Street Food is Yummy!

The one sure way to quite a growling stomach in the CIS Its late afternoon on a Sunday and you’ve been walking all day. Your hungry, but you used up all your play money the night before. What is there for a hungry Kyivian to eat on the street? If…

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Spring Flowers Make June Leavers

The smart ones leave before June 30 They left so fast they forgot their shoes The other night I went to dinner to celebrate a special occasion for a friend. She was getting married, turning 30, and leaving Russia. The first two, most of us do, but the last one…

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The Provinces Are Provincial

Russia sure knows how to live in the global village A Moscow Club Toilet Guide May Day was never better! Grind that grain! The republics’ seals Life in the village The provinces of Russia, the true Russia! Moscow is no more Russia, than New York is America. OK, maybe there…

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Hagia Sophia & Blue Mosque

Before Turkey, I though Russia had cool churches! The Hagia Sophia The church or the city? Beats Sophia on the outside In 537 AD, the Emperor Justinain I completed the Hagia Sophia as a testament to the power of Christianity and place Istanbul (then Constanople) had in that realm. The…

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My Turkey Travel Companions

Ya gotta have a cool crew to travel right! Claire, Arthur, Ann Mmmm! Any trip you take might be shaped by the place and tim, but it is defined by the people you travel with or meet along the way. My trip to Istanbul was defined by three people really,…

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