Saturday, November 18, 2006

Last days in Kazan

After focusing on Tatar State for three days, a woman named Rezida and a guy named Dmitri looked after us. Jeremy had three presentations on that Saturday, two at T U and then another at an engineering school. We had been in constant motion for three days that by the time we returned to out Soviet style hotel room, we were absolutely beat. Here's a view from our window.



It reminds me a lot of views in Moscow. Way in the back if you look closely, you can see the Kul Sharif mosque which is within the Kremlin walls. On Sunday, Rezida and Demy (Dmitri) took us on a very lovely tour for the day. We headed straight for the Kremlin, which is gorgeous and free! Here is a much closer look of the mosque on the left and below that is part of the cathedral in the Kremlin.























Jeremy found the mosque to be very calming and the cathedral to be oppressive. The reason, I think is obvious, but unfortunately I can't use visuals to make my point since we couldn't take pictures inside either. The mosque was very open with colored glass and a large chandelier. The Cathedral was completely covered with icons or paintings depicting scenes from the bible and then some. It just seemed more "In-your-face" for lack of a better term.

We were quite lucky because Rezida used to be a tour guide for Kazan so she could recollect all the important dates and significant events from Kazan's history which we were delighted to learn about. We were also able to eat more authentic Kazan food. Oh, you want to know what they eat in Kazan? Well, one is this is a kind of chicken pot pie without the pan and another is a layered cake with rice, egg, raisins, and dough. On one occasion I got to try a dill soup that was also quite nice. Actually the food only slightly deviates from Russian fare and fortunately is all good in my tummy!

We also picked up a few souvenirs and toured the Tatar history museum which had a bit of archaeological find to a natural history sections with whale whiskers. Although it snowed most of the day, we were enjoying ourselves so much we barely noticed our cold noses.

The last day before we left, Jeremy and I went to public school 18 which is a language school. Jeremy gave a presentation on Total Physical Response in Japanese and the teachers really enjoyed it. Afterwards, they gave us a little tea party. One teacher asked me where I was from and I soon found out her daughter is an exchange student at a high school in Westminster!!!! In fact, she is the first Russian exchange student to come to my hometown! I just could not believe this coincidence. Could there have been a bigger sign that I was destined to be in Russia?

I know Jeremy wrote a bit about the train, but I may add more next posting, we'll see...

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