Today we met with Professor Vladimir Galkin, Dean of the Butlerov Institute of Chemistry and my very good friend (and brother).
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It's now Thursday morning. I crashed last night at 8:00 pm after a long walk in the afternoon. Vladimir has begun the greasing of the wheels for our visit, and today we meet for the morning with Candidat (Ph.D. equivalent) Valery Shtyrlin to see Markovnikov's lecture notes from Butlerov's lectures. Valery has obtained copies of the originals, and will be transcribing them into modern Russian for us to translate. I have seen some of Markovnikov's handwriting before, and it is atrocious, so Valery's help is going to be invaluable. I am sure that several joint publications will come from this.
After lunch yesterday, we spent the a few hours of the afternoon going over the posters for the meeting the week after next. Around 3:30, we then went to get tickets for the World Cup match between Russia and Mexico. I, of course, thought I knew where the ticket office was. I was only about a mile off, so we had a very pleasant stroll for 2 hours. I will post pictures from the match when we get them.
The girls, in particular, have been making an excellent photographic record of everything we are doing, so we should be able to produce a truly impressive report of the trip. Three of the four also have blogs that are worth checking out. If I remember today, I will get the URLs for you to check out the student perspective on Kazan. They have already made two friends here -- a couple of young women who are studying linguistics at the University, and one of them has been a solid source for Sergei in terms of the education system in Russia.
My own Russian is improving, but I still don't hear as much as I would like, so there are times when I sit there like a frog on a water lily. I do, however, express myself more articulately than I have ever managed before, so things are improving that way, at least. I have spent considerable time watching Disney movies, and badly-dubbed American movies, as well as the Harry Potter movies (also dubbed). It is really weird to see Kevin Costner and hear a bass baritone voice!
Not much more to report until tonight's posting.
До вечером!
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