Advertisement
After another day with the family in the dacha, and we flew to Moscow for a change in planes for Baku, Azerbaijan.... a new chapter in our saga. Four days of exploration in an amazing part of the Caucuses, hosts and friends who dined us out of sight, wined us profoundly, showed us amazing cultural and physical places and welcomed us to their families, homes and laboratories. Baku is an oil rich beautiful city....we stayed in a small modern hotel in the middle of the walled Old City 12th century with its mosques, castles, shrines, museums and sense of history....reminded us of the Old City Jerusalem. Our last day there was Independence Date (from USSR in 1991)...we left Baku for Moscow and then home, with a display of fireworks to wish us well....quite a finish for a remarkable experience.
Lyuba's scientific and medical activities were all productive of future collaboration and further State Department support for remarkably talented young and old scientists who struggle with limited equipment but all full of bright ideas....many of which are ahead of colleagues in the west despite our abundance of technology. Research in cell biology, cancer, hepatitis and infectious diseases are at the forefront...as
well as biotech product development. Quantitative science...math, physics, computer science are dominant and we learned much from colleagues who work in ancient laboratories (for the most part). I was excited because two more countries (Russia and Azerbaijan adopted Demystifying Medicine, my NIH program and we will continue to work together. Lyuba was here officially. I was an accompanying spouse ("mousch" as we say in Russian). Free of NIH restrictions because I was on vacation, proved to be a blast. I learned much, met fascinating people (family, scientists, academicians, painters and one poet, saw wonderful sites and learned a bit about the turbulent history of this amazing part of the world. There are no "enemies" here...only hardworking folks who seek the same goals for us and our children and society....all mixed with a heavy dose of skepticism about all politicians.....and openly expressed joy at seeing USA again be a friendly leader in the world. It is painful to hear how low our national image and trust had fallen pre-Obama.
love you all
dad and lyuba
Advertisement
Tot: 0.119s; Tpl: 0.025s; cc: 6; qc: 45; dbt: 0.0348s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
