Most every day that I have been in Perm I pass by this same Russian Orthodox Priest on my walk to campus.  Every day we exchange glances, I nod, he just looks at me kindly, and no word is ever spoken.  Tomorrow is my last day of walking to campus to I sneaked this photo so at least I will remember my silent friend.  

I wonder each day if he is wondering, like I am, what this dude is looking at!?

The walk to campus also has my now favorite benches where I sit before the seminars and get in the zone.  Today, my wonderful scholar host Tatiana photo-chronicled my daily routine, recording the deep, bright, wonderful secrets of all of the university in my "FollowTheComet" secret-coder journal (meaning, I suppose that there is  a secret-decoder from a cereal box.)  

This has been an incredible experience.

Wonderful treat that Tatiana, the Fulbright Host, scored tickets to the world famous Diaghilev Ballet.  It was a great and rare experience to see Russian ballet in performed in one of the most famous ballet cities anywhere.

Big ole new bank.  Consider that the banking industry has only been private in Russia for less than 25 years and they have made great progress, with the bumps and scrapes that are expected.

Part of the class of HSE Perm Teaching Scholars.

Talented folks.

We all read Dr. Zhivago or saw the movie.  This is a statue of the author Boris Pasternak.  The story is set in the city of Perm and the buildings he describes are still standing.

Ah, experimenting with the west...SUBWAY

Faculty members Anastasia, Svetlana and her husband took me for dinner to this great Jewish restaurant.  The food was great, the conversation better.

No Comment.  They do tell me, though, that Perm was one of the last big cities to get the Mac.

Medal of Order of Lenin awarded to Perm for efforts in rebuilding Russia after WW II.  I want Braddock to win one of these one day.

Diaghilev Ballet Theater

Sunday, May 26, 2013

I am always fascinated by the mystery of time changes -- I think it is magic like comets are magic, because it is  stuff far beyond our normal senses. This computer seems to read Pittsburgh, time.  I love the mystery.

This is a previous military rocket academy in Perm that after 1991 was closed down and is now, while waiting to be converted to offices or condos,  decorated with murals.

On the banks of the Kama river the sign reads, I am told, that "happiness is right here" meaning quit "looking for happiness elsewhere."  I notice that the old Westinghouse, then Bayer, sign space on Mt. Washington in Pittsburgh is not being used at the moment.  Maybe a slogan contest?  I think Pittsburgh is a pretty good place to be happy..

Bridge crossing the Kama River, which is as significant, or more,  than the Volga River.

Mary asked me to carry a Square Cafe tshirt and photo it.  Well here it is in Diaghilev Park, Lenin Square, Perm.  

Visited some local museums of art and history.  This book of Monks Rules was impressive, or insane? or something.

Lots, and lots of places serve "pancakes" which are filled with meat, cheese, beans, veggies or whatever you want. They seem to be everywhere and very popular....and very tasty and very inexpensive.

Station Square, Southside, Pittsburgh......no I mean  Kama River Banks, Perm Russia....beautiful Sunday afternoon, folks taking cruises

Sorted out my daily laundry routine.  Not a bad system after I remembered that dish soap is not good for cleaning clothes.  Seems like Tide has made it to Perm.

Museum of Natural History, a display of minerals from the Ural Mountains.  I like the green Malachite the best.  All minerals, gems have magic and the Malachite is supposed to protect travel and adventure. I'm all in.

Absolutely no reason for it, but a photo of  local cops walking the beat.  

Well of course I recognized the Stroganoff's, famous for 4 centuries of power and wealth in Russia, and famous to all Americans because of the meat and noodle dish bearing the name, created, apparently, because one of the dudes in these portraits could not chew large chunks of meat.  Once again, and as always in my opinion, history is simply the best collection of interesting stories, nothing more, nothing less.

Sunday morning jog along Krpskoy Alley (крпской ул).  I found a Cyrillic keyboard on my computer so I can now figure out more of the things I am seeing and try to be a little more respectful of the Russian language.   I hear lots of incredible English in my class where all of the faculty are fluent in Russian, English and 1 or 2 more languages, but not so much on the streets and in the markets.

I have learned:  hello, excuse me, good morning, good afternoon,  "Excuse me, I am sorry, I do not speak Russian"  -- a big seller for me  --  please, thank you, water, soup, meat, and a handful more of words.   Each day a little more.

Have hot sauce (соус чили)...Will Travel      

I decided to build my own brunch today from the market.  I landed some cheese (сыр), yogurt (, hot sauce (соус чили), bread (хлеб) , grapes (виноград) , salami (little confused in the meat selection so I chose what looked like salami), black tea, little pickles (соленья ) and eggs (яйца).

Getting my travel legs back I boiled the eggs in an electric water pot which is intended to make water for tea.   I learned that both salt (соль)  and sugar (сахар) look pretty similar in letters and packaging so I used my keen culinary sense and shook both containers deciding that the finer granular sound should be salt.  Hah, it worked.

Maybe a language gaff on my part.  When I was at the checkout counter I put all of my stuff down, smiled and told the clerk, as badly as I could, that I did not speak Russian.  She smiled, checked out my killer brunch items.  I paid then noticed all of my stuff was just sitting there.  Somehow, I guess, I said something or gestured or inferred that I did not want a bag.  When I pointed at the bags she became a little frustrated with me, and it was funny but awkward because apparently I had passed the grace period beyond which I could get a bag.  After a few seconds the person behind me figured out the silly situation and gave the clerk a coin (I think like 5 cents) which then allowed me to have a bag.  The person who helped would not let me give her money back.  Big or small, it is the funny little cultural difference, language, that I think is the most interesting.

A good day of touring

 Good day of touring.

This is the Kama River and as any river buff knows (and I did not by I am guessing my dad does) the Volga River, which is the largest in Europe, actually feeds into the Kama instead of the other way around.  This is a very important matter of pride here, as would be the case in Pittsburgh if somebody tried to claim that the Allegheny fed the Monongahela.  Kama is massive, and Perm stretches along the river for 45 miles.

Roadtrip to Kungur to see the ice caves, and exceptionally cool road because it is the Trans-Siberian highway of legend and lore, of great merchant trading and horrible prisoner walks.  It was explained to me that it took prisoners (mostly really bad people, but then political prisoners, 2 years to walk from St. Petersburg to Irkutsk.  Ouch.  This is Sergei driving and my wonderful tour-guide Professor Ekaterina.

At Kungur in the Ice Caves.  Pretty awesome, a Perm Krai, Russia version of Laurel Caverns with its own very unique twists, such at these ice crystal formations and very, very cold temperatures.  These caves are at the foot of the Ural Mountains and some very cool malachite stuff.

No way around it, this photo is for Schultz and Michael.  In addition, there is an experiment going on with that xmas tree.  It is in its 3rd year of standing and has lost no needles because of the exact cold air and humidity combination.  Other very cool features of this air for lungs and breathing and, according to legend, keeping people (women) from again, but there ya go Michael.

And what a very cool cave (17th largest in world) be without a cross commemorating a religious group who hid here during a stage of persecution  --  in this case Russian Orthodox during some skirmish in that church in the 18th century.

The tried to translate this formation of crystals, with a red light illuminating, as an interpretation

of a meteor, but nobody is fooling me. This is the Perm Krai, Russia, Kungur Ice Cave rendition of the Comet.  Hah!

Public ski jumps downtown, confirming what I was told that the winters are long and full of snow in Perm.

Proof of the reason I put my photos on a blog and not on facebook, because I like photos, and memories.  This these two come from Tatiana's camera phone.

Perm cityscape.

Here ya go Mary....rockin' out the Square Cafe tshirt - Perm, Russia Style

Always love the shadow photos, with Russian plates even better.

Strolling towards the school noticed people relaxing in the park.  The older Russians are in that very intense generation which lives through major social and political upheaval.  Every society on earth, every culture, in all history has or will go through it.  Nobody is exempt and I think it is very difficult.  These ladies might be part of the group that longs for the days of the Soviet regime when there was at least order and a sense of more direction for youth.  I love the new Russia.  I am not sure they do.

I like these water bottle refilling stations.  Water is very cheap.

The "alley" they call it that I walk to school.  Glorious springtime in Perm.

Cool little market place to buy cool little stuff.

This is the bulletin board outside of my classroom.  It occurred to me today that I don't have any clue what even one single piece of paper hanging there has to say.  Maybe there is a college dance tonight that I don't know about.

Hah, was talking to Mary on Facetime this morning and realized how many methods of communication there are just at this very moment.  Mostly all good, sometimes too connected?

I visited a small "English Language" class this morning and it was wonderful to see the students practicing the language that I am supposed to know.

I asked the professor why the class, and for that matter most of the 200 faculty at this University, were female.   Just proving how little I know about anything.  90% of the faculty are female, and the average is about the same in the entire country of Russia.  The university professorship is, and has been, in Russia a traditionally female position, except in some of the sciences.  Who knew?  The faculty are excellent, scholarly, well prepared.  

There is a one year mandatory military service  for males in Russia and many go that route.  University is still an option, but many choose the 1 year of service.  Every day I am anywhere I find out so much that I don't know and it is always cool.

Tatiana helped me pick out a really cool street map of Perm so I could mark my bus route and walking route and I am now truly getting a handle on things.  I did, for a few minutes today, think I was on the wrong bus going the wrong direction, but that has happened coming home from Shales in Pittsburgh so no big deal.  And I did find a 2 mile walking route to the university through a park and some markets and all kinds of other cool stuff, continuing my fantasy that one day I will actually live and work at a university in a city where I can walk or take the bus.  Ah, good dream, but I still love Cal so my Comet Following has the perfect home base.

I just always wonder this about animals in other countries...does a bird in Russia understand Russian and chirp in Russian.  That worm does not care either way.  Saw this guy running early this morning.

I had to take a picture of this billboard to convince myself that this is Bruce Willis schlepping for some Russian bank.  I looked it up and it is him.

Note the cool pink cell phone that Tatian's daughter Anna loaned me to use locally during my visit.  I am taking great care of it I assure you, though I don't really have anyone to call.  Tatiana (Dr. Permyakova) does check in on things once a day and it is great to have.  Thanks Anna.

All about the food.  Went shopping at my local grocery today for some bread salami and veggies and of course radishes.  That sauce is something I was told to try.  Kind of a nice spicy ketchup kind of thing.

Outside my dorm/apartment building.  I have a great little place on the second floor.  Plenty cozy.

Always fun to compare gas prices.  Here is is 30 roubles / litre which is approx. $3 dollars a gallon so fairly similar.  I was told it is very, very expensive to own a car.

Yummm,  herring and beets with a nice Russian beer.  Travel is largely about food.

This is the running path down the street from my dorm.  

This is Dr. Tatiana.  She tells me that this beer is the last product remaining from the Soviet era.

Some kind of kabob, rice, and of course borsh.  Great lunch.  I could not order at all in Russian so I pointed.  I am not sure what the kabobs were but the lady serving them smiled and said something so I smiled back and nodded my head and enjoyed the meal.  And of course I had to eat the borsh becuase of the beets and Jitterbug Perfume.  There was no other option.

My bus stop.  # 30 - 6 stops.  30 cents.  Very cool trip.  I got a few strange looks on the bus but nothing compared to the ride I took from Oakland last Friday to the airport when the drive asked a young lady to turn down her music or use earphones. For the next 45 minutes she lashed at him with gross ugly profanity and rude gestures that made the whole crowded bus cringe.  One person asked her to stop and she blasted him as well.  So, right now based on my two bus rides 10,000 miles apart in the last week I am claiming Perm 1 - Oakland 0.

Part of the young faculty attending the workshop.  Svetlana, Olga, Yulia, Anna, Petr, Agatha, Ekaterina.  Great group of really, really bright young scholars.

There is is, on the shelf in Perm, Russia. Heinz!

24 hour grocery across the street.