Today, we finished our photographing of the books, with DEL showing his skills with a paper cutter to separate several pages that had somehow not been separated by the paper cutter when the book was originally bound. Then, with Sasha urging me to check if there was anything else, we got digitized copies of Klaus' seminal work on the chemistry of the platinum metals, and Chichibabin's 1912 book on free radicals, dedicated to the memory of Zaitsev. A wonderful find!

The three of us were then photographed, and we will appear on the web site of the university as visiting scholars. I will post the URL as soon as I know it.

From 10:00 until lunchtime, we toured the Museum of the History of Kazan University. The lads took many more photographs than I did, so I will be stealing from their blogs and/or facebook pages to augment mine. The photograph below shows the main hall of the museum, which used to be the University Chapel. Our tour guide spoke excellent English -- her mother lives in Bay City, Michigan, and her brother lives in Frankston, just outside Melbourne, in Australia.

The second level and ceiling of the Museum of the History of Kazan University. The second level was where students having difficulties (for whatever reason) were sent for additional study. Tolstoy spent a lot of time there.

While at the Museum, I got the chance to meet an old friend, Stella Pisareva, the Director/Curator of the Museum. Debbie had told me to say, "Hi," and to give her a big hug when I saw her if it was not too familiar. It certainly was not -- she gave me a big hug for my lovely wife (everyone is asking about her, here).

I think this one, without the flash works better, but here is Stella, the lovely lady who looks after this wonderful museum.

Im March, I am committed to speak n a symposium in San Diego on Nobel "should-haves," and my subject is Zavoiskii, the developer of electron paramagnetic resonance. When the Nobel for magnetic resonance spectroscopy was awarded, it was shared by two contributors to nuclear magnetic resonance, and Zavoiskii was ignored. There may be a more interesting story here than first appears, but I have some digging to do. Meanwhile, here is the man himself, and the electromagnet from his instrument.

Yevgenii Konstantinovich Zavoiskii

The electromagnet of Zavoiskii's first magnetic resonance spectrometer

I also managed to buy a t-shirt from the University Shop (all the hoodies were "S," and I am certainly not "S"). On Friday, we will be visiting the Physics Museum, where there is more about Zavoiskii.

Today, also, Gulnar gave me the two-volume set on the Chemical Faculty of Kazan University from 1804-2008. I return with riches galore!