The long weekend

Yesterday was Defenders Day, akin to our Memorial Day. It’s a very significant day for the Russians. You have to consider how much they suffered at the hand of the invading German army during WWII to understand what it means to them. So we had the day off. Thursday evening I got a personal tour of the synagogue here in Kazan. I had tried to visit it in October and couldn’t get in because s me event had been going on. But one of my students is Jewish so I asked his parents what a good time to visit would be. The dad, who is very involved with the Jewish community, invited me for a tour. Between 1915 and the early 90s, it wasn’t allowed to exist as a synagogue and it was converted to a teachers’ Center. The people carried on their religious practices in the privacy of their homes. When it reconverted to a synagogue, everyone aided in restoring the building. The local Imam even made donations from the Moslem community. The social center at the synagogue serves about 3000 people in need in Kazan. They provide necessities for the disabled and the needy. It is a very close-knit community. Before I could remark about how impressed I was with Kazan, Ilya said himself what a tolerant city it was. He mentioned that, when he and his wife got married, friends of all faiths attended. Kazan is really a unique place. I was too tired to stay in town for the City Club meeting that night so I headed home and ran into Sonia on her way into the meeting. She told me the next day that she had me5 some Canadians and Americans this time. Yesterday was a lazy morning. I worked on my 1000-piece puzzle, which I finally finished today. I read a little and just relaxed before I met Sonia downtown for a leisurely late lunch at Basilico’s, the great Italian place. Fouad and Ravil joined us and the conversation turned to the lack of security at Russian airports. I was able to walk through security in Moscow with a half filled bottle of water and Ravil said he even had a knife in his backpack once which they didn’t notice. Hmmmm, what a difference to airports in other countries. In any case, Lorene from France joined us and we walked down to the promenade along the Kazanka River where they flood the bike path every year so people can ice skate. It was great. The whole thing, including skate rental, only cost $2.50. It was late afternoon and it had been sunny all day. When we got on the ice, the sun was just going down and they turned on the lights. It was really lovely. I hadn’t skated in about 25 years, I think, but I did fine. Fouad and Sonia needed some time to find their sealegs but then did just fine. The whole rink is about a quarter of a mile long. One time down and back with plenty of rest stops was just enough for us all. The only one of us to take a fall was Lorene, who was trying to get a little fancy. No serious injuries, just a little hurt pride. We all slept well last night. Today, the first thing I did was get my haircut. This time nobody there spoke English. But the lady understood what I wanted and was very happy with the results. The whole thing, with a tip, was $6. And as I’ve mentioned before, tipping is very unusual here. We wanted to use the remaining two tickets on our museum pass, so Sonia and I headed downtown and met Fouad. We went to the Believe It or Not Museum and the Haunted House, which was more fun and wasn’t really a museum. The BION Museum was just a collection of weird stuff like an eight-legged goat and replica of an alien corpse found at Roswell, NM. (Really?!) But the Haunted House was really well-done and I thoughT Sonia would have a heart attack. We couldn’t stop laughing when we got out. We walked down the pedestrian zone afterwardsto a Tatar restaurant which I had been to before. Sonia and I both had lamb with potatoes in onion sauce and Fouad had a quesadilla. How Tatar is that! Later, we went to get a new battery for Sonia’s watch and she and I stopped at the grocery store to get some snack stuff for tomorrow when we take the excursion to the Sviyazhsk monastery on an island in the Volga River. It’s a one hour bus ride each way and a four-hour tour in Russian, so I’m going to read the English English translations before I go so that I get the gist of everything. we figured if we took some sandwich stuff, we wouldn’t have to sit too long in a restaurant eating and could get the most of the day. And it’s definitely a place I want to visit in the spring by boat. Then I will be able to take the bike along and ride all over the island. Thomas is going to join us tomorrow. He’s also teaching on Kazan and we met him at City Club. It’s nice to have new people joining us. (On that note, Ravil says there are bike rental places all over Kazan and he and his buddies rent them in the summer to ride out to some of the lakes. They are bikes with gears so they would be better for a long distance ride.ill keep that in mind.) We get back from Sviyazhsk at 3:30 and are invited to dinner at the department head’s at 6. That means I’d better study up about the island and get my lesson plans done tonight. Next week we will have visitors from another school observing in class again. The department chairman wants me to do a cooking lesson. So Thursday we are going to bake banana bread and Friday we will read The Little Red Hen. that means I’d better have this well thought out.