Perm

February 18–20, 2003

Perm has one of the best cloud-generating facilities in the land.

Before you drive into the city you’re given an opportunity to get out of your car, get some fresh air, and stretch your legs.

Passengers must disembark

It’s no use bringing your regular watch on this trip — Perm runs on its own special time.

Round-the-clock, 23 hours a day

The locals live in fairly small, but very sunny houses.

Typographical eye charts hang all over the city.

Perm I

It’s worth visiting the open-air museum of stuff that goes bang.

We’re pleased for the locals!

SM-90 Missile Launcher
Chief designer N. A. Trofimov
Launches “surface-to-air” missiles.
Entered production in 1959.
A missile launched on 1.05.60 using a similar missile launcher shot down a spy plane manned by the American pilot Powers

It’s really not clear at all what era the city is living in.

There’s probably more Soviet toponymy here than anywhere else in the country. All the streets are named stuff like Komsomolskaya (after the Soviet political youth organisation) and Ordzhonikidze (a Georgian Bolshevik and Soviet politician).

You should take a look at the city from above.

If you have nothing better to do, you can visit the Kungur ice caves in the town of Kungur (about an hour’s drive from Perm).