Dear Friends and Family:
Thanks for all your recent emails. A couple of weeks
ago we took a short vacation to visit our friends in
Russia. Here is a summary.
We arrived in Moscow and weren't met by anyone for the
first time in our travels there. Vladimir was in
Penza making preparations for his 50th birthday party.
Our first impressions upon landing in Moscow were
like all the other times-long lines to clear
immigration and customs, a horde of taxi mafia, and a
bank that didn't have rubles to exchange. After
finding another bank and a minibus that could take us
to the nearest metro station for the ruble equivalent
of $0.75, we were on our way. Soon we'd bought
overnight train tickets to Penza and had time to
wander around Red Square with our 30-pound backpacks
on. It happened to be the last day of school, so the
kids were out by the thousands in their traditional
attire. Before boarding the train we phoned Vladimir
to let him know which train we would be on.
We arrived in Penza the next noon to find a city that
looked and felt more confident than five or ten years
before. The center of town has sprouted street cafes
consisting of plastic chairs and tables under blue
Pepsi umbrellas. We also found one café with red Coke
umbrellas. The city's multistory thermometer has been
repaired (and the weather was nice). For the last
five years, Vladimir has been working at Sberbank, a
successful Russian bank. He is assistant director of
the IT department for the Penza region and works out a
modern office in the nicest and newest building in
Penza. Tamara also works in the bank helping clients
set up accounts. Between the two of them, they make
just over $300/month, which makes them better off than
most Russians.
This is the street where the Nazarovs live.
This is a mosaic on one of the buildings that has been
preserved. If you look carefully in the lower left
hand corner, you can see the Coca Cola umbrellas.
Lenin still stands in front of the Penza regional
government building. Each workday morning there are a
small group of protesters in front of this building
demanding to get paid the backpay the government still
owes them.
From Sberbank, we could access the internet and catch
up on email. Vladimir recently installed an internet
account on his PC at home. His home email address is
nazar@tl.ru. For work it is sba@sura.com.ru. I
recommend sending any emails to both addresses since
Serioge has grown into a computer-loving fourteen year
old whose games often crash the family's ailing 486
PC. Serioge spends much of his free time on the
computer and even got paid recently for doing some
spreadsheet work. It is now easy to talk with him in
English. He hopes to become a business manager. We
attended his final choir performance. He'll be out of
the choir for a while now because his voice is
changing.
Nadia recently turned sixteen. She is a good pianist,
sculptor and painter. While we were there, she was
painting watercolor posters for the children's summer
camp. She loves kids and hopes to become a primary
school teacher. Next year will be her last year of
secondary school. We are trying to organize a way for
her to spend a year in an American high school as an
exchange student in the 2001-2002 school year.
We picked this time to visit Penza so we could be at
Vladimir's 50th birthday. This was quite a
celebration-comparable to a wedding reception. It
started the day before his birthday with a little
party (with lots of cake and alcohol) for Vladimir's
associates at work. On Saturday, we had the big party
with about fifty guests, almost all of whom made a
speech, gave a toast, read a cute poem or sang a song
about Vladimir that they had written.
In between, Vladimir sang and played songs on his
guitar and there was a disk jockey to provide dance
music.
Many of the guests were Vladimir's old rafting
buddies, from two rafting groups he was in "the
Beavers" and "Futility." One of Vladimir's favorite
songs has to do with the sound of water going down the
drainpipe. In honor of this, two people gave him
drainpipes as presents.
After the party, we retired to the Nazarov's kitchen
with some close friends and relatives to have a couple
more drinks, sing more songs and talk about politics.
I was asked about my opinions on Chechnya (Why didn't
they allow the press to see what happened?). I asked
them about Putin (Russia needs a strong leader like
him).
While we were in the Penza area, we took an overnight
trip to Nikolsk, the site of "Red Giant" one of the
finest glass factories in Russia. This is a town of
40,000 people with only one business-the glass
factory. This factory has a 230-year history, which
was beautifully presented by the museum we visited.
The factory casts optical glass for telescopes and spy
satellites and makes crystal for home use. Since
perestroika, Red Giant has not only survived, but also
now exports more than 50% of its production. We
stayed with friends, had a festive meal and drinks,
tried out their sauna and were given beautiful samples
of crystal from the factory.
On the way back to Penza, we went swimming in a lake.
We took Vladimir's car to get to Nikolsk. Here is a
picture of the car and the birch forests on the way.
After a week in Penza, we boarded the night train to
Moscow and from there caught an 8-hour train to St.
Petersburg.
We arrived late Friday evening to be met by Oleg
Mukhin, the Russian doctor at Vostok, Antarctica, last
year. Since Oleg and his family were preparing to
move and their apartment was a mess, he had recruited
an Antarctic friend of his (another Oleg, who had a
car) to help host us. First we got a driving tour of
the city (at 10:00 PM, which was no problem because
it's light almost all the time during this part of the
year). This picture shows Jean, Oleg Mukhin, Natalya
Mukhina (his wife) and the other Oleg.
St. Petersburg is a beautiful city with churches,
palaces and monuments everywhere. This is a picture
of a memorial that was built over the spot where
Alexander II was assassinated. On Saturday, Oleg
Mukhin showed us around the Hermitage (the Czar's
winter palace and one of the world's largest art
museums). This museum was free for us courtesy of
Oleg's aunt who works there. We also took a walking
tour of the center of St. Petersburg.
Oleg also showed us the house where he had grown up in
the 1960s. This was a building with twenty-four rooms
that housed thirteen families. These families shared
the same kitchen, toilet, bathroom, and phone.
On Sunday we visited the Czar's summer palace, a
half-hour bus ride outside St. Petersburg. This
palace was modeled after Versailles and is at least as
large and beautiful. Especially interesting are the
hundreds of fountains in the park outside. The beauty
and extravagance of this palace contrast with the
poverty and injustice that existed in most of Russia
at the time of the revolution and poverty that still
exists today. On Sunday night we took the train back
to Moscow and by the next afternoon we were back at
work in Budapest.
Before and after our trip to Russia, we were once
again in Hungary working on our project for Trend.
Since it appears that this is likely to turn into an
ongoing opportunity for the next several years, we
decided not to go to Antarctica in the fall. If
things work out, we will instead move our office to
Budapest later this year, by which time we expect that
Trend will have a factory in Hungary.
We'll keep you posted as things develop.
Best regards,
Bert and Jean
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This
page was last updated on \\\06/20/00.
We arrived in Moscow and weren't met by anyone for the
first time in our travels there. Vladimir was in
Penza making preparations for his 50th birthday party.
Our first impressions upon landing in Moscow were
like all the other times-long lines to clear
immigration and customs, a horde of taxi mafia, and a
bank that didn't have rubles to exchange. After
finding another bank and a minibus that could take us
to the nearest metro station for the ruble equivalent
of $0.75, we were on our way. Soon we'd bought
overnight train tickets to Penza and had time to
wander around Red Square with our 30-pound backpacks
on. It happened to be the last day of school, so the
kids were out by the thousands in their traditional
attire. Before boarding the train we phoned Vladimir
to let him know which train we would be on.
We arrived in Penza the next noon to find a city that
looked and felt more confident than five or ten years
before. The center of town has sprouted street cafes
consisting of plastic chairs and tables under blue
Pepsi umbrellas. We also found one café with red Coke
umbrellas. The city's multistory thermometer has been
repaired (and the weather was nice). For the last
five years, Vladimir has been working at Sberbank, a
successful Russian bank. He is assistant director of
the IT department for the Penza region and works out a
modern office in the nicest and newest building in
Penza. Tamara also works in the bank helping clients
set up accounts. Between the two of them, they make
just over $300/month, which makes them better off than
most Russians.
This is the street where the Nazarovs live.
This is a mosaic on one of the buildings that has been
preserved. If you look carefully in the lower left
hand corner, you can see the Coca Cola umbrellas.
Lenin still stands in front of the Penza regional
government building. Each workday morning there are a
small group of protesters in front of this building
demanding to get paid the backpay the government still
owes them.
From Sberbank, we could access the internet and catch
up on email. Vladimir recently installed an internet
account on his PC at home. His home email address is
nazar@tl.ru. For work it is sba@sura.com.ru. I
recommend sending any emails to both addresses since
Serioge has grown into a computer-loving fourteen year
old whose games often crash the family's ailing 486
PC. Serioge spends much of his free time on the
computer and even got paid recently for doing some
spreadsheet work. It is now easy to talk with him in
English. He hopes to become a business manager. We
attended his final choir performance. He'll be out of
the choir for a while now because his voice is
changing.
Nadia recently turned sixteen. She is a good pianist,
sculptor and painter. While we were there, she was
painting watercolor posters for the children's summer
camp. She loves kids and hopes to become a primary
school teacher. Next year will be her last year of
secondary school. We are trying to organize a way for
her to spend a year in an American high school as an
exchange student in the 2001-2002 school year.
We picked this time to visit Penza so we could be at
Vladimir's 50th birthday. This was quite a
celebration-comparable to a wedding reception. It
started the day before his birthday with a little
party (with lots of cake and alcohol) for Vladimir's
associates at work. On Saturday, we had the big party
with about fifty guests, almost all of whom made a
speech, gave a toast, read a cute poem or sang a song
about Vladimir that they had written.
In between, Vladimir sang and played songs on his
guitar and there was a disk jockey to provide dance
music.
Many of the guests were Vladimir's old rafting
buddies, from two rafting groups he was in "the
Beavers" and "Futility." One of Vladimir's favorite
songs has to do with the sound of water going down the
drainpipe. In honor of this, two people gave him
drainpipes as presents.
After the party, we retired to the Nazarov's kitchen
with some close friends and relatives to have a couple
more drinks, sing more songs and talk about politics.
I was asked about my opinions on Chechnya (Why didn't
they allow the press to see what happened?). I asked
them about Putin (Russia needs a strong leader like
him).
While we were in the Penza area, we took an overnight
trip to Nikolsk, the site of "Red Giant" one of the
finest glass factories in Russia. This is a town of
40,000 people with only one business-the glass
factory. This factory has a 230-year history, which
was beautifully presented by the museum we visited.
The factory casts optical glass for telescopes and spy
satellites and makes crystal for home use. Since
perestroika, Red Giant has not only survived, but also
now exports more than 50% of its production. We
stayed with friends, had a festive meal and drinks,
tried out their sauna and were given beautiful samples
of crystal from the factory.
On the way back to Penza, we went swimming in a lake.
We took Vladimir's car to get to Nikolsk. Here is a
picture of the car and the birch forests on the way.
After a week in Penza, we boarded the night train to
Moscow and from there caught an 8-hour train to St.
Petersburg.
We arrived late Friday evening to be met by Oleg
Mukhin, the Russian doctor at Vostok, Antarctica, last
year. Since Oleg and his family were preparing to
move and their apartment was a mess, he had recruited
an Antarctic friend of his (another Oleg, who had a
car) to help host us. First we got a driving tour of
the city (at 10:00 PM, which was no problem because
it's light almost all the time during this part of the
year). This picture shows Jean, Oleg Mukhin, Natalya
Mukhina (his wife) and the other Oleg.
St. Petersburg is a beautiful city with churches,
palaces and monuments everywhere. This is a picture
of a memorial that was built over the spot where
Alexander II was assassinated. On Saturday, Oleg
Mukhin showed us around the Hermitage (the Czar's
winter palace and one of the world's largest art
museums). This museum was free for us courtesy of
Oleg's aunt who works there. We also took a walking
tour of the center of St. Petersburg.
Oleg also showed us the house where he had grown up in
the 1960s. This was a building with twenty-four rooms
that housed thirteen families. These families shared
the same kitchen, toilet, bathroom, and phone.
On Sunday we visited the Czar's summer palace, a
half-hour bus ride outside St. Petersburg. This
palace was modeled after Versailles and is at least as
large and beautiful. Especially interesting are the
hundreds of fountains in the park outside. The beauty
and extravagance of this palace contrast with the
poverty and injustice that existed in most of Russia
at the time of the revolution and poverty that still
exists today. On Sunday night we took the train back
to Moscow and by the next afternoon we were back at
work in Budapest.