At long last, the final post in this blog.

I have been traveling almost constantly since leaving Kazan. We left Kazan in the early evening of June 16, and had to spend the night at Sheremet'evo airport in Moscow before flying to Paris and then on to Minneapolis. We needed a little reorganization of what went in where to keep the bags under the max weight, but we managed to do so. The flight out was not bad, although the ankle was giving me serious trouble. I did note, however, that the cane I bought ("B-Well") has a name in English, instructions in Russian, and (in Russian) "made in China" at the end.

We were fortunate that at Sheremet'evo they have what they call a "capsule hotel":  Basically, it is a series of rooms about the size of a faculty office with a bed and bathroom that you rent by the hour. Our six-hour stay cost about $50 per head, but simply being able to lie down and sleep some made the investment very worthwhile. I do not understand why U.S. airports -- especially JFK -- have not started this practice. What was even better, the capsule hotel is inside the secured area, so there is no need to clear security again! You can check Sasha and Gene's blogs for pictures of the hotel.

On the 17th, we left early in the morning for our flight to Paris. This was the beginning of a 36-hour day, during which time the sun did not set. Of course, for the long flight from Charles De Gaulle to Minneapolis, I was stuck in an interior seat. Not good at all for the ankle. The flights were, however, quite good, with little turbulence until it was time to land in Minneapolis (we did not know at the time that a major storm was in progress, and we bounced a lot on the way down once we cleared about 15,000 feet). The French crew were a good lot, and I was happy to have the chance to practice my French again. It appears that it has not deteriorated as much as as I had thought. In any case, they were perfectly happy to address me in French throughout the flight.

Clearing customs and immigration in Minneapolis was a real chore, because Gene and I were put into the slowest possible lane. On one leg, this was not at all fun. Then, once we got through, all the carts to carry your bags had been taken by those who got through immigration earlier, so we purloined a Delta baggage cart and piled all our bags on it. As we were clearing customs, a Delta employee accosted us, and basically told us that we weren't supposed to use that cart. So he pushed the cart over to the Shuttle van stop for us. Since I was walking way too slowly for his liking, he stopped and got a wheelchair for me. To be honest, we should have done that much earlier.

Three hours later, we were back in Eau Claire, and I got to sleep one night in my own bed before heading out to Florida for the wedding of two former students, Ryan McKenney and Katie Anderson. This was the second summer/spring wedding of former students of mine -- I could not get to the wedding of Dr. Jeremiah Stromich and Ashley Weber because of a conflict with the Chemistry Department Awards Banquet. The "New Yankee Workshop" sign on the lab door put there when I became a naturalized U.S. citizen may now need a new one under it: "Cupid's Cavern."

So there you have it.

And so we are now into the last 24 hours in Kazan. The day began with personal good news: the broken ankle had, in fact, been mis-diagnosed. The relief when that cast came off was truly palpable. Young Artëm, a student in comparative religion who works the desk at the hotel and speaks quite good English, came with me, so communication was easier than Thursday. In addition, this orthopedist spoke reasonable English, so that between my abominable Russian (yes, Virginia, I now know just how bad my Russian is, and how much work it needs) and his English we were able to communicate very well.

I had one question that I had to keep asking, and I think he probably thought I had some kind of OCD about it -- I needed to know where to get my bill, and where to pay it before I left Kazan. Guess what, folks? Emergency medical care, and follow-ups at the trauma center are all free in Russia. Yes, folks -- FREE!!! Still, I am very glad that I have the CISI international health insurance, because I still need to get reimbursed for magnesium supplements and ankle bandages and braces. But it's sure a lot cheaper than if I had to pay for the health care here!

Today, we had a final lunch with Vladimir Galkin and his lovely wife, Irina, who is also a chemist, and chair of one Department within the Institute. She is a full Professor at the Butlerov Institute (in Russia, full Professors are a very big deal). The lunch was at the Shalyapin Hotel on Baumann Street (that pedestrian mall again!), and consisted of Tatar food. Lovely! And then Vladimir distributed gifts to us all, which I think is a tradition in Russia. I must remember to bring a set of gifts when I return.

I will probably post the last photographs after I return to the U.S.

Your boring old blogger signing off for now...

Time for an update. Obviously, the activity of at least one member of the group has been significantly curtailed. I see the doctor tomorrow, and I expect the news to be better than I was afraid of. There is still pain in the ankle, and the cast itches like crazy, but I can now walk (slowly, with my fashionable bronze-colored cane imported all the way from the USA!), and I can move my toes and (to the degree permitted by the cast) my ankle.

Yesterday, the lads and I went to the zoo (by taxi -- it is a 2.5-mile walk, and the cab cost 100 rubles ($2.00). The zoo really shows the other side of Kazan. For the Universiade in 2013, a huge amount of work was done repairing major parts of the city, but the zoo has remained in pre-Universiade condition. It's sad, really, because it has a good location, and could be quite an attraction. Strangely, also, there is no Zoo shop with souvenirs. So much for adding to our zoo coffee mug collection! It's the only zoo on 3 continents that I have seen that does not have at least a shot glass souvenir on sale (and where but Russia would you expect a shot glass souvenir?). Once we got back (it only took us an hour, really, to see what we needed/wanted to), I moved to my room and put my leg up.

I managed to walk some, but spent about half my time sitting on a bench with a black cat using me as a sunshade. As far as I can tell, black cats are viewed as very lucky here -- everyone wanted to pet it.

Tonight, I managed to get part of the way down the hill to the Rubai restaurant, an Uzbekh restaurant  that is one of my favorite eateries in Kazan. They serve both liver and tongue with just a smidgeon of a sour cream-based sauce that is to die for. The tongue was a slip of the tongue (pun not really intended), but I'm glad the foul-up happened. It is so much more enjoyable as a hot meat rather than a cold meat, and it tastes just like any other kind of beef. I also had an unusual tea, which is flavored with something I cannot place; it was very good. And to cap everything off, I had a dessert of small honey cakes shaped like cones. They remind me of sort of crystallized cotton candy that has been compressed into a conical shape, and then soaked in honey. Just what an old diabetic needs!

The batteries in the camera died yesterday, so there aren't many pictures from me. Fortunately, the lads are still taking photographs, and we now have two large photo albums that we will need to edit into a "best of" collection. This photo, however, will give you an idea of the booths in the Rubai. The small stool at the end of each table is not for people, but for a hookah! Generally, we have been surrounded by non-smokers, but even when someone was using the hookah, you couldn't smell it.

I photoshopped this to make it lighter, so you can see the divans on each side of the booth, with the cushions and a hint of the curtains. The little stool at front is for a hookah. The street outside the window is Universitetskaya Street, where our hotel is.

So... Wednesday, June 11 was an eventful day. It started with me meeting with an old friend, . Academician Aleksandr Ivanovich Konovalov, and then Sasha, Gene, and me taking Gulnar Melnikova, the director of the Butlerov museum, to lunch at a fancy Tatar restaurant in Baumann Street. Gulnar was an absolute godsend on more than one occasion during our visit.

DEL with Academician Konovalov in the Butlerov Library of the museum

same shot, moments later

On the balcony of the restaurant, with Baumann Street in the background. I don't know why I am the only one smiling...

Same shot moments later from a slightly different angle. I'm still the only one smiling -- I think my students have become more Russian than me!

In this one, the sunshine got to Sasha, making him want to sneeze.

After working for a few hours after lunch, I decided to go down to Kol'tso, the local mall to find something cheap to eat. To get to the mall, you go down a flight of stairs, cross the underpass, and then head into the basement of the mall itself. We have done this dozens of times while we have been here, so no problems, right? Yeah, right!

We have had a running joke here that I keep avoiding a fall on the uneven pavement here, and the guys have been keeping count, at least on the bad days. So of course, when they were not there to witness it, I came down the wrong way on a hole in the pavement. I didn't think too much of it at the time, so I got up and kept walking. Of course, within 30 minutes, my ankle had swollen, and I was in serious pain with each step. Sasha came and saw me back up the hill to the hotel, after we found that the Apteka (drugstore) did not carry canes. When we got back to the hotel, it was clear that I needed something, so they gave us the address of another Apteka that carried canes, and Sasha accompanied me to the Apteka. I chose a fashionable copper-colored cane to complement my eyes. Sasha stayed in the area for supper, and I got a cab back. Bt the time I was back in the hotel, I was practically immobile, so Gene came with me in a cab to the University Clinic, only to find that it was closed except on Wednesdays.

A taxi ride back to the hotel showed just how bad things had gotten, so they called an ambulance to take me to an open clinic. The paramedic and Gene carried me (approximately, given my weight!) down the stairs to the ambulance, and as the one who speaks the best Russian, Sasha got to come with me to the Clinic. At the clinic, I was seen by a very business-like, and very solemn doctor who never said a word to me. He did order X-rays, and they showed that I had broken my ankle. I have never had a cast put on before, and the way that they insist that the joint to be properly placed by twisting it every which way but loose would work well as a means of extracting information -- at times, the pain was exquisite (and much worse than my broken rib last year. -- Is Kazan trying to break every bone in my body?)

When we got back to the hotel, I came up the stairs tbackwards, on my butt. When we got to the top, I had to stand up; now Sasha acted as an excellent walking stick -- much better than the metal one. He is much stronger than appearances would suggest. It only took 5 minutes for me to get into my room, typically a 30-second to a minute journey, and the Hotel staff gave Sasha and me both a major break by finding a one-armed swivel chair to function as a wheelchair.

Fortunately, I was able to sleep with the cast, and this morning I have been able to walk on my own (very slowly, and with my fashionable dark copper-colored cane, of course). When I got down to the restaurant, they were all over themselves to make sure I had all the help I needed (they were very worried that my breakfast of oatmeal (old-fashioned porridge, really), cocoa puffs with milk, coffee and ice water was not enough, and that I also needed meat, fish and eggs. Apparently they have not observed my profile!

Today I have a follow-up appointment at noon. I may lose the cast, but I am not going to bet on it. Of course, our trip to the zoo today is now out of the question. The Kazan Zoological and Botanical Gardens have a breeding program for rare animals, and a program to retain the genetic information of the vanishing group of rare plants. It began in the 1830s as an offshoot of the Botany Department of Kazan University.

Maybe Sunday for the zoo...?

Not much to say today. Yesterday was a full day of work, both translating, and working on final graphics files for "Advanced Organic Chemistry" (the page proofs for the first five chapters arrived about 2:00 am this morning, Kazan time, so that is now one more task, but an enjoyable one). You can read page 1 below...


Otherwise, it was a typical work day, We are now well into the start of the translation of Markovnikov's Dr. Chem. dissertation, and finding that there are remnants of older nomenclature everywhere. Calcium salts, for example, are referred to as "lime" salts; the term "lime salt" has a special meaning -- calcium chloride. I assume that this reflects the days when hydrochloric acid was known as "spirits of salt." I had expected the dissertation to focus strongly on the structural theory of organic chemistry, but it actually strays into the chemistry of simple inorganic compounds, also.

Lunch yesterday was a "business lunch," which is a sort of lunch-time special. It consisted of a fish/onion/beet in sour cream or yoghurt salad, a Russian version of chicken noodle soup (with lots of dill -- the Russians love dill), and a chicken shashlik (meat on a stick) with boiled potato as the main course. It was lunch, so of course, we had tea in the correct Russian style. Coffee is reserved for breakfast and a morning coffee break.

I took off at dinner time, looking for a Tatar place to eat. I didn't find it because it began to pour down. I took refuge in an Irish pub (the Trinity -- Gene has photographs of it), and ended up drinking Irish beer (tolerable, I guess), and home-made sausages with plenty of paprika (delicious). Then it was back to work until exhaustion had me making way too many mistakes.

I need to make some contacts today, so Sasha and Gene will both be translating alone.

До завтра! (Until tomorrow!)

It's now Tuesday morning, and we will be doing day 2 of translating Markovnikov's Dr. Chem. dissertation. The wonderful thing is that we have both dissertations, so we can see the places where the examiners did not understand or agree with Markovnikov's statements, and see how Markovnikov had matured as a chemist from the M. Chem. degree (many more such places in the dissertation) to the Dr. Chem. degree.  These questions alone will make a fascinating paper (in my opinion, of course).

A morning full of translating was followed by a late (2:30 pm) lunch and then more exploration of the city. I had some shopping to do, and we went to the Central University Market (ЦУМ), where I was able to get what I needed. It also meant yet another day in much brighter sunshine than is supposed to be at this time of the year, so I am sure that my dermatologist is not going to be happy. But... the fact that I have been walking up and down hills for an average of 3-4 hours per day will make my cardiologist happy!

The walk took us past the eastern side of the Kremlin, which gives an excellent view from outside the walls:

View of the Gul Sharif mosque in the Kremlin from the east side at the end of Baumann Street

The east wall of the Kremlin

The Kremlin, with the Gul Sharif mosque, and the Söyembikä tower to its left. Sasha is taking the photograph in the foreground.

Below the walls of the Kremlin on this side, there is a topiary of a peackck, with a flower garden as its tail:

The peacock below the Kremlin. Note how the flowers show the eyes on the tail.

The peacock up close and personal. Sasha spotted a vole under its tail.

Going to the market, we once again crossed the canal through town. On Saturday, we found out from our guide that this canal was built by Ivan the Terrible to segregate the city, with Tatars (Moslems) on the east bank, and Russians (Christians) on the west bank. You can actually see the difference because on the east bank, the Russian orthodox churches are generally small, while the mosques tend to be more numerous and larger. The big cathedrals are all on the west bank, and the mosques on the west bank are less numerous and smaller (at least, this is my perception).

The canal through the city: the Kremlin is to the left

The canal has a mural at the closed (north) end:

Gene taking a movie of the fountains in the canal (or of the pigeons, not sure which)

Sasha is shooting a panorama shot of the mural. These telephone cameras are marvellous, and put my little old camera to shame!

On our way back to the hotel, we passed the Kremlin Metro station, topped with the Kazan winged dragon, symbol of the city (the winged leopard is the symbol of Tatarstan).

The entrance to the Kremlin Metro station

The winged dragon of Kazan

In an earlier post, I noted a church with green-topped spires (an unusual color for an orthodox church, and much more common in mosques) below the plaza just outside the Kremlin. This was a mistake: the building is, in fact, the monastery associated with the Church of St. Nicholas.

The green roof and spires belong to the monastery associated with the Church of St. Nicholas. The fact that this is a monastery, and not a church, is clearly announced on the banner on the side of the building, which advertises the "Monastery shop"

I have also found some advantages in the fact that I cannot really watch television (there are two English-language channels, but neither really interests me -- I can hear English back in the US), at least with full understanding, because my command of Russian is not good enough. Suffice it to say that seeing a Tom Cruise movie dubbed into Russian is a surreal experience. It almost -- ALMOST -- makes me wish I had actually seen the movie in English. I have seen the movies on the Disney channel, but it is so long since I have seen one ("Pocohontas" was on two nights ago) that I have forgotten ALL the dialog, so I don't understand any of it. The Kazan channel is fascinating to watch: it has segments on the weather, exercise by a woman who has bigger biceps muscles than I do, fashion cooking, and a full five minutes each day for your horoscope. There are also about three minutes of news daily, but I think that most Russians get their news from one of the three national channels.

The time has, however, allowed me to make much faster progress on my other project, reformatting the diagrams from that wonderful upcoming textbook, "Advanced Organic Chemistry."

More anon...

Let us start today's blog with a couple of photographs from last night. This statue is of the great operatic bass baritone, Fyodr Ivanovich Shalyapin (also known under the French version of his name, Feodor Chaliapin). Shalyapin, who had no formal training in music, was born and raised in Kazan, and his statue now stands in front of the bell-tower and church named for him, and the hotel that now bears his name. The belltower is the tallest structure on Baumann Street.

Fyodr Ivanovich Shalyapin, in front of the Shalyapin Hotel in Kazan.

Shalyapin may be best remembered in the west for his rendition of the "Song of the Volga Boatmen" ("Ei ukhnem!"). For some reason, Youtube is blocked over here, but you can check out his version by googling [Shalyapin "Song of the Volga Boatmen"]; it's worth checking out.

While Sasha and I were walking back from supper, we took a new turn, and so ended up walking back in the rain. We did, however, find the statue of Butlerov seated, in a park just down the hill from the Butlerov Institute. In addition to the statue, Sasha also got some shots of the rainbow, which was quite intense (we saw a clear second-order diffraction ring).

Butlerov statue in the park during the rainstorm.

Sviyazhsk

We had set today aside for a 4-5 hour tour of Sviyazhsk Island (really a peninsula), about 1 hour's drive from Kazan upstream on the Volga. The tour actually lasted 7.5 hours (we left at 9:00 and got back at 4:30). The peninsula is the location of a city that Ivan the Terrible constructed in a single day from logs floated down the Volga from the town of Uglish, near Moscow. The logs were tagged with a code that showed how the town was to be assembled. The first building raised was the church, a small wooden church, the Church of St. Sergei, that you can now take photographs in. The artwork inside is the work of local icon painters, and all are restorations. There were no nails used in the construction of the church, which was built in 1522.

Markings on the logs coded where each was to be placed in the construction of the city. Only axes and adzes were used in cutting and shaping the logs.

The monk for whom the Church of St. Sergei is named

The front wall of the Church of St. Sergei. Sasha is in the foreground, taking a photograph.

Your humble blogger in the Church of St. Sergei.

The city of Sviyazhsk was built on a hill at the confluence of three rivers; the two larger ones are the Sviyaga and Volga Rivers.

The Sviyaga River

The confluence of the Sviyaga (right) and Volga (left, and distant right) Rivers

Outside the wall is a monument to the political prisoners (mainly intellectuals) who were imprisoned here during the Soviet era (especially the Stalin era), when all religious buildings were either torn down or converted to a secular purpose. The Sviyazhsk monastery and its associated buildings were converted to a Gulag, which protected them from destruction.

Memorial to the Gulag prisoners outside the walls of Sviyazhsk.

Outside the walls of Scviyazhsk

As we passed through the gate to the city, we saw the stables on our right, but we first passed to the left, and started walking down to the far end of the city. I had expected that this "Island" would be quite small, but I am sure that we must have walked the best part of a mile before we got to the far end of the island. Of course, you are also asking why they call it an island, when it is most demonstrably a peninsula, right? It turns out that when the Soviets dammed the Volga, it caused the river level to rise dramatically -- so much that parts of Kazan city itself were inundated. Even today, although they have mitigatedf the situation, the river level is still 8 meters (27 feet) above its level before the dams were built. This is, in part, the reason that the Volga is navigable to barges and ships even above Kazan. For a number of years, it really was an island. Today, the plain at the base of the hill, where the artisans and tradesmen lived, is under water.

Walking to the end of the "island." Gene (left) and Sasha (right) are in the foreground, flanking our guide. The cathedral with the silver roof is Assumption Cathedral, and the smaller church to the right is Trinity Cathedral The red brick building houses the convent

Another photo of the convent, with a monk approaching us.

The same fate -- protection from destruction by the Soviets -- did not befall two cathedrals in the grounds. The picture below shows a large wooden cross erected on the site of the St. Sophia Cathedral. All that remains of this building is a pile of rubble left after all the bricks that could be harvested from the building were taken away.

The small mound behind the sign and the cross are all that is left of the St. Sophia Cathedral. The bricks were harvested as the building was deconstructed in the 1930s under Stalin, and the rest was left as a pile of rubble (now overgrown).

For once, it is the sign that was blurry!

At the time of Catherine the Great, the monastery had grown to somewhere around 400 monks, but she then passed her secularizing laws, which meant that the monastery was downsized, and much of its early grounds converted to a convent. This included Assumption Cathedral.

Assumption Cathedral, Sviyazhsk

Assumption Cathedral, Sviyazhsk, with the modern convent building (white walls) in front of it.

A gate into the convent cloisters

Continuing down towards the confluence of the rivers, we came to the "secular" church, the Church of St. Nicholas. This church is called a "secular" church because it was not built to have a direct association with the monastery or convent.

The Church of St. Nicholas

On our way back to the monastery proper, we passed the headquarters of Trotsky, who dircted yet another battle against Kazan from here. In this case, the White (Tsarist) Russian forces had captured Kazan from the Reds, and were they to have held the city, the revolution would have collapsed. Trotsky applied an ancient method to inspire his troops -- after two battles in which his untrained peasants were routed by the highly trained Tsarist troops, Trotsky applied the old Roman method of decimation: one man in ten was shot. Needless to say, they fought with fanatical courage the next time, and Kazan fell to the Red Army. We also passed what was a hospital at the time of the revolution (it is now being converted to a museum).

A World War 1 and civil war hospital, originally a house of a nobleman or wealth merchant. Now being converted to a museum.

The monastery itself has its own walls, and when we passed the gate, Sasha again had to don the apron.

The monastery itself consists of several buildings, the most impressive of which is the cathedral, which was built in several stages. The initial cathedral building stood on a square footprint, and the bell-tower was added later. Finally, the refectory was aded, and the dome and spire. We were not able to enter this church, so I cannot tell you much about its interior.

The cathedral within the monastery walls was begun early, and built in stages

Thew bell-tower within the monastery walls

The main entrance to the monks' cells.

After we had toured the monastery, we got lunch -- monastery bread and cheese (delicious!!!), and then we began the journey back home. This time, instead of taking the bridge across the Volga,. we took a ferry. The car ferry holds 18 cars, apparently, and we were the last car on for our ride. The pictures below tell the story of our crossing way better than I could.

The car ferry across the Volga

The bow (port side) of the ferry. The sign says 'NO {littering, smoking}

The cars are stacked like cordwood!

The propeller turbulence in the wake of the ferry

The railway bridge across the Volga

Yours truly in his paper hat, crossing "Mother Volga." The spot on my pocket is a local hitch-hiker too lazy to fly across the river.

We made just one stop on the way back -- to get shashlyk, which this time were port chops on a spit. I had mine with pickled ginger (the Russians love anything pickled) and russian flatbread toasted over open coals. There is enough pork left for at least two meals!

More anon...