Elbow grease and a bunch of hours and sincere desire pays off at the Tiny Russian Village (TRV)…

In 2018 and or around there, we started to resurrect Nikolai’s Home. Five years ago. I took the dreams of an 83+ year old man (found within all the building supplies this man had gathered over many years) and realized that I had the same dreams. Variances of course, but the same basic dreams…

Nikolai had accomplished most of the interior himself. He only had a few months a hear to work on the home and sadly he ran out of time. Life is that way. Nikolai and I had become good friends and I realize that he had passed the dream on to me during those few years of friendship. It was as if he knew a kindred spirit…

First image of home below…

Image below is this morning, five years later…

Image below is when I got good access to work on the home…

Five years later the image below…

Nikolai’s Home:

From boarded up windows and rotted front steps… (Nikolai’s Home)

Nikolai’s Home, my dream home…

Now as with everything in life, plans change, but I have tried to stay the course and do it right. I changed the wood stove idea and wood stove location a dozen times. In my mind is where the changes happened, but when I finally installed a wood stove. It immediately was correct and the right way to do it…

Wood Stove almost done inside…

Today, I simply have looked back and realize that God has blessed me. What more could a man want? I have a Sweetpea of a Russian woman and a Tiny Russian Village home that I have made it ours and in my eyes still used and followed an idea that the original owner was trying to accomplish. Yes, it is personalized, but the materials were literally all available and asking to be used to finish this home…

One thing I will never forget: God has blessed me!

Maybe one day I will figure out why he did that?

I guess you could say, “That is why I love Russia.”

WtR