Monday, 16 May (Syktyvkar)

Because Andrei and I have to meet with people and often smooth out schedules we are staying in a hotel here--the Avalon (and you can find it on line).  This year it actually has wireless internet (it did not the previous two years) and that is such a gift in communications.  Unfortunately our hotel in St. Petersburg does not have an internet connection so I will have to figure out some way to keep the blog going.

Today we awoke to a cool sunny morning (not cold) but cool and we went to the Museum here in Syktyvkar which deals with the history of the Komi Republic--we picked up two knew aides--Natasha, our interpreter and Yulia the administrative assistant from Syktyvkar State University.  All of our travelers were delivered on time, healthy and "rested" to the museum.  Again just a few photos here--the record player should bring back memories to some and the second photo is of an item used to clean, are you ready, ears!!!

We then went to the Academy of Public Service--a college established by the Governor of the Komi Republic to prepare students for public service.  The next two photos are of us receiving a briefing by a faculty member there and Mr. Baker giving some gifts to our speaker (Mr. Baker inherited this duty from Ms. Wicks--Mr. Baker is on the left!).

The next 6 photos are from a simply AMAZING reception we received there.  We went into an auditorium (look at how packed it is) where students and faculty made presentations in English, and then we had a simply unbelievable variety show presented to us by students of the Academy (it is an undergraduate degree program).  It is hard to see how UM would provide such a warm greeting like this.  The program went over 2.5 hours and we had a reception afterwards (which is the final picture).  There are photos of us with "some" of the performers, a certain traveler with his harem of belly dancers, and our reception.

So many things happened today that I need to make several different blogs about it.

J

Academy show