Trip to Moscow

Enjoyed a fantastic trip to Moscow this weekend for some training for the upcoming EFY conference this August.  Attached are pictures of us in Saratov catching the night train to Moscow - which sounds like a song from the 60's!  We had a first class kope and it was so relaxing and comfortable.  As you can see I got into my comfy clothes quickly!  Fourteen hour train ride but we slept much of the way - very soundly!  Arrived relaxed and ready to go!

Here's a picture of another train we encountered and coming into the Saratov train station.

As you come into a city there are hundreds of these little dachas on the outskirts of town...or what used to be the outskirts.  Many times they are surrounded by city.  These are summer homes...most have gardens and fruit trees.  In Soviet times these gardens accounted for much of the food production. Summers many people leave the city and spend weekends at these dachas - tending gardens, barbecuing, etc.  President Markelov's father has a dach in Saratov - now the area is surrounded by city but still a dacha area.  I'm working on an invite...

In the fall we saw many older ladies selling fruit and produce on the street - just have a stool and a turned over box with something to sell.  Could be garlic, apples, herbs - whatever.  They bring the produce in from their dachas and make a few rubles selling it.

Just like the dachas there are hundreds of these storage units as you come into cities.  Many have stoves in them and they are used for storage, shops, garages, whatever.  Most people live in huge apartment buildings so have no place to work or store stuff.  These sort of remind me of the allotment gardens in England where men go to raise produce and everyone has his little building with his stuff in it.  My Uncle Bill spent much of his time in his little allotment shed drinking tea and contemplating his crop!  I suspect a lot of that goes on here and at the dachas.