Family Reunion!

Here you see my "Moscow family" in some ways, just as I remember them -- how many nights we sat together drinking tea in the kitchen!  Keeping contacts with families over the years is one of the many benefits of Sister Cities Relationships.  There on the left is Paulina, who was born while my family was visiting their small Yakutsk apartment on a hot August day fifteen years ago, next to her is Ilya, whom I used to take to nursery school in the predawn darkness, then Alesha, one of my best English students, and his wife, Olya, who was a dancer in the Yakutsk National Dance Ensemble, and in front of them, Rosa Kapitonovna, Kapitolina Alexeeva's sister and my wonderful host for the many months I spent in Yakutsk.

Into Moscow

What a change there is in 20 years in arriving at the Moscow Sheremetyevo airport!  It's brightly lit, full of tempting vending machines, people are pleasant and helpful.  I was able to call my friend rom my international phone to his cell phone to make sure he was really on his way to meet me.  Just outside the terminal there was a large brightly lit mall where one can buy any delicacy, knick-knack, jewlery or stylish clothing that one might wish.  We took a comfortable ride on a reasonably priced highspeed rail right into the center of Moscow that left us a Belorusskaya Station, near which he had parked his car, and in no time I was at the home of my Moscow friends, reminiscing about old times.

An interesting parallel with my first arrival with Juanita Helms and Mike Davis into Moscow in 1989: then, with glasnost and perestroika just beginning,  there were demonstrations about the closure of Red Square to the general public; when I arrived on Monday there had just been demonstrations about the recently conducted elections.  Of course, nobody knew then where the demonstrations would lead, just as nobody knows now whether the current demonstrations will influence the course of events over the next few months.