Black Raven Dragoons

[Zancarius]

Hey man, I see you've managed to get some sort of connectivity! How goes it over yonder?

[Tirian]

Hey!

Yeah, I have internet sometimes at my new host family's place, but I try not to use it much when they're here as it blocks the son from his desk. Things are going alright generally, though after six weeks of class in an unconditioned building in a city with 90 degree heat and high humidity every day, we're about ready to head home. I took a little side trip to Moscow for a few days and came back a bit refreshed as well.

Here's a couple of the more interesting photos I have:


Almost all the guys here are American, almost all the girls are Russian (most of them are host sisters to the various guys). I am holding the beer in the plaid shirt, my former host sister is in red on the far right. This is our Fourth of July party


A replica of Yuri Gagarin's rocket. Samara has traditionally been the home of the manufacturing side of the Soviet/Russian space industry.


A decent city panorama I took when we were on a boat on the Volga.

[Killemal]

Russian girls > American Girls.

Ferreal. Sexy names too.

[Tarlas]

lolz. It looks nice there Have a great rest-of-your-trip

[Zancarius]

Interesting... I see they had a very similar escape mechanism on their rockets to the ones we used.

Socio-economics aside (and ugly weather notwithstanding), it looks like it's quite a beautiful place. Some of the buildings almost remind me of what things may have looked in the 60s/70s. That panorama is really impressive. (Of course, living in a desert, anything with water in it tends to make me happy.)

[Tirian]

It's interesting -- the two largest buildings are new, and apartments there are absurdly expensive (I've heard $500,000, quite a lot when the average monthly salary in Russia is some $500-600). Most of the other buildings are Soviet ranging from the 50's-80's.

It's very green here thanks to the river and being on the edge of the forest zone (a couple hundred more miles toward the Kazakh steppe would look a lot more rocky), but littering is a consistent, huge problem. I should take some pictures of the beach in the early morning and post them.

[Zancarius]

The two in the left? I take it sky blue is an amazingly popular color over there. It almost reminds me of the few cockpit shots we Westerners have managed to see of the Soviet era aircraft. IIRC, it seems the popular color for them tends toward a similar hue.

I'd be interested in seeing the extent of littering. From the shots you posted, the area looks rather clean. (Though, I'm still partial to the shot you posted of St. Petersburg--I think? Old buildings and architecture have a degree of beauty to them unrivaled by anything more contemporary.) Is it mostly generated from people visiting the river from the ground or from dumping directly into the river? If it's the latter, then it seems Russia has very similar problems to the US when it comes to its population respecting established waterways.