Tomsk, Russia – 09/12 Evening

(Michelle) After we left the park, we headed over to a local university pub for some drinks on the patio. The September Siberian weather was decent, a little chilly but not cold. The feel of this town is so much friendlier than that of Moscow or even St. Petersburg. Being a university town, we are actually meeting tons of people who speak English – which is very different than our time in St. Petersburg and Moscow. Even strangers at this bar were talking to us (probably to practice English). Some of Dennis’ friends met us out, so we got to meet Constantine and Kirill, who were very nice and funny. Kirill was telling us a very funny story about his car being stolen and being found again – I guess that happens even in Siberia, but he has a pretty shitty car, so I think he was pretty surprised it was stolen. They way he told the story was so funny that I had to take a picture of the car before he drove us home.

They asked me about my job. I tried to explain to them what employee benefits were. Perhaps it was a language barrier, but they all spoke really good English and I tried to say it 4 different ways and they still didn’t really get “employee benefits”. I wanted to find out more, do they not have any benefits as employees here? Unfortunately, I think the confusion on the topic was too great, so we moved on.

Constantine is probably one of my favorite people I have met on this trip so far. He looks heavy metal (all these guys are into a little metal), long hair, dresses all in black. He is really quiet at first, but his English was great and he is incredibly intelligent. He comes from a long line of intellects. As I was telling him how surprised I was that Stalin’s grave stone is just out there in the Red Square for people to see, he mentioned that his great-grandfather was killed by Stalin: the sole reason being that he was a smart man.

(TJ) This was a great night, Denis and his friends were nice enough to take us out on the town. All of them spoke great English; I don’t think we have had too many opportunities to be able to listen in on group of locals talk about all sorts of issues and topics about their country and the world at large. In talking to this group of people I got divergent views on many different historical issues and current issues. It was great to be able to ask questions and here five different answers than just a sound bite that fit what ever direction the story was going. Not only that but we had great time out, great group of people, the most hospital people that we have met on the trip so far.