VladivostokMapJuly 4–6, 2004 Vladivostok is in Russia’s Far East region, but I flew westwards to get there. The flight from Japan landed in the evening.  Unexpected proof of news reports about the problems plaguing municipal services in the Primorsky Krai region: there was hot water at the hotel three times a day for two hours at a stretch, but by the time I got back to the hotel the last round was over. So I had to look for and move to a different hotel, one where showering was an inalienable right. I was pleased to find a currency exchange in the hotel lobby. 
Bank My morning yawns were tempered by a photoshoot of the wonderful views out my window.  Here’s a fun game: find the internet café entrance.  Main square.  Spiderman 2 from 1 July Exquisite traffic light.  Payphone.  The underpass leading to the square is decorated with marine motifs.  Marine motifs adorn everything.  Remnants of recent celebrations. 
yadhtrib yppaH This is where I was recognised by a local web designer, who for some strange reason just happened to also be in this completely empty square at eight in the morning. He told me that he didn’t have enough money to attend the pervious day’s seminar, then enquired about whether in Moscow he could get three thousand dollars in salary.  Fokin Street, an archetypal XIX century urban high street with a splendid waterfront, which recently underwent reconstruction and was pedestrianized. Freshly built flowerbeds with belly button-high milky white spherical lamps and little fountains encircled by clunky brick have turned this architectural monument into an exemplar of provincial-municipal developments. They’re familiar to us because of all the half-witted contemporary specimens you get in Moscow.  Before departure — a few snaps from the observation deck: an out of order cableway with views of the port.  Cableway Ordinary urban landscape.  “The city of Vladivostok is very far away, but it’s quintessentially ours”, — Lenin is purported to have said. |
