Soviet Union couldn’t pursue direct annexation. In addition, the “Soviet” part of Austria didn’t have any significant economic value, and the Communist Party barely existed. So my understanding is that it was simply not the top priority for Stalin, so it remained in the “undefined” status until Khruschev was preparing for the XX Communist Party Congress.

In any case, lucky Austrians!

Tapiola And Toys Museum

On Saturday, I met with my friend Natasha and her daughter (and my goddaughter) Sonia, and Natasha suggested we go to Tapiola, a 1950s project of integrating urban development with nature. I have never been there, and for Natasha, that’s the place she lived when she was a kid, and she wanted to show it to me.

Once again, it might have been better if it weren’t so cold, but it was still very interesting. Retrospectively, I should have taken more pictures!

Used audio and video materials sale in the local library
An outdoor piano
There is a small but really interesting toy museum in Tapiola, but unfortunately, we could not find descriptions in any language, so we often had to guess what period the toys belonged to.

We ended our field trip with a visit to the cafe that makes the biggest cinnamon buns one can imagine:

Natasha and I shared one bun but even a half was of a size of two regular buns!

Music in Helsinki

Wednesday was my first working day in Helsinki, but after work, we went to a proper concert. Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra performed Elgar’s Violin Concerto (“the longest violin concerto”:)), and the Beethoven Fifth (and the whole concert was called “The Sound of Fate”. The soloist was Christian Tetzlaff, whom I heard a number of times at the CSO, and who is absolutely brilliant. He canceled his CSO appearance in October due to visa issues/in protest. Not sure which one is true, I heard both versions, but in any case, I was delighted to hear him again.

Also, that was the first time I attended a concert in the Helsinki House of Music, and I had an opportunity to experience this outstanding venue!

The coolest organ I’ve seen in my life!

Beautiful sound and great view from any seat, easy entrance and exit, fast service at the cafe and at the coat check – everything about this venue is perfect 🙂

Last Day In Vienna And Beating The Cold Again

Tuesday, January 20, was a very cold day in Vienna, largely due to the Chicago-style wind chill. I was dressed warmly enough, but my face was hurting all the time, and most of the time, I couldn’t make myself take pictures, because I needed to take off at least one glove, at least for a minute.

After everything we saw in the museums during the previous two days, we realized that we do not know enough about the post-WWII Austrian History, and decided to alter our plans and go to the House of Austrian History, which is located in the Hofburg Palace (and saw the Changing of the Guard on the way):

Unfortunately, when we got there, we found the museum closed on that day due to whatever repairs. We were crushed, so we went to the Sisi Museum since we were already at the Hofburg.

This museum has a very different mood compared to Schonbrunn (if you can say that about a museum). Also, I watched the movie “Sisi and I” last year, and did more Sisi-related reading, and that might have influenced how I perceived the exhibit.

It was very dark inside (Boris lost me, and we didn’t reunite until the exit :)), but they were giving everyone an audioguide, which helped.

The imperial rooms had normal light, so I took some pictures there

Franz Joseph’s audience room
His cabinet
A dining room for “non-formal” dinners. The most impressive thing we learned was that there were from nine to thirteen courses served, and each course was promptly removed when the next course started, and the whole dinner didn’t last more than 45 minutes. I don’t know how they did it!

The next several pictures show Sisi’s rooms.

Note the gymnastic rings in the doorway

We left Hofburg and went to St. Stephen’s Cathedral.

We planned to explore it, to climb up the tower and to walk around the neighborhood, but once again, the bitter cold altered all our plans.

So we just stayed inside the Cathedral, saw all we could see, and went for a pre-booked lunch, and then moved from one coffee shop to another until it was time to go to the airport 🙂

Leopold Museum And The Concert

Looking at the posts about our previous visit to Vienna in 2022, this one and that one, it appears to be hopeless – I was complaining about the cold weather back then, and promised to get there in better weather, and we came back for even worse weather!

Also, I still haven’t done my homework on Modernism in Vienna, but at least this time, we had more time to explore. After Belvedere, we headed to the Leopold Museum, which was partially under reconstruction last time, and this time, we spent a lot of time there. It was a more in-depth dive into the New Objectivity, Modernism, Kimpt and Schiele, Secession and Women’s Rights, and the artists in the exhibit were pretty much the same we saw in other museums, so I won’t repeat myself. The Leopold Museum has an excellent online collection that you can tour.

I liked a four-minute movie with the tram going through Vienna in the early 1900s (don’t remember the exact year). It always feels surreal to see people “live” more than a hundred years ago, and it’s surprising how much alike things look (you want to say these are the same trees :)), and the people waiting at the tram stop. It’s also interesting how little the men’s clothing changed since then, and how much the women’s clothing changed 🙂

Several pictures of the museum interior, a couple of interesting objects, and paintings:

I don’t know how they make this spiral to fly in the air, but that’s how it looks
The Insinuation by Luksch
Continue reading “Leopold Museum And The Concert” →

Belvedere

On Monday morning, we planned a visit to the Belvedere Summer Palaces and park.

I thought that Belvedere would be mostly about architecture and interiors (same as many summer palaces around St. Petersburg). But it turned out that only a few rooms in each palace are restored in all their baroque glory, and there was more art and more information to process.

I will still start with the architecture, though. Everything would look better during summer, but I imagine there will also be hordes of tourists when the weather is nicer (same as in Paris, Athens, and other big tourist attractions, so I am counting my blessings.

We started with the Upper Palace and the park, which actually looks a lot like the Peterhoff Uppaer Palace.

Continue reading “Belvedere” →

Albertina Museum In Vienna, Part 2

Paul Klee
Boris Grigorjew. A couple: Thief and Prostitute. 1917

Once again, I didn’t know anything about this artist, so I saved some notes from the exhibit:

Boris Grigoriev is one of those artists who, despite the omnipresent search for new forms of avant-garde expression in the contemporary Eastern European art centers of Moscow and St. Petersburg, stuck to figuration and the classical genres. A brilliant draftsman, he initially worked as an illustrator for magazines and made a name for himself as a recognized portraitist of well-known personalities. Self-Portrait with a Cigarette is one of these powerfully expressive portraits.

Grigoriev’s portraits thrive on a direct confrontation with the sitter and the exaggeration of gestures and facial features, as well as the expression of an emotion that captivates the viewer. In this sell-portrait Grigorier presents himself in a defensive posture: the raised shoulder and the skeptical, grim gaze suggest a defensive aloofness; in addition, the figure is viewed from below, by which the artist elevates himself while subordinating the viewer it is through such powerful means that Grigorier lends this traditional genre o modernity that a comparable and roughly contemporaneous with the visoalizations of Expressionism and New Objectivity. Not lost because of the criticism of his “European style,” the artist left Russia in 1919 and settled in Paris in 1921

I recognized Deineka, and was wondering how he could possibly paint a baseball game, and it turned out that he was “awarded” a trip abroad, including the USA, approximately at the same time as Ilf and Petrov
Continue reading “Albertina Museum In Vienna, Part 2” →