Let’s start with Friday night. A bunch of us went to that dive down the street for some great chicken wings. We had two Germans, two Russians, two Americans, one Uzbeki and one Irishman. Acreally international group again. We just had lots of fun and lots of good conversation. Those who hadn’t been there before were all laughing about what it looked like inside, but all agreed that the food was great.
Saturday morning I took the subway and bus to meet Claudia and Sabine in front of Claudia’s place. We then made the 10-minute drive in Claudia’s rickety Opal to the Temple of All Religions. It seems that two brothers from Tatarstan decided that there was only one god but many ways to worship. So they built (with donations alone) a building which encompasses all the religions of the world, including sun worship from ancient Egypt. It was actually sort of strange. It looked more like some sort of architectural exhibit than a religious exhibit, although religious images were evidenced in all the different styles. I found it sort of kitschy. I’ll go back again when the weather’s better because Ravil,Sonia, Fouad and I wanted to do a bike trip out there. It was interesting to see, but not particularly moving.
After that, we made our way out to Innopolis to pick up a former colleague of Claudia’s. Innopolis is an “instant” city arbitrarily being built about an hour’s bus ride out of town. It is the site of a brand new technical university, whose buildings are some of the best modern architecture I’ve seen here. There are some apartment buildings and some individual houses; there’s also a large tech building where many Russian businesses have located. I think the idea is for them to recruit the people coming out of this university. There are about 5000 people living there now and when the project is finished, there are supposed to be 200,000. That will still take some time. Although the buildings look wonderful, the place looks totally sterile. There’s no movie theater and not really anything to do out there. There is one grocery store, but no other shopping possibilities. If the people who live here (and they are mostly young people) want to do anything, they have to take an hour’s bus ride into Kazan, and then of course, an hour’s ride back. I don’t think I could get excited about living there at this stage in its planning.
We had a quick cup of coffee there before we took off again, this time with Claudia’s friend in tow, to visit the Sviazhsk Monastery. I had been there before in February but it’s always interesting to see again. It was cold, but the wind wasn’t blowing, so it was not unpleasant. And, there was hardly anyone there. It was a great day to visit. We went into a couple of the churches where we had to wear hats and wrap long clothes around our waists to make it look as if we had skirts on. There were cats running around all over the place. They all looked well-fed and were friendly. I assume they’re kept around to keep any mouse problems in check. We stopped in all the souvenir shops and put some really good mint jam as presents for my co-workers. I had been trying 5o think what to get them, and this was absolutely perfect. We went into one of the cafeterias there and had a good and cheap meal before we headed back. We started talking about names in the car and started laughing so hard I thought we’d drive off the snow-covered road! We stopped at Innopolis to let Claudia’s friend out and then headed back to Kazan. It was a fun day.
This morning I figured I would get up early and get my haircut before Anna, Paul and I headed out to the history exhibit. First I had to go to the bank to deposit my pay. After that I walked down into the subway station to put some money on my transportation card. The problem was, all I had was a large bill and I wanted to get it changed because I knew I needed cash at the hairdresser’s. I figured, if I top off my transportation card, it would work out just fine. Wrong! The lady at the transportation counter couldn’t give me change for my large bill. What to do? I exit the subway station, go into MacDonald’s and order a cappuccino. The first think the cashier asked me was I had a smaller bill. Nope. It took them 5 minutes to get change out of the back. Didn’t matter. I had my change.
Went back down into the subway and topped off my card. Then I walked to 20 minutes to the hairdresser’s. I mad3 it at a good time because I got taken right away. She kept cutting for more than 30 minutes! I don’t really have that much hair and she was slow. I finally told her just to stop. But it looks OK. And I needed it desperately.
I went home long enough to do some messaging and make a sandwich for lunch, then went out to wait for Paul. We took the bus together to the history exhibit and met Anna there. We only looked at one small part of the exhibit, but it took us 3 hours. When we left, the guard at the gate remarked, Boy, you were in there long!”
Paul took off back home after that and Anna and I headed downtown to an Italian restaurant wher3 we hung out for another couple of hours.
Now it’s time for bed. I’ve got to be fit for our Mother’s Day tea tomorrow which was postponed from two weeks ago.
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