Retrospective notes.

---

Lyudmila Giorgevna gave a lecture about religion this morning. Her friday classes are always interesting but never too formal, perhaps a way to get everyone into a good mood before the weekend. All the international students at Tv.G.U sit around a table in the middle of a classroom and listen for an hour without taking any notes. Every five minutes or so she loses her train of thought and moves on to talking about something else, which comfortingly is usually how we are all feeling.

Russia is a religious country. Many old people kept the Russian Orthodox faith through the years when it was forbidden and still go to church regularly, as do a lot of young people. Islam is the national religion of the former Soviet republics in the south, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan, where many emmigrate from. Russia is also home to Catholics from Armenia and eastern Europe, and there is a Jewish community in eastern Siberia. Stalin got rid of as many Russian jews as possible by setting up a town called Birobidzian in the east, to which thousands went of their own free will. A few of their grandchildren and great-grandchildren live there today. I learned that in the south west, bordering Georgia, there is a small Buddhist state called Kalmykia.

The afternoon was very quiet again. There was a birthday party for Christa in the evening, which was bitter-sweet because it was also Kolya's last night in Tver.

---