Posts delayed!

We’re having a great time in Turkey. We’re now in the beautiful coastal town of Kas.

I’ve tried posting a few times, but the internet service here is so poor that I can’t get pictures to upload. We can’t even get the kids online school to work.

So, I’ll post again when I can.

Beautiful Antalya

We are still enjoying our time in Turkey.

The weather is still perfect–well perfect if you don’t mind being a little hot and sweaty. I’m sure it’s much cooler than in the summer, but you still get plenty hot riding in a car at night even with the windows rolled down, or waking in the open sun.

We spent yesterday in the historic center of the city checking out the some of the landmarks and perusing the shops along the cobblestone streets.

A lot of the old landmarks in the city were built by the Romans, some even by the Greeks.

A three-arched gate built for the Roman ruler Hadrian’s triumphal entry.

Ashley is having a hard time passing up the hand knotted silk and wool rugs and the hand painted ceramics.

Second rug shop. There’s probably more than a million dollars worth of rugs in there.

Ashley admiring the ceramic handiwork. This shopkeeper painted all of these. Some of them take over a week to finish.

This is a famous Turkish pattern. This particular rug is made only of silk. That means the knots are smaller than those of wool. 1000 knots per square centimeter. This partially finished, small rug (one foot by three feet) represents 7 month’s work. Another 6 months to completion (working 3-4 hours a day on it).

Jane, fashion forward as always, has given up her fake pony tail and now chosen this ear “grill”.

All I gotta say is thank goodness we’re all travelling with a carry-on per person, so there’s not much room for souvenirs.

For my part, I’m having a hard time passing on all the knock-offs. Every namebrand item in clothing and shoes, and they honestly look legit to me.

Apparently, Turkey is the capital of high quality knock-offs.

And what do I need with a fake Rolex watch anyway…….but it’s kinda hard to pass them up. They have them with Swiss, Japanese, or Chinese movements (cost is based on the source of the internal movement). From what I’ve read online, they’ve even paid experienced Swiss craftsmen to help them refine the quality of these “genuine fakes”.

This is one with a Japanese movement. The asking price is around $200.

But so far, I’ve been able to withstand the temptation and haven’t bought a knock-off item yet.

Margaret drinking from a coconut. The coconut is imported from Vietnam. But the $1 glass of fresh-squeezed pomegranate juice that took 2 pomegranates to make that we also bought was locally sourced.

Margaret utterly destroying a kebab, or doner as they are called in Turkish.

A view of a tower and the Mediterranean at dusk

Today has been mostly a day of rest, but we did walk down to the beach in the evening.

Tomorrow, on to the beaches recognized as the most beautiful in Turkey.

Hello, Turkey!

Since we only planned the first few stops on our travel adventure, after Russia, the door was wide open to new ideas.

And so, we’re in Turkey. Turns out Turkey is a popular destination for Russian nationals and so flights to Turkey from Russia are direct and inexpensive.

Turkey was never on the radar before, but after studying up on it and bring reassured that it is a safe travel destination, we booked a flight and here we are.

It’s been exceptional so far. We had a little rain on our first day, but other than that it’s been warm day and night, but so far not overly hot.

A little rain on the first day, but still warm enough to swim

It’s beautiful. Citrus trees, pomegranate trees, flowering shrubs. Mountains, beaches, and turquoise waters.

Lots of stray cats that are friendly and appear well-fed. My kids can’t leave them alone and give them all names. Margaret named one of them “Let It Ring Out”.

My kids can’t leave the cats alone. It takes forever to get anywhere.

The food is tasty, fresh, and inexpensive. Lots of fresh vegetables and olives. My family of five can dine for $10-15 per meal and so far everyone is happy with their options. The Turkish delight, baclava, and ice cream are all first rate, too.

I couldn’t resist trying a bowl of ram’s head soup. My dream job is to replace Andrew Zimmern as host of Bizarre Foods

We’ve spent a few days at the beach. The ocean is warm and the weather is perfect. The beach close to our place is a gravel beach, but we can also take a cab or bus to a sandy beach.

The kids have been able to catch frogs and lizards, so the trip to Turkey is worth it in Nolan’s eyes. On our walk back home from dinner today, Jane spotted a hedgehog. It was dark and we couldn’t get a photo, but we’re all pretty excited about the hedgehog.

This one is dead, but it’s some kind of huge centipede

Couldn’t get a great image of this frog as it was dark, but it had red spots

Today was Margaret’s birthday, so happy birthday to the happiest, least-complainingest, eats-everythingest, best 3-year-old traveler I’ve ever even heard of.

Typical mood for Margaret–she’s up for anything

We went on an organized tour today and saw some beautiful waterfalls, spent a little time in old town, took a short boat ride, and rode a cable car up into the mountains.

This waterfall is from a giant underwater spring in a limestone cave

1996-2019: 23 Years in Yekaterinburg

Our two weeks inYekaterinburg was for me like being back in a dream. It’s not the first time I’ve been back, it’s actually the third, but it’s been a long time. Last time I was here was in 2003–16 years ago.

Thanks to my good friend Nikolai who graciously acted as my family’s personal guide and chauffer, I was able to see more of the town than I had really ever seen before, as well as several places outside of the city.

As I have gotten older, friendships and relationships mean more to me than they used to. I reinforced many old friendships on this trip.

When I lived here in the 90’s, I knew that if I stopped by a friend’s place unannounced, I would receive a sincere and heartfelt welcome and would be treated to something from the kitchen even when the pantry and the fridge were very bare.

The people are still just as genuinely welcoming as they were a few decades ago.

Last Sunday evening, with no concrete plans, I decided to try to find a friend I hadn’t seen or talked to all these years. Nikolai drove me to the area, and by some miracle, without an address, and in a sea of identical buildings, we found hers.

A man in the parking lot happened to know her apartment number, so I rang it from the locked entry door to the building.

“Natasha, this is Jess Anderson from America, do you remember me?”

“Of course, of course! Let me get cleaned up a little, but come on up!”

And we sat in the kitchen and drank tea and talked about the old times.

For someone who finds entertaining guests sometimes awkward, I am impressed by and grateful for the way Russians genuinely enjoy giving up their plans and giving so much to make their guests feel welcome.

Irina and her husband Aleksei. I knew Irina years ago and after meeting at church, she invited us (without having planned on it) over. As soon as we got there, Aleksei set to work to make lunch for us, making sure everyone had something they liked to eat and giving us a box of chocolates in addition.

He thought it was so funny, that he, the Russian, has an iPhone, while I, the American, have a Huawei.

My kids around the table “as guests” at Irina and Aleksei’s

Since our flight out of Russia left at 3 am, my good friend Galina kept us entertained at her house until the wee hours when we left for the airport. Her Mom baked us a goodbye cake with edible decorations specially chosen for the kids.

Here are some more pictures and experiences from around the city.

Afghanistan war memorial (USSR’s war, not America’s)

Memorial to Russia’s first president, Boris Yeltsin, outside the relatively new Yeltsin Center.
I was here when he was president, but certainly did not understand much about the politics of the fall of communism or about Boris Yeltsin. After visiting the museum about his life, I really want to read a biography about him

Turns out that for kids (and maybe their dad, too), the local pets are more interesting than some of the historical sites

Just outside of the city is the geographic location of the line that separates Europe and Asia. We’ve got one foot in Europe and the other in Asia

Making friends with the locals–Nolan and Kolya’s son, Stepan

I’m always up for sampling the regional McDonald’s cuisine–in this case, a McShrimp Roll.

The locals were pretty sure I’d lost my mind as they sat around and tsk’ed while wearing their winter clothes. The water was pretty icy, but I think it’s unlikely that “my kidneys will catch cold” as the locals warned me. I figured I’d better take a dip while I had the chance–it might be a while before I can swim in the Ural Mountain region again.

View from a mine tailing pile near a small town outside the city.

After two weeks in Yekaterinburg, all three of my kids were ready to live (yes live, not leave) there.

It was very hard to say goodbye to old friends.

And now, a few thoughts on life in the Ural Mountain region.

Although many areas appear to be flourishing with abundant, new, attractive high rise apartment buildings, if you head to the areas of town away from the center, old, Soviet buildings still predominate

This is me in front of a concrete panel, five-story apartment building where I used to live. Most of these were built in the fifties and sixties under the Soviet leader Khrustev, and the buildings are often referred to as “Khrusyevki”

A friend of mine who lived in Yekaterinburg during the same period I did asked me how much things had changed in the city since we were here more than two decades ago.

The answer, like Russia itself, is a little complicated. But the short answer is, not all that much.

I’m not sure why that’s surprising, I would say the same for the city I grew up in–I don’t think it’s changed that much either.

In some ways, the city has changed and in some ways life here has changed, but in a bigger sense, very little has changed with either.

We arrived here just 5 years after the collapse of communism. I want to say that this was a real transition time for Russia, but that implies that real, meaningful changes were taking place and I’m not sure that’s true.

The truth is that the political and socioeconomic scaffolding that provided stability for every day life in the Soviet Union, even if that life was a dreary and suppressed one, was taken away.

The social influence of the West came pouring in. Control of the rich natural resources of Russia and of factory production were divvied out to a relative few (the oligarchs), organized crime ran rampant, and most people’s real standard of living dropped.

As I heard over and over again during that time period, “Under communism, we had money, but there was nothing to buy, the stores were all empty. Now we have capitalism and the stores are full of anything you could want, but we don’t have money.”

Political cartoon from the 70’s. The caption reads: Where? There.
The man is carrying a bag filled with canned peas, and one filled with sweet and condensed milk. The woman is carrying rolls and rolls of toilet paper. Under the Communists, goods were scarce and if you found a place to buy something, anything really, you bought as much as you could. You never knew when or where you would see it again.

Some things have changed since the nineties. Life is a little more stable. Visible crime has been greatly reduced. The abundance of large shopping centers, new high rise apartment buildings, and traffic jams at all hours of the day (when previously I only knew one person with a car) all attest to some improvement in economic circumstances.

But the economic improvements don’t trickle down as much to the majority of people who live modestly from paycheck to paycheck on $300 to $1000 a month (even accountants, doctors, lawyers, and school teachers).

Just like in the 90’s, lots of the areas away from the center still have many small, modest stores built into a residential building. Although in the central regions of town, these small, specialized stores are being pushed out by large supermarkets and latge goods stores.

Small dairy product store on the left, and dental office on the right.

These small, steel kiosks used to be everywhere and sell everything from liquor to socks, often from the same small space. I bet that in the 90’s at least half of all sales in food and other daily necessities came through these little kiosks. You don’t see them as much near the city center, but there are still plenty around the edges of the city.

Soviet era mosaic on the wall of a medical clinic.

Lenin still has a strong presence throughout the city.

This image is Lenin is referred to as “The Kind Grandfather”, based on appearance and not fond memories of the leader.

Small, street side market of the type that was ubiquitous in the 90’s

Motorcycles with sidecars are still pretty common in small towns. I even saw them used on icy roads in winter temperatures of 20 below.

Although cars are much more common than they were 25 years ago, many people still rely on paid public transport. Although the trolley cars and electric buses look a little run down, it seems to be a fairly efficient system.

Political changes since the 90’s have curtailed personal and social freedoms and for many hope for improvement in economic conditions may even be a little more bleak than before.

Life is hard everywhere, but I look at Russia and wish it was just a little easier there for the people I know there.

Bridge supports decorated with artsy graffiti.

Going onto Nature

Not our car, but a Niva that had been stuck in deep mud

In Russian, there is no preposition for “outside” the way we use outside. When you go outside, in Russian you say I am going onto the street. Or if you were to ask the question, Are you outside?, you would ask, Are you on the street? Unless you are going hiking, or camping, or somewhere specifically to be in nature, in which case you are going “onto nature”.

That’s a long way to introduce our activity for today, but as a Russian would say, today we went on nature.

And it was wonderful.

Toward the end of this week, the cold relented and we’ve had a few days of wonderful Autumn weather. Sun shining and temperatures near the 60’s.

Our friend and guide, Kolya, suggested we take a trip to a place about two hours outside of the city in the neighboring Chelyabinsk region.

So my family piled into Kolya’s car, and friends Galina, Petya, Sasha, and Lera followed us in aother car as we headed southwest out of the city

The drive there was beautiful, much like the drive to Perm the other day. Forests of birch and birch mixed with pine. For whatever reason, the trees all grow to the exact same height as if someone had come through with a giant lawnmower and evened out the entire forest.

We also drove through a few small towns and groups of houses that could not even be called a town.

Wooden house in a small grouping of houses near the trailhead

How employment, trasportation (especially in Winter {snow and ice} and Spring {mud}), and the ins and outs of daily life in those small towns works is a mystery to me. But in any case, it was interesting to see.

Three story apartment building in the small town of Arakul

Our hike “onto nature” started out on a dirt road through a birch forest and ended at a rock formation called Arakulskii Shihan.

The long thin rock formation looks like giant stone slabs have been stacked uo top of one another to form a wall. It seems to come out of nowhere.

Part of the rock formation as seen from below

A quick google search of “arakulskii shihan” yields several pages of links such as http://www.megaliths.org/browse/category/3/view/100 that are pretty convincing of alien involvement in the formation of the wall. Seriously, apparently there are no science based webpages about this formation.

It was pretty incredible–both the formation itself and the view it provided of the surrounding forests and lakes.

As we were exploring the formations, we passed a group of people cooking what I thought was soup in a big cast iron kettle over a fire. It smelled pretty good. I asked them about it and they told me it wasn’t soup, but plov, or pilaf, a traditional rice and meat dish origination in the central asian region.

They invited us to come back to their camp in about 40 minutes when they expected it to be done.

So we did. Salad made from tomatoes, peppers, and onions, and plov with rice, beef, and garlic. And it was all raised by them, even the beef, except for the rice.

All my kids ate it, and all my kids liked it.

Once a Russian has invited you to “be their guest” for anything, they are very warm and generous. It was wonderful to sit and visit them and enjoy their meal.

Turned out to be one of the best days on our adventure (if not the best) so far.

On the drive home, we stopped and filled up some water bottles from a spring covered by this little shed

Yekaterinburg

If you think the name of this city is difficult to pronounce in English, try it in Russian. The name is five syllables long and in Russian the first four syllables are pronounced very rapidly with the emphasis being placed on the last syllable (at least that’s how the locals say it, although I have heard it pronounced with the emphasis on the second to last syllable, which makes it a little easier to say).

Founded at the direction of Peter the Great in the early 1700’s as a mining and industrial center, Yekaterinburg has always been a little grittier than the more refined and more European cities of Moscow and Saint Petersburg.

An important meeting during the early days of Yekaterinburg

Russia is a truly enormous country. Unfathomably enormous. It’s nearly twice as big as the US, but has less than half of the population of the US. Three fourths of the population of Russia is in the relatively small European portion of Russia while the vast Asian portion of Russia has only 25% of the total population.

Yekaterinburg sits just over the Asia/Europe division on the Asian side. It’s the fourth largest city in Russia with a population of about a million and a half.

Yekaterinburg holds a special place in my heart because I spent two years here in the mid 90’s (just 5 years after the fall of communism) when I was a young man.

I have quite a few friends here. As funny as it may be, this is one of my favorite places to visit–just behind San Francisco–and this is my third time back since I lived here so many years ago.

When we arrived, we were met at the airport by my old friend Nicolai (Kolya for short). He greeted Ashley with roses, the kids with chocolate, and me with a stiff slap on the back.

Kolya took a liking to Margaret (Marge as he calls her) right away and the two have been palling around ever since.

Kolya has been our driver and guide on this trip and thanks to him we’ve been able to go more places and see much more than we would if we were on our own. We’ve also been able to do it in comfort riding in his car instead of walking outside in the cold.

And it has been cold. We’ve had rain, we’ve had snow, we’ve had wind, and we’ve had a lot of unseasonable cold.

Out for a walk on a day that was much colder than it looks.
Even though Margaret was bundled, wearing two coats and thick, furry pants we bought her here, my friend Sveta was so worried about her being cold that she bought her a thick blanket to cover her in the stroller.
Our friend Gala was so worried about Ashley being cold that she bought her some warm tights to wear under her pants.

Thank goodness that things this week have started to warm back up.

There are many things we have seen and done here, and this little piece of the world holds so much nostalgia for me that I could probably fill 10 posts with details of current and past sites and experiences.

I will in fact post more in the future, but for now, here are some photos with descriptions.

A view of the city from atop a relatively new skyscraper, currently the tallest building in the region.

One of the main administrative buildings lit at night.

Eating pasta with Ashley’s world famous home made (from fresh tomatoes) tomato Alfredo sauce. Kolya and Gala joined us for Jane’s birthday dinner.

Jane’s biggest disappointment so far in life is that she can’t grow her hair out long. This is one of the things she bought with her birthday money. Thank goodness she only insisted on wearing it in public for a few days. Turns out a $1 synthetic pony tail can turn a birthday of “pickled meat” into one of the best birthdays ever.

The cold weather has kept us inside a little more than we’d like, so we’ve tried to do some fun indoor things. Jane and Nolan both did great on this wall.

Margaret does great with everything and is just as happy as this even when she’s not riding a carousel.

Although the weather has been cold and grey, the leaves have been beautiful.

Kolya and I drove to a city called Perm that is about four and a half hours away by car. Pretty darn flat, but a lot of pretty forests and fields along the way.

A few photos showing the grittier side of the city.

Horsing around on the ploshad at the city center

Enjoying a meal together at a Russian cafeteria (self serve cafe). Soup, potatoes and meat are the main fares.

A couple of good friends spending time together on a cold day in the park

Jane turns 9 and the Romanovs

Jane turned 9 today! She talked about her upcoming birthday since we left Utah. She was very concerned that it wouldn’t be a good day. She drove everyone nuts talking about what she wanted and didn’t want on her birthday. We were all nervous that no matter what we did on her birthday, her expectations wouldn’t be met, but it turned out she had a great day. The highlight was getting some money to shop for her own gift. She spent hours perusing the mall nearby and ended up buying some slime, a stress ball, squishy, a stuffed animal and some fake hair. She spent the rest of the day wearing the fake ponytail and thought it looked amazing. We didn’t have the heart to tell her otherwise.

After the mall, Jane got her nails painted and we had some friends over for an American dinner and cake.

On Thursday, the day before Jane’s birthday, we visited the site where the Romanov family and some of their staff were executed by the Bolshevik party. A cathedral has been built on the spot in remembrance of the Royal family. On the night of July 16th 1918 Emperor Nicholas II, his wife Alexandra, their five children and some of their staff were killed in Yekaterinburg, Russia.

Cathedral that marks the spot where the Romanov family were killed

In 2000 the Russian Orthodox Church canonized Tsar Nicholas II and made him a saint.

On Friday, Jess’s friend, Kolya, took us to the spot where the bodies of the Romanov family were placed after they were executed. The remains have since been moved to St. Petersburg. A monastery with multiple chapels now stands in the place where the bodies were found.

I didn’t know much about the Romanov family before we came to Russia. In fact, my knowledge all came from the movie Anastasia. But since we have been here, I have learned quite a bit and I have found it fascinating. Here is the short version of what happened.

In 1917 a Revolution happened in Russia. At the end of the revolution, Tsar Nicholas abdicated the thrown. The royal family were then imprisoned in one of their homes. Under Lenin’s direction the royal family was moved to Yekaterinburg, where they were executed. The Soviet leadership maintained a systematic web of disinformation as to the fate of the family, from claiming in September 1919 that they were murdered by left-wing revolutionaries to denying outright that they were dead. The Soviet cover-up of the murders fueled rumors of survivors, leading to the emergence of Romanov impostors that drew media attention away from Soviet Russia.

The burial site for most of the family was not even discovered until 1979 and the existence of the remains was not made public until the late 1980’s. An additional site was later found in 2007 that contained the remains of two of the other Romanov children.

The Kremlin

Nolan, Margaret and I (Ashley) visited the Kremlin one day while we were in Moscow. You can see the walls of the Kremlin from Red Square. Kremlin means “fortress inside a city.” Inside the fortress there are five palaces and four cathedrals.

Later that night I went with Jane to a ballet inside one of the palaces. The ballet was excellent. The costumes, dancing and scenery were all the best I had ever seen. Although, I have only been to the ballet a few times when I was a kid, so I don’t have much to compare it to. Some of the best ballet companies in the world are located in Russia. Both the Mariinsky Ballet in St. Petersburg and the Bolshoi Ballet in Moscow are in the top 5 ballet companies in the world.

A few other surprising things I have found out about Russia. The people are more hospitable and kind than I anticipated. People are always giving up their seats on the metro for our kids, offering to help carry our luggage or stroller up the long flights of stairs, and sharing their umbrellas when we are standing in lines in the rain, although they may be annoyed at us for not having one with us. Most people are helpful and understanding when I ask them in English to help me find something.

Another thing I have found surprising is their love of American food chains. There is McDonalds, KFC and Burger King on almost every major street. They also love to eat fries with cheese sauce. Although the cheese sauce does not taste like the cheese sauce we eat in America. Instead of ordering a soda with their meals, most Russians order a beer or Kvas with their fast food. Kvas is a non-alcoholic drink made from rye bread.

The third thing that I have found interesting is that people have no problem telling us our kids are not dressed warm enough. When we arrived in Russia, the weather was ideal. We wore shorts and only needed a sweater occasionally, but about a week after we arrived the weather became cold really quickly and now it is 1 degree Celsius or about 33 degrees Fahrenheit. It has rained for a couple of weeks straight and the wind is constantly blowing. Last night we looked out our window and it was snowing. We had anticipated that we would need jackets this year, but we have all had to buy hats and gloves. Even with those we are cold. Margaret has leggings that we brought for her and lots of people have told us that she is too cold and we need to dress her warmer. We have finally bought some fleece lined leggings. She thinks they have bear fur in them. People were also very worried about the kids feet when they wore sandals, even when it was warm.

Margaret met a princess in the mall and had to get a picture with her

That’s all for Moscow

We’re on a flight from Moscow to Yekaterinburg right now. That’s were I served a mission in 1996 and 1997. I don’t imagine this is a flight that has seen very many American kids–Yekaterinburg isn’t really a tourist destination.

I’d like to say we finished strong in Moscow, but the truth is that the cold weather cooled our resolve to get out as much as we would have liked to.

I did get to go to a Russian banya with Steve and a local friend of his. It was definitely a highlight of the trip.

The basic routine is to sit in a very hot and humid room with a bunch of other men (the banyas are sans clothes and segregated by gender). Every now and then a dude near the furnace (or whatever the heat source is called) will call out, “should I put in some more?”, to which the reply, “Yes! It’s freezing in here!” The dude then opens the door to the blast furnace and tosses in a few scoops of water and instantly the room is 5-10 degrees hotter.

It’s so hot that you wear a wool felt cap that covers your ears to keep them from burning.

After you’ve sat in there for as long as you can take it (10ish minutes), you leave the room and jump into a cold plunge pool. Then you walk into a sitting room, have a bite to eat, a drink of water or glass of tea, then head back in for round 2.

If you’ve gone with a friend, or make a friend there, you can ask them to hit you with a venik. A venik is a bundle of branches with leaves still attached (most commonly birch branches). In the steam room, you lie down while your friend wacks you with the branches. This pushes the hot steamy air against your skin. Seems like it would cool you down, but it’s actually much hotter The venik gets so hot from moving it through the air that it burns to the touch.

Then you jump in the cold water (or rub your skin down with ice–ground ice was available for that purpose at this banya), and start the process over again.

It was a relaxing and social experience.

Ashley and Nolan made it to the mauseleum that houses Lenin’s body. We had made a few attempts earlier, but it is only open for a few hours a day and not every day.

I talked her into making a special trip to see it as it is something that one never forgets.

When Lenin died in 1924, they embalmed and preserved his body. Since then, his body has been housed in a glass chamber filled with some mixture of clear chemicals. You can enter the mauseleum and see him. They don’t allow photographs, talking, or stopping–they just shuffle you through in silence. The room is dark, and the body (dressed in a suit) is illuminated. You can all the littles details on his face–every hair in his eyebrows and beard. It’s definitely a bizarre but memorable experience.

Nolan went with her. Although he was originally very worried that it would terrify him, in the end, he loves the experience.

For our last full day in Moscow, we took another brief tour of some of the more decorous metro stations, toured the State Museum of Russia, and met some friends for dinner.

When I was in Moscow before, taking photos in the metro was illegal. I guess with the advent of camera phones that was completely impractical to try to enforce. In any case it had been asked the last several years.

These are the ceiling mosaics in the Belarus metro station

Here are a few photos from the metro station Mayakovskaya. The first is of the platform. The recessed areas on the ceiling have mosaics— thirty-four in all. Here are a few of those 34.

We had wanted to visit the Tretyakov Gallery, but like many museums and galleries in Russia, it’s closed Mondays. I wanted Ashley to see it as it was my favorite of the Russian museums I have visited aside from the Hermitage. It has a large collection of famous Russian paintings, including truly gigantic Avant garde paintings by the Russian artist Vrubel that have to be seen in person to be appreciated.

So, we settled for the Russian State History Museum. Another overwhelming museum that was hard to fully appreciate. Russia is full of these.

Here are a few photos that give you an idea of the scope of the museum.

Screen painted by one of my favorite Russian artists, Bilibin

One of many many chain mail suits on display

Idol depicting deities worshipped by people before the adoption of Christianity

Small wooden cup carved by Peter the Great as a child and later embellished

At the get together at Steve’s house over the weekend, I meet a young man named Ivan. It was he, Steve, and I who visited the banya together. Ivan wanted Ashley to meet his wife, Elena, and they invited us to meet them for dinner at a Belorussian restaurant.

We had a great time there with them and enjoyed some thoroughly filling and hearty food. Nearly all dishes Incorporated meat and potatoes.

Ivan ordered the fried pigs ears. Although I stuck with something a little more tried and true (baked beef tongue with potatoes), Ivan let me try an ear. It was greasy, crispy, and cartilagenous–not altogether too bad.

They had a three-year-old little bit and he and Margaret hit it off. He called her “Maska” because he couldn’t remember her name.

Oh, and Nolan got to go to the”optical illusion museum”to take a few photos.

One month down!

Well, it’s been a month of Anderson family adventure!

If I had to sum things up so far in one sentence, it would be: I think I could have come up with a less expensive and much more convenient place to be mad at my kids.

Others days though are about as close to bliss as a family of five can have.

The hardest thing about travel with kids is….travel with kids. It takes forever to do anything. They generally don’t want to do the same things Ashley and I want to do. If we gave them the choice of seeing a gilded palace with marble walls, filled with jewels, or playing in the dirt outside our apartment building, we’d spend a lot of time in the dirt.

And homeschool is the worst. It does appear though that despite our inadequacies and their tears that they are learning something. For example, if you ask the aforementioned first grader how to spell “twenty”, he answers, “No! I don’t have to! I did that yesterday! Why do I have to?! Jane doesn’t have to do it! It’s too hard! I’m leaving! You’re the worst parents ever!” (This is the literal transcript). But, with some coaxing and the carefully sounding out of the word, he can pick out the letters that make up the word in just over a minute.

With the older student, school is a little easier. But with her we hear frequent disgruntled murmurings about how terrible her birthday is going to be because we’re going to be in Russia and she’s going to have to eat pickled meat and all of her friends get to have birthdays in America and this might be her worst birthday yet (she’s keeping a running tally of worst birthdays).

The two-and-a-half-year old is having a great time with no complaints. She’s not a bit picky about the food. She’s about 90% smiles. And since bathrooms are sometimes hard to come by, the fact that she’s still in diapers comes in handy.

And with all that said, I’d still say that it’s a dream come true to be able to do this. I think Ashley would say the same.

Moscow is a big and bustling city. It’s very beautiful. Lots of pre-Soviet architecture in the downtown areas. Good public transport infrastructure. Great little cafes. Huge open air markets. Beautiful parks. Friendly people. If it weren’t for the weather this time of year, I think we’d stay a while longer. As it is, we’re going to wrap up the next few days and move on.

Many of the metro stations are very beautiful.

We were going to take a self guided tour through the metro stations, but three stops in, this is how the kids felt, so we cut it short

As much complaining as she does, she mixes in plenty of fun