Zdrastvutye from Tver

That's Hello! (Rita, you must be so proud). Today we had a very short trip to the notary to sign our intent to adopt, so we spent most of the day walking around the city. It has a population of about 500,000, and it's known in Russia as an ecological tourism center. It might be similar to Minnesota with all the rivers, lakes and forests. All of the Russian presidents since Breshnev have owned a vacation home here, including the current president, Dmitry Medvedev. Tver was also a place of rest for Catherine and Peter the Great. People walk a lot around here, they all seem to be thin; and, the women oddly enough are either wearing flats or stilettos. What we have seen of Russia so far is beautiful. A lot of the buildings are painted similar to those in Salzburg, lots of cool pastels. The woodwork around the windows of homes is intricately carved, and all of the Russian Orthodox churches have the beautiful onion domes. The city is fortunate that the only American restaurant here is a Baskin Robbins. Tonight we took a boat tour on the Volga, which is akin to the Mississippi River, to the beat of dance club techno, but our legs were just too tired to get up and dance ;-) Contrary to Tver's ecological industry, we saw quite a bit of industry along the river, which has unfortunately made the Volga very unclean.

We've had the opportunity to speak to some locals in Tver to get a sense of what life is like here. Economically, people are transitioning pretty well from a government controlled country to independence. Most religious people are Russian Orthodox, which is apparently similar to the Catholic religion, with some minor differences. Moscow is now the most expensive city in the world. It has a higher concentration of billionaires than any other city worldwide. Oil and gas exports are making Russia one of the most rapidly developing nations in the world as well. It really should speak to Americans about using the resources we have.

There aren't a lot of English speakers in Tver, so we play charades until we understand each other, so it's nice when you can communicate with someone. Travis and I will learn more Russian while we wait for trip #2 to hopefully "get by", but more importantly as a comfort to our girl. It was a bummer not to see her today, but we're glad to have explored and asked questions about Tver so that we can share our understanding of the city and the people with her.