At the dacha

Summer in Russia! View of our garden.

the dacha

which is on the Volga :)

Yulia, Elmira, and me

my Russian girls

working in the garden

Tatarstan summer sky

Everything you need for shashlik happiness

Or sausages over the fire

dacha kitchen

sunday morning breakfast ... grechka!

our gate :)

Spring!

The first signs of spring next to the entrance to our apartment building

There's actually ground underneath! (I was beginning to doubt)

Our university. No snow!

Easter morning at our church. Yulia, Zhenya, Elmira, and me.

Russian Easter eggs

And pussy willow and Easter cake - two other spring traditions (unfortunately not as good as it looks)

Ringing the bells on Easter

People from our church

Milana - my little Russian sister

A typical Russian kithen table - cucumbers and tomatoes, crepes and honey and jam, cheese, pickles, and keks.

Another Russian food tradition - fermented mare's milk.

In the village ... my last few times!

Dressed and ready to start spring cleaning. The village budget doesn't include "grounds maintenance," so they use the school kids to clean up around the school and along the main road leading in and out of the village.

A visit to the little buiding behind the school (before the spring thaw)

kibet - "store" in Tatar.

Village mosque

One of the village wells

"gas"

Last sunset

Privyet, Vlad

After Baikal I spent two weeks in Vladivostok, my home during the 2006-07 school year. It was so much fun to see everyone and to once again walk the streets of this incomprehensable city at the ends of the earth.

Things I missed about Vlad: friends!

Sunsets

The views (with and without pollution)

The busses

My walk to school

and ice swimming!

Vladivostok's harbor

The frozen ocean

Icefishing

Refrozen fishing holes

We spent one day at the dacha! (country cottage)

(its an icycle)

One of the better dacha toilets I've seen

We took a walk across the channel

And found an old Soviet cemetary

Another day we went hiking along the cliffs by the sea

Stray puppies

The view behind us

A neigborhood church we visited

The sunset on my birthday

City lights, one of my favorite things about Vlad.

We also walked out to a lighthouse (the little tiny collumn)

Sunest on my last day in Vlad.

ps - I'm losing my grasp on spelling. Not that I ever really had a grasp on it. :)