Stavropol

Stavropol Territory is located in the central Caucasian foothills and on the northern slopes of the Greater Caucasus (Mt. Dombai-Ulgen, elevation 4046 m; Mt. Elbrus, elevation 5642 m) and covers an area of 66 500 km2. It is bounded by many neighbors, including the Republic of North Ossetia, Karbarda-Balkar Republic, and Georgia in the south; Krasnodar Territory in the southwest, west, and northwest; Rostov Region in the north; the Republic of Kalmykia in the north and northeast; the Republic of Dagestan in the east; and the Chechen and Ingush republics in the southeast.

The Stavropol Territory is famous for medical mineral springs. This area houses a world famous recreational complex which is called Kavkazskie Mineralny Waters. The cities of Pyatigorsk, Zheleznovodsk, Lermontov, Essentuki, Mineralnye Vody, and other centers known for their mineral springs are located in this area. The base of Dzhinal Ridge has been turned a resort park with a variety of local tree and shrub species, guided trails, and recreation centers. 
There are huge numbers of ancient settlement sites, barrows (kurgans), and burial grounds in the valleys of the Egorlyk, Kuma, Tomuzlovka, and Tashla rivers and their tributaries; the areas of Kislovodsk Basin and Caucasian Mineral Waters are also considered special archeological sites. The Golden Horde city of Madjar, the capital of the North Caucasus in those days, was located on the site of Budennovsk.
Today, 3 theaters, 3 concert organizations, 644 clubs, 9 cultural and recreational parks, 37 museums operate in Stavropol Territory. There are 1185 cultural monuments in the region, including 115 of federal significance.
The Uspenskaya and Andreevskaya churches, a chapel in Pyatigorsk`s old cemetery, a Catholic church in Pyatigorsk, a mosque in Stavropol, and other religious buildings are protected by the government.
Griboedov, Pushkin, Lermontov, Tolstoy, Alyabiev, Balakirev (both 19th century Russian composers), and Vereshchagin (Russian artist of the late 19th century) all visited Stavropol in their time and contributed enormously to the city`s cultural development. The first Russian theater in the Caucasus was founded here in 1845. The Stavropol Botanical Gardens founded in 1959 are also of great significance. 
Kislovodsk. Abundant sunshine and greenery, medicinal water, natural and historical monuments, and high mountain peaks attract tourists and vacationers to Kislovodsk, Russia`s oldest resort. Kislovodsk Resort Park is unique and beautiful with pines, towering silvery firs, larches, and giant beeches and hornbeams. An aerial cableway operates in the park, with a marvelous view of the city and the Caucasus Mountains from its upper station. There are 70 km of walking trails leading through groves and lanes, with numerous cafes, bars, and pavilions along the way for your enjoyment. Besides the resort park, you can relax in the City Park of Culture and Rest, and if you want to swim or suntan, you can go to the old or new lakes. The regional museum, the dacha of the singer Chaliapin, the museum house of the artist Yaroshenko, and tours of the city will help acquaint you with the city and its celebrities. If you like to travel and sit by a campfire, you have a choice of horseback-riding and hiking trails in the Caucasus Mountains.
Stavropol was founded in 1777 as a military encampment and designated as a city in 1785. The city has one the biggest and best city parks in Russia. In September of 2000 a Stone Cross was erected on the Fortified Hill “Krepostnaya Gora” to commemorate the foundation of the city and in honour of the third millennium. In 2002 Stavropol marked its 225-yh anniversary. A new square with a monument of angel the Savior was built in honour of this important event.

Fresh caviar in a sterling silver bowl...

Here are a number of souvenir items from the Urals... pictures made with flecks of stone....

...Matryooshka dolls and painted dimka...

...Figures made of wrought iron...

Graffiti on the side of our building.  Graffiti appears wherever there is a freshly painted surface.  Although a boombox is evident in the picture, Slava can't figure out the rest of it.  Sometimes there are obscenities, but most of the time I think the writing is obscure.  Another part of our building has BBC written on it several times.  The radio frequency for BBC, as assigned by Russia, is 666, which of course is a number associated with the devil.  So that may be the connection in the graffiti.

You can read "Coffee House" here, right?  You see the Greek "phi" for F.  X has a "kh" sound.  Y is "oo."  The last letter has a Z sound.

My Nook

I was semi-correct when I thought it would be a nice idea to have an e-book for my journey to Russia.

For a number of reasons I selected the Barnes & Noble Nook over the Amazon Kindle or other e-books. I’m almost happy with my choice.

Barnes & Noble offers more than a million e-books. Most of them are about half the price of a hardback, or even less. Some are just $1.99. A few are free (classics without copyright issues). I can download more than 1,000 books, magazines, and newspapers onto the Nook. So carrying something the weight of a paperback can provide me with virtually unlimited reading material.

There were two features in particular that I wanted on an e-book. The first was Wi-Fi connectivity. The second was an ability to download e-books from the public library, in addition to buying books online.

The Nook does allow a user to connect to the web, and I don’t mind its limitations for us early adopters. However, I do expect that my Nook will seem dated quite soon unless there are software updates. I can do a Google search and a quick look-up, but it’s not convenient to browse around the web.

Figuring out how to download e-books from Fairfax County Library while at home was more complicated than I expected. People at Barnes & Noble were no help; they just read books in the store. But with perseverance I got Bill Bryson’s “A Short History of Nearly Everything,” David Halbertam’s “The Coldest Winter,” and the game theory study “Rock, Paper, Scissors.” These e-books are treated like print books, with due dates. Only what happens to an e-book is that it becomes unreadable on the due date. It stays like junk in My Library until I use Adobe Digital Editions towipe my e-shelf clean.

So far I’ve bought just a few e-books from Barnes & Noble, each for less than $15. One is the last book by Stieg Larssen, “The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest.” Another was Leningrad-based “City of Thieves,” by David Benioff (while traveling I love being immersed in the atmospherics of a novel about that place). My other e-book purchase was a classic I haven’t returned to since college: de Tocqueville’s “Democracy in America.” That one was 99 cents.

Barnes & Noble touts its “Lend Me” technology. Just like when you buy print books, you can lend out e-books – subject to restrictions. You can lend a book once and only once, and for just 14 days. So any of you who want Larssen’s hot new book, or Benioff’s critically acclaimed novel, be the first person to contact me and you’ll get it.

The Nook allows me to bookmark pages, highlight sections, and use a Find feature for key words. I can also change the font size, which is particularly useful depending on whether I have good lighting or dim contrast. It can go 10 days without needing a recharge.

Although Nook software can be downloaded to smartphones and the I-Pad, I think that extensive reading on a backlit screen would be tiring for the eyes. E-books have e-inks. You read them with reflected light, just like reading a print book. But current products don’t have enough contrast, in my opinion. And small screens require several click-throughs to cover the equivalent of a print page.

In addition to the reading surface, the Nook has a color touch-screen with that has pretty icons and a teeny tiny keyboard that is not pressure-sensitive. It's skin-contact and motion-sensitive. It will not respond to being touched by fingernails, and if you have fat fingers (apparently I do) then it’s wise to get a stylus like one made for Apple products such as the iPhone.

Would I be happier with the Kindle? Maybe, because Kindle users always come across as enthusiastic. There’s one thing of which I’m very sure: E-books readers are going to go way, way down in price. Amazon is intensely interested in having you buy a Kindle. Barnes & Noble really wants you to have a Nook. Buy either one and you can store more than 1,500 books on your device. The companies drool over having you as a frequent buyer of books at say, $10 a copy.  

I predict that there will be a price war between Amazon and Barnes & Noble. It’s worth it to the companies to subsidize the hardware cost. E-books that don’t have this subsidy had better be worth a higher price.

I think I’ll hang on to my early edition Nook for a few years, and then donate it to the Smithsonian Museum of American History. It will be appropriate one day for the exhibit of obsolete technologies, such as the electric typewriter.

Returning to Moscow

Photo: Historical Museum at Red Square in Moscow

I’m trying to prepare myself mentally for returning to the U.S. I’m likely to feel over- whelmed with everything that’s piled up waiting for my return. I may feel grumpy that I can’t find brusnika, which translates to red whortleberries. I won’t be able to sleep at night, and I’ll sleep during the day. In other words, I’ll have the usual assorted symptoms of dealing with jet lag for perhaps a week.

On the way back I will, however, have a full fun-filled day in Moscow with my friend Ludmila. Most of the time when she sees me coming and going, I'm not at my best. It's amazing that we have a friendship that survives that.

Of course I am looking forward to getting back. And after the fog has cleared from my brain, I’ll have a final posting of thoughts about Russia.