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Polina is my youngest
friend in St. Petersburg. Her doting Aunt Katya (Katya Stalinskaia) shows
her off for the camera. |
| Pasha (Pavel Yarmolchuk)
plays with Masha, Ilia and Misha at a resort area on the Volga River near
Kazan. Later, all the adults swam across the river (well, part of it anyway).
A thunderstorm thwarted our attempt to do it again later. |
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Alyona, her dog Druzhok
(Little Friend) and I enjoyed a trip up the Volga from Kazan to Sviiazhsk,
the island where Ivan the Terrible launched his attack on Kazan in the 16th
century. Druzhok had never been on a boat before. |
| Even the gatekeepers
of the Muslim cemetery in Moscow love their pets. These puppies had the
run of the place and chose to fight their mock battles on Mr. Ishmametov's
grave. I hope he didn't mind. |
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Even Kseniia, the mother
of generations of great cats, loves to get out in nature. She seems so dignified,
but she also can climb from one window to another on the outside wall of
the house in Kazan. The Khirougs say it wasn't so long ago that her ancestors
were climbing palm trees. |
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Russians have a great
love for nature and like to take long walks with their friends. My friend
Jehanne Gheith (associate professor of Slavic Literature at Duke University)
and I have picked up the habit. Jehanne is contemplating a dive in this
reputedly holy spring to cure her cold.
She decided she didn't
want to share the water with cows, and the cold would pass without divine
intervention.
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In the post-Soviet
period, many Russians are searching for a deeper relationship with God.
This couple seems to have found theirs in moving closer to the land.
This arch leads into
the fields of a newly restored monastery north of St. Petersburg. A woman
responded to a spiritual calling to revive the monastic life. She spearheaded
the renovations. In recognition of her work, the Russian Orthodox Church
consecrated this as a women's monastery, although it had been exclusively
for men before the revolution.
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