Hot town, summer in the city...

Well, we successfully survived the first day in Moscow. It is HOT and humid here, and our floor does not have air conditioning. Day time highs are in the low 30s Celsius, which puts it in the 80s. While our windows open, they face a three sided courtyard and we don’t pick up the breeze that would help cool it off. On top of that, the windows face famous Gorky Park, which means we get music from late morning until closing time (sometime after midnight last night). My sink laundry will keep busy washing out sweaty shirts. I will be happy to get to Kris’s and have access to a real washing machine!

Many people who know Russia told me that St. Petersburg and Moscow are night and day. I am not sure about that, but they certainly are night and a very different night.

If St. Petersburg is old “imperial” Russia, then Moscow is an odd mixture of Communist Soviet Union and modern day capitalism. The buildings have none of the old world “charm” that they did in St. Petersburg, and the town has a modern feel with wide streets and wide sidewalks. Buildings are tall, and in many cases still bear that soviet feel to them mostly plain stone and simple windows, although many other parts are clearly just modern day sky scrapers.

The campus we are on is a well funded and well organized campus. They gave us lab tours this morning, and while I am not an expert, the electron microscope equipment they are so proud of seems out of date (although to be fair, they have the equipment and UNI certainly doesn’t). The students here seem more like college students than those in St. Petersburg did. Simple clothing. A little more boisterous and fun loving. There isn’t the overwhelming need to be fashionable here.

While some of my colleagues feel that this is “the big city” compared to St. Petersburg, I actually feel safer here. The wide streets don’t feel as cramped, and people seem to have more purpose walking down the street. It feels like Chicago. Obviously, I would watch my wallet in Chicago too, but I don’t feel very threatened here (and I did at times in St. Petersburg, although it got better as I hung out).

Sadly, we are done already with the business portion of our trip. Today was it. Tomorrow they have arranged a tour of Red Square and the Kremlin and the like. But then, my schedule says nothing but “free time” for Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. Since most of my colleagues leave on Friday morning, I have two days completely by myself with no effort by my hosts to arrange something. I will have to see how much I want to venture off alone (and how much more I need to see at that point) and I may spend much of the time simply working on some school work that I brought with me. At the same time, the longer I spend here the more adventurous I get (that was the way it was in St. Petersburg, so I suspect I will be fine once I get my legs under me.

One final thought. I want to thank everyone who is reading this (and from the comments I get via email and this site, I know that some of you are). It actually helps me to enjoy this trip to think about how I will handle this blog and I really stop and THINK about what I am seeing. That is good. I try to be fair and objective in my observations and think about what I might think if I were Russian and taking the train from, say, Chicago to New Orleans. I don't want to offend anyone's culture, but it is fun to really THINK about what I am seeing and how I will describe it to "the folks at home." You are part of this trip even from Iowa, Michigan, and wherever. Thanks for coming with me!

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