Riding the AeroportEkspress on my way in to Moscow from Sheremyetevo II

From the window of the AeroportEkspress

Monument to Dostoyevsky in front of the Lenin Library, Moscow

Wall of the Kremlin and eternal flame, Moscow

Kazan Cathedral, originally built to celebrate the conquest over Kazan. It was razed in Soviet times and then rebuilt in the 1990s

Ulitsa Tverskaia at night, Moscow

Tverskaia again

The Kremlin, from the bottom of Tverskaia

Another shot of the Kremlin

Red Square, the Kremlin, and St. Basil's Cathedral

Novyi Arbat Street, Moscow

Moscow subway, July 2008

Rainy Moscow

Tolstoy's study, Moscow

Back of Tolstoy's house

Girls in the Moscow metro

On Sunday, July 20, I flew to Ufa. Here is a sign celebrating Ufa's incorporation into the Russian Empire. It reads: Russia and Bashkortostan, 450 years together!

View from the kitchen window at the hostel where I stayed on Arbat Street. In the distance you can see the Kremlin.

This is the view from my apartment--I'm on the sixth floor. This shot was taken at about 10 o'clock at night, by the way. The time zone here is two hours ahead of Kazan (10 hours ahead of the east coast of the US), even though we're just a few hundred miles to the east.

My apartment has one room. The couch here turns into a bed.

View from my kitchen--shot at 11 pm

The kitchen

Revolution Street, about a hundred yards from my building. Kvas--a drink similar to non-alcoholic beer--is being sold from the yellow truck.

The National Library of Bashkortostan

People buying Kvas

Revolution Street, a little fruit stand

A different fruit stand--this is where I usually buy watermelon

Lenin Prospekt--Ufa's main drag. It's not usually this empty--this photo was taken on a Sunday, when most people are out of town visiting their dacha.

Lenin Prospekt from the other direction

This is a diner in Lenin Park. They have burgers, milkshakes, pizza, beer, etc, and play lots of American and British rock music. The terrace is a good place to have a beer, but the food isn't that great.

A fountain in Lenin Park

39 years old and still going strong!

The White House--home of the government of Bashkortostan

Birch trees in Lenin Park

Lenin Park again

A flower-structure in an Ufa traffic circle

Mado--pretty good kebabs at a pretty good price

Convention center

Ufa, with UralSib building looming in the background to the left

Old and new on Krupskaia Steet

A little shop on Revolution Street. That's my building behind it.

The Central State Historical Archives of the Republic of Bashkortostan

The grave of Muhammadyar Soltanov, Mufti of the Orenburg Assembly from 1886 to 1915.

Tukai Mosque, Ufa

Rainy Day in Ufa

Street in downtown Ufa

Gostinnyi Dvor--Ufa's main shopping center

Walking down Prospekt Lenina

"Working Together for the Good of the Country." Poster extolling the virtues of Vladimir Putin and Bashkir President Rakhimov.

Sunday afternoon in Iakupov Park

Monument to people who died in the Civil War, Iakupov Park

In Iakupov Park

Laki inside Iakupov Park

Child waving to the children's train in Iakupov Park

Out on the town in Ufa

The Academy of Sciences

With Liliia Baibulatova,Gülnar Iuldizbaeva, and Marsil Farkhshatov.

Rizaeddin Fahreddin's grave

At lunch with Marsil Farkhshatov and Ramil Bulgakov

Ufa River--view from restaurant

Meeting with the Director of the Academy of Sciences, Professor Firdaus Khisamitdinova

Downtown Ufa is filled with old wooden houses

The Blue Lakes of Kazan

The Blue Lakes are freezing cold--no warmer than the forties.

Kids attach plastic spoons to the ends of sticks to scoop our coins that people toss off this little bridge. They don't go in the water because the rocks are too slippery and the water too cold.

My bedroom/study on Esperanto.

My kitchen on Esperanto--complete with Betty Crocker oven.

Bähetle--my favorite supermarket chain in Russia.

The Kol'tso Shopping Center in downtown Kazan. That's the Hotel Tatarstan to the right.

Apartment buildings on the outskirts of Kazan

Bauman Street, Kazan

Tukaev Street, Kazan

The Dynamite Gym in the Kombinat Zdorov'e--where I worked out and used the sauna for much of 2004-2007

Mother and baby picnic in Kazan: Svetlana, Veronica, Andrei, Lolla, and babies Nastia and Sofia. Svetlana's son Ruslan was also with us but is out of the picture.

Birch Tree beauty

Kremlin Tower

Minarets from Kol Sharif Mosque from inside Kremlin

Annunciation Cathedral

Annunciation Cathedral with Kol Sharif Mosque in Background

Shot of the Volga from the Kremlin

Kol Sharif Mosque

Newly constructed Catholic church in Kazan

Lots of pre-crisis construction taking place on the far side of the Volga

Cruising Bauman Street

Last night in Kazan

First day in Istanbul

Back in town: Istiklal Caddesi in September

More Istiklal

The Bosphorus from Bebek

A big ship going up the Bosphorus towards Russia

This is the view that I see when I step out the door in the morning. In the background you can see another big ship going up to the Black Sea.

A road in Arnavutköy

This cat likes to chill out on my balcony sometimes

Kuleli, the War College, on the other side of the Bosphorus

Arnavutköy

Arnavutköy again

Little street and big tree in Arnavutköy

Greek church in Arnavutköy

By the Bosphorus between Arnavutköy and Bebek

The Bosphorus Bridge

More fishermen between Arnavutkoy and Bebek

In November I went to Vancouver for a job visit. I saw absolutely nothing of the city, but managed to take a few shots from my hotel window. Here is one of them.

This is the only other photograph I have of Vancouver

 

Shortly after my interview in Vancouver, I headed back out west again to visit Montana State University in Bozeman. This is where I'll be working from September onwards. I have to admit, prior to last September I had never thought about living in Montana--but I had a great time during the interview and am really excited about the job.

A gorgeous shot from campus

The Voss Inn--a B & B where the department put me up during my stay in Bozeman. The inn owners told me that Buzz Aldrin had once stayed there.

This shot was taken my last day in town, which I suppose is why I'm looking so wiped out.

Downtown Bozeman. The joke, of course, is that it's a "one horse town"

Back in Ann Arbor. State Street

In early January, I went back to Istanbul. A couple of weeks later, my Dad stopped in Paris for a couple of days before moving on to a conference in Venice. I flew up to Amsterdam, then took the train down to Paris before flying from there to Istanbul.

There was also a lot of light in the bathroom. It was great.

I really liked my room in Amsterdam. For one thing, it was warm--I've stayed in enough crappy two-star hotels with insufficient heating to appreciate that. Secondly, it had lots of light.

The room even had windows I could open

Amsterdam at night

Coffee shops in the Red Light district

This was the street that my parents and I lived on in 1983, rue Eugene Gibez. My Dad and I stayed at the Hotel Ibis, right next to our old building.

My Dad in front of our old apartment building

Shot from the metro. I used to take this line to school and back every day.

At Le Procope, which was established in 1686! I had some really great trout here.

Ed, L'Epicier Discount. This is where I used to buy Pepsi all the time after trouncing my mother in backgammon.

Montmartre

Pompidou Center

In the metro

Back in Istanbul. Sunset over the Golden Horn

The old power station in Istanbul has been turned into a complex including a free museum, an art gallery, and a number of restaurants and cafes. At night, dance parties and concerts are held in a large auditorium inside the old station.

The Galata Bridge over the Golden Horn

On the ferry from Eminönü to Arnavutköy

The Bosphorus Bridge lit up at night

Mosque in Ortaköy, Bosphorus Bridge in Background

The little dock at Arnavutköy

Rumeli Kavağı and the Fatih Sultan Mehmet Bridge

Heading off, by bus, to Trabzon

Uzun Sokak in Trabzon

The Black Sea in Trabzon

Sümela Monastery outside Trabzon

On the way back to Trabzon from the monastery

View from my hotel room in Trabzon

On the bus from Trabzon to Hopa

On the minibus from Hopa to the Georgian border

From my taxi on Georgian side of border en route to Batumi

Church in Batumi

Theatre in Batumi

On the beach

The Archive of the Autonomous Republic of Adjara

The reading room staff at the AARA

At the American Corner in Batumi--note how almost everyone is wearing a coat indoors

On the town with three of the archive staff

The little cafe where I often ate in Batumi

Park in Kutaisi

The rushing waters of the Rioni River in Kutaisi

City theatre and main square in Kutaisi's old town

The Rioni again

Church on the right bank of the Rioni River

Belltower of Bagrati Cathedral, on hill overlooking Kutaisi

View of Kutaisi from Bagrati Cathedral

View of Tskhaltsitela River from Motsameta Monastery about 4 miles outside Kutaisi

Motsameta Monastery

Cliffs and mountains opposite Motsameta monastery. Tskhaltsitela River on the bottom.

With George, a monastery student I met at Motsameta

On the road from Motsameta to Gelati Monastery

Gelati Monastery in the distance

Gelati Monastery

Little church in the back of the monastery

Inside of main church at Gelati

Back in Kutaisi. This is part of what was once (until the 1970s, people tell me) a sizeable Jewish part of town.

Snow-capped mountains outside Kutaisi

Mountains as seen from Bagrati Cathedral

Vani

Another Vani shot

Cable Car in Kutaisi

View from Besiki Park

Inside the Tbilisi metro. Most stations seem to have these large screen televisions tuned to music videos. The Rustaveli Street station has a total of sixteens TV screens, most of which are located between the escalators leading up to the street.

Rustaveli Street

Attractive side-street in Tbilisi

There are natural sulphur srings under Tbilisi, and in the center of town there are numerous sulphur bathhouses.

City view of Tbilisi taken from the castle

There is an enormous Soviet-era aluminum statue of a woman on one of the hills overlooking Tbilisi.

Old town Tbilisi, with the castle on the hill in the background

The parliament building on Rustaveli Street, with prostesters in front of it

This is the street I lived on

Another shot from the old town

Interesting architecture from the old town

Castle from the other side of the river

On the other side of the river

I unfortunately do not know who is being depicted here. If anyone knows, please drop me a line and tell me.

This is the main building of Tbilisi State University, just down the hill from my apartment.

Anti-government protesters on Rustaveli Street

A beautiful shady street near the old town

Aluminum Lady from near the old town

An old house near the old town. A lot of older buildings are like this--a fence shields a courtyard, with terraced balconies leading to different apartments. Really beautiful.

Metekhi Church and the guy on horseback again

Another shot of the baths from outside

Here is another bath that has been made to look like a mosque. The real mosque's minaret is to the right.

Rustaveli Street in early May

A sidewalk exhibition marking the 'genocide' of Chechens in the recent wars

Outskirts of the city from Vake Park

Statue in a small park near my house

On the road again: heading out of Tbilisi by marshrutka

Mountains on the way to Kutaisi

After Kutaisi, I headed to Batumi. Here we are arriving at the Black Sea, close to Batumi.

On the rocks: at the beach in Batumi

Trying to keep it cool

Cafe in Batumi

I think Batumi was the most strikingly beautiful city I visited in Georgia

A familiar site: guys playing backgammon in front of a shop

I really love the overhanging balconies that you see in many places in the Caucasus

Adjarian khachapuri: with egg, cheese, butter, and extra cholesterol

On my way to the border and Turkey

Goodbye, Batumi! Goodbye, Georgia!

Hello, Turkey! Black Sea in the distance as I travel from Hopa to Artvin

Snowy mountains in the background en route to Artvin

There's not a lot going on in Artvin--I stopped there mainly to break up the trip from Hopa to Kars.

Halil Pasha Mosque in Artvin

The trip from Artvin to Kars started out in the high mountains

Side-street in Artvin

These are the buildings of the Forestry School of the local university in Artvin

After an hour or so, our bus descended from the mountains and began following the Çoruh River

Still following the Çoruh River

I still can't get over how amazing this area was

Considering these shots were taken out of the window of a bus, I think they turned out pretty well.

As we approached Kars and increased in altitude, the rugged landscape gave way to green pastures and snow-capped peaks

Walls to Ani, a ninth-century Silk Road city outside Kars.

Just inside the walls

Ani is right on the Armenian border--in the distance, you can see an Armenian watch-tower

The ruins of this church were apparently struck by lighting in the 1950s.

Ruined church in Ani. In the background, you can see barracks for the Armenian military

This gorge apparently marks the border between Turkey and Armenia

Fortress at Ani

On top of the fortress

Kars Fortress in downtown Kars

View of Kars from the fortress

 

This was the home of Gazi Ahmet Muhtar Paşa, who led Kars' defense in 1877-78

On the road from Kars to Van

Visiting the 'Cat House' in Van

The Cat House

Female cat--with two blue eyes

The different eye colors are a feature of the Van, but not all cats have different colored eys.

I normally don't take pictures like this, but these girls stopped me and asked me to take their photo. The girl on the left then picked a wildflower and gave it to me.

Hiking up the side of Van Castle

Looking up at the castle

At the top of the first level

View from the top of first level

Here's the rest of the castle, after the first level

Shot of the rest of the castle from the bottom

My last day in Van, I went to Akdamar Island in Lake Van

There is supposedly a monster in Lake Van, but I didn't see it.

On the boat heading out to Akdamar Island

Old Armenian church on Akdamar Island

Another shot of the Armenian church

From Akdamar Island

Inside the church

Door of church

Shot from the other side of the island

It got very windy and choppy on our way back to shore

Back on the street in Van. As you can see, there aren't many women out on their own.

"Happy is (s)he who calls herself/himself a Turk." This slogan, which is quoted frequently across Turkey, is particularly visible in the (mostly Kurdish) southeast.

Last big meal of the trip: beyti kebab and other dishes. To the left is some yogurt they'd put out as a side dish. The night before at another restaurant, the yogurt had come mixed with red cabbage, which I found interesting. Afiyet olsun!