The Return of Moumousique. Part IIIJuly 10–12, 2009 Somewhere between Chelyabinsk and Ufa.  Attention, drivers! Psychiatric hospital grounds begin here UfaMapAlmost nothing has changed here since last year. I was able to get Wi-Fi in the same corner of the same café as last summer. The perennial Soviet post boxes now have branded Ufa thingamajigs.  Ufa The zebra crossings are now red and white, with the red always extending up onto the curb. Someone must have issued a directive making it mandatory to extend the red onto the curb.  Driving across Russia is a pleasure.  ... on people’s conscience SamaraMap
Electricity comes out of distribution boxes and then travels down the street right across the facades here.  It’s hard not to fall in love with Samara at first sight.  You want to race down these streets.  Marvel at the barriers.  Pause to look at the storm drains.  Admire the concrete rings around the trees.  Sigh for the times when payphones had rotary dials.  Puzzle at the base of the traffic light.  Rub your eyes in amazement upon seeing the word kvas (a fermented rye beverage) used in the vocative case, which is long defunct in Russian.  Check out the design of the trash cans.  Check out the design of more trash cans.  Ponder about how, in Russian, the word for “city” has the same root as the verb that means “to pile up.”  And then return to the truly beautiful downtown.  PugachevMapPugachyov asked to send its regards to the hammers & sickles in Vyazma, Pripyat, Novoaltaysk and Barnaul, Kineshma, Kansk and Bratsk, and Syzran.  Pugachyov also asked to send its regards to the ads painted on fence walls in Biysk, Zambia and India.  I love you! Pugachyov 240th anniversary. Secondary school #3 |
