St. Petersburg - again St. Petersburg is a large and expensive city. The central area is quite beautiful with beautiful 18th century European architecture along canals reminiscent of Venice. Most of the people live in the “bedroom” communities—regions of Soviet-style large brick or cement (! crumbling) apartment building complexes serviced by the metro system, buses, and “marchroutkas” (minivans). And that is where I lived—a 25 minute walk from the Ploshad Muzhestvo metro station ( Square of Courage —a metro station dedicated to those who defend [View Full Entry]

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From the Komarov Botanical Institute, St. Petersburg, Russia Somehow the US elections that were impending during much of my stay from Sept 1-Nov. 30 weighed heavily on me and I simply couldn’t get a blog together during the time that I worked in St.Petersburg. Also, the instructions from the Fulbright folks to keep blogs simple and sterile took a bit of the fun out of it. But after my son Ian’s phone call to me early Wednesday morning on Nov.5 with the election results, and then the news that appeared as a banner across the bottom of my Russian TV channel [View Full Entry]

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Blogging Again My blogs came to a halt in March after the Armenian elections resulted in martial law, tanks in the streets, and rumors that blogs were not in the best interests of bloggers. In April Tom returned to the US to continue working with UNAVCO to install GPS stations in the Rocky Mountain west and I remained at the American University of Armenia to coordinate two very successful spring projects. Birds in My Backyard, is a contest for students from 7-16 years old, that we organized with the help of Peace Corps volunteer environmental specialists. More than 250 ch [View Full Entry]

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This will be the last blog before Tom and I return to Montana Dec. 1. Fall is definitely here in Yerevan. The street vendors selling fruits and vegetables have switched from beautiful heaps of tomatoes, cucumbers, and greens to sturdier fare of cabbage, potatoes, turnips, carrots, and squash. This past Saturday our Environmental Conservation and Research Center organized a tree planting event with the NGO Armenian Tree Project. Bad weather and slippery roads had caused us to cancel our first planned project a couple weeks ago, but Saturday was a beautiful fall day in Yerevan. We gathered [View Full Entry]

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What to do when not hiking… Well, we are somewhat sidelined. Tom and I celebrated his birthday (last weekend) by staying at one of the Tufenkian hotels 3 hours north of Yerevan. We wanted to complete two of the hikes in the Adventure Armenia book that we enjoy so much. Unfortunately Tom, for the first time, sprained his ankle. But, of course finished the last 2.5 miles of the hike anyway. Our drive north took us past two Yezidi villages. The Yezidis are one of the most numerous national minorities in Armenia. They speak Kumanji, a northern Kurdish dialiect. Their r [View Full Entry]

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Tom and I have not been suffering from ennui in Armenia. . Tom is busy working with GIS data for the White Stork project, helping with our website, grocery shopping in the markets, and going to receptions, parties etc. Yerevan weather is still very warm during the day but the evenings are wonderfully cool. Cochineal Insects Last week, as Tom mentioned in his letter, we got up early to go with our entomologist friend to the Ararat Valley to watch the yearly emergence of the Ararat Valley Cochineal Insects ( that produce red dyes for manuscripts and carpets)—they spend thei [View Full Entry]

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Hi all, As I was preparing this blog, Dick Walton wrote to ask me to encourage bloggers to visit the website that has been created for the Pryor Mountains in Montana. There is a great need for civil society in Montana to contact the US Forest Service to encourage a rational travel plan that restricts the movement of off road vehicles. The website presents the issues in a clear way and with beautiful photos. Enjoy: www.pryormountains.org Fall has arrived in Armenia. Women in our apartment yard are busy fluffing the sheep’s wool in their mattresses and airing out the bedding to [View Full Entry]

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Marian and Tom in Armenia Marian and Tom have been here since August 16 I think. Their journey was one for the books—it took them almost 2.5 days to get here—this included a 12 hour stop in Vienna where they went to a spa and slept on lounge chairs in a city park until tune to head back to the airport for the flight to Yerevan. One of the first activities for us was to attend the presentation of the Armenian Apostolic Church’s highest service award to Dr. Haroutine Armenian (can you believe his last name?), the President of the [View Full Entry]

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Hi all, I thought that this blog should be about the Armenian landscape. Armenia is just a tiny place, about the size of Belgium or Maryland, according to the guidebook Armenia and Karabagh, written by Matthew Karanian and Robert Kurkjian. But it is an incredibly mountainous place so that, like Nevada, the basin and range topography is a bit misleading. It takes a 6 hours of steady driving up and down the mountains to reach the border with Iran, for example. From Yerevan the big and small peaks of Mt. Ararat are in view, but they are actually in modern Turkey. [View Full Entry]

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Second Blog from Yerevan I have had requests to see my apartment so I took some photos -- a bit tricky because the place is big—the ceilings are more than 12 feet high, for example. The reaction of every Armenian who comes to the apartment is that it is much too big and airy. It is probably the thought of winter heat bills that scares them. But the rooms is newly remodeled and is great for doing exercises because there is a great deal of space (note the dumbbells in one of the pictures). Two rooms and two bathrooms. Also included [View Full Entry]

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