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April 08, 2005
more "this and that"
The conference this week at the Russian State Library was quite worthwhile. It confirmed what I've been figuring out: that librarians here are quite well aware of what's going on in the West and doing things in the same way we are, just with less resources.
Anyway, I must say the response to my query about visiting has been deafening. Please, not all at once! Just because you express interest in visiting doesn't mean I'm going to hold you to it. I'm just trying to do some long-term planning for the rest of my trip.
I hope that none of you were hoping to visit but already made other plans because I took so long to give a less tentative answer than I did before leaving the States!
In addition to planning an itinerary for my short diversion to Scandinavia next week, I'm working on a trip in mid-May to Irkutsk with Надя from St. Pete to give some talks at the American Center and to see Baikal. I'll keep you posted.
So, a few photos. Here's the main entrance to the Russian State Library, guarded by Dostoevsky and overlooked by a giant Samsung advertisement. I assume the library gets paid by Samsung for the huge advertisement, kind of like the similar sign for a bank on top of the Library of Foreign Literature.
And here's a fairly typical sidestreet in the historic core of Moscow:
And finally another view of the world's largest Orthodox cathedral. You saw me in front of it before, and you saw it in the left edge of the picture of the library.
Posted by kshawkin at April 8, 2005 05:53 PM