We have pictures

Note: For those of you who like pictures, all the pictures below (and elsewhere in the blog) are high-res uploads.  Click on a picture to get the hi-res version, and download it if you want.

After four plane trips in successively smaller planes over eight time zones and three days, we have some pictures:

That's a matryoshka doll:

 

Hold your head sideways for these: For anyone looking back at these older posts, now that we're home, I readjusted the orientation on the following three images:

We'll have more later.

We got two passports, a couple of visas...

...But you probably still know our real names.  Even though they're in Cyrillic.

All foreigners visiting Russia need a visa. In order to get one, travelers need an invitation from a Russian citizen or a company, which is then taken to a Russian embassy or consulate, where the actual visa is issued. What this means in practice is that specialty companies will provide Russian visas to American citizens.  For a price of course.  The visas are pasted into your passport.

We've got two, very official-looking, with hologram.  As a bonus, our names are transliterated:
МОСКАЛИК, АНДРЕИ ДЖЕИМС and ПЕТЕРСЕН, ТЕРЕЗА Л

Write that down.

Archangelsk and St Petersburg webcams!! Watch the world go by from afar...

You can watch the activity on busy streets in the cities of Archangelsk and St Petersburg Russia.  The time is 8 hours ahead of Michigan's time, and the weather zone is up near the arctic circle (like Alaska).  I noticed that most of the cars are silver or black.

St. Isaac's Square in St. Petersburg (the scene in the pic above)

Multi-angle views of St. Petersburg

Nevsliy Prospect in St. Petersburg

Arkhangelsk

Kotlas

Here is the official website of the city of Kotlas.  That's where we're ultimately headed, because that's where Elena is currently living.  The site is a little difficult to understand, mostly because it's written in Russian.  (What, you expect the official site of a Russian city to be written in English?)

However, just for fun, look at their tourism page.  The intro says something like:

The crossroads of the northern Three Rivers district, Kotlar is built on the names of St. Stephen's Velikopermskiy, prominent reformer S. Witte, northern hero W. Shulya and all those who wrote the story of life in the Russian North. The glory of military victories and the tragedy of forced labor during the Great Patriotic War are carefully preserved and transmitted to future generations.

Cyrillic alphabet, part 3: the vowels

Once again, the modern Russian Cyrillic alphabet looks like so:
А Б В Г Д Е Ё Ж З И Й К Л М Н О П Р С Т У Ф Х Ц Ч Ш Щ Ъ Ы Ь Э Ю Я

We covered the consotants. The vowels, now, are the things that look like vowels, plus the things that look backwards. That means these letters:
А Е Ё И Й О У Ы Э Ю Я
A's and E's and I's and backwards N's and R's.

The vowel sounds are not quite as intuitive to the English speaker as consonants are.  One thing that helps is to note that the vowels are paired into "soft" and "hard" forms of the same sound.

As an example, most English speakers are familiar with the Russian word for "no," which is usually transliterated as "nyet."  The "ye" is a soft vowel; the corresponding hard vowel is a plain "e" as in the English word "net."

Cyrillic alphabet, part 2: the consonants

As you've seen, the modern Russian Cyrillic alphabet looks like so:
А Б В Г Д Е Ё Ж З И Й К Л М Н О П Р С Т У Ф Х Ц Ч Ш Щ Ъ Ы Ь Э Ю Я

Let's seperate the alphabet out into vowels and consonants. To my eye, the vowels are the things that look like vowels, plus the things that look backwards. The consonants are:
Б В Г Д Ж З К Л М Н П Р С Т Ф Х Ц Ч Ш Щ Ъ Ь

Group one: the Greeks
Most of the consonants come directly from early Greek, and are similar to the modern Greek consonants:
Β Γ Δ Ζ Θ Κ Λ Μ Ν Ξ Π Ρ Σ Τ Φ Χ Ψ Ω
The first group includes:

1. Б and В: Both originally come from the Greek beta (Β), but he pronunciation  has shifted.  The Б is pronounced like the English B, while the В is pronounced like the English V. That might seem odd, but B and V  share a historical connection. In some languages--Spanish, for example--B and V are pronounced the same, and somethimes even substituted in spelling (frex, ceviche, an acid-cooked citrus seafood appetizer, can be spelled ceviche or cebiche). In Russian, as in English, B and V are distinct sounds.  Just remember: in Cyrillic, the В is the V, and the Б is the B.
2. Г comes from the Greek gamma (Γ), and is pronounced like a G, as in gamma.
3. Д comes from the Greek delta (Δ). Take a close look at the shape--the trpezoidal Д looks like a truncated Δ. It's pronounced like a D, as in delta.

Cyrillic--Some Fun Russian Words

Here are some Russian words I have learned that I like.  Are they useful?  maybe.  Some words are just fun.
1. шоколад-Shocolad-chocolate
2. банкомат-Bankomat-ATM
3.  машины-Machina-car
4.  кошка-Koshka-kittycat
5.  птица-Pititsa-bird
6.  картофеля-Kartoshka-potato
7.  велосипед-Vilocipyet-bike
8.  икра-Ikra-caviar
9.  fotoaparat-camera

Chocolate was the first word we learned, by transliterating each letter from the ingredients list on a bag of cookies we bought at  a Hamtramck Polish/Eastern European Market.  It was an easy one, phonetically the similar.  In learning a new language, my thought is always start with learning food words; you have the motivation of not starving wherever you go.

Your turn: help us out with gift ideas

Our adoption consultant recommends that we bring along a few gifts for Elena when we meet her the first time.

The ideal gift would foster interaction between her and us, but remain fun without us (we're there for only a day).  It should be rugged and easy to clean, since it'll be living in a baby house.  And we probably ought to buy two of them, since the first one will likely wind up staying in Kotlas (the theory being that the kids remaining will benefit more from the toys, which point I can't really argue).

And of course, any such toy ought to be super-cool, because that's just how we are.

Thoughts?

It's all about the Yaroslavs

When we go to Russia, we'll need some Russian cash for various things.  The usual practice is to bring American dollars and exchange them for Russian roubles, and we'll be doing some of that.  But in the meantime, another couple who recently returned from Russia found themselves more rouble-rich than they wanted to be.  Since we'll need some eventually, we bought them.

Heather stopped by today in Ann Arbor with her daughter.  We actually exchanged roubles in the parking lot of the EPA, which made me feel a little like a cold war spy.  We're now the proud owners of these:

It's not quite as impressive a stash as you might think, as the exchange rate hovers around 30:1.  The 1000 rouble note on the bottom is currently worth about $35.

Items of interest on the notes include a sculpture at the Petropavlosk Fortress in St. Petersburg on the 50 rouble note, a monument to Peter the Great and sea terminal in Arkhangelsk on the 500 rouble note, and of course, the statue of Yaroslav I on the 1000 rouble note.

We go...when?

The Russian adoption process takes three usually seperate trips.  We've got airline and hotel reservations for the first trip only now.  The timing of the second and third trips depend on a number of things, starting with the speed of our paperwork preparation and ending with the speed of the Russian bureaucracy.

But we do know when we're going on the first trip:
We leave April 25, travelling on KLM via Amsterdam to St. Petersburg.  We actually get into St. Petersburg on the 26th, then travel to Arkhangelsk and Kotlas on the 27th.  We meet Elena in Kotlas for only one day: the 28th.  I think the people in charge of the orphanage want to minimize the disruption in the children's routine, but a single day is kind of short, y'know? 

Then we leave bright and early on the 29th back to St. Petersburg.  We've got three days scheduled in St. Petersburg to internalize Russian culture for future reference, then we leave on May 3rd back to Detroit on Air France via Paris.  Ah Paree.

Cyrillic alphabet, Part 1

We’re trying to learn at least a little Russian before we travel.  That’s not only because it should help, just a little, with reading street signs and menus, but also because it should help, just a little, in communicating with two-year-old Elena.

Russian, as you might know, is written in the Cyrillic alphabet.  The modern Russian Cyrillic alphabet looks like so:

А Б В Г Д Е Ё Ж З И Й К Л М Н О П Р С Т У Ф Х Ц Ч Ш Щ Ъ Ы Ь Э Ю Я

That’s just foreign enough to look difficult for those of us who use the Latin alphabet.  A few letters are familiar, some are backwards, some are odd.  However, it’s not so bad if you put it in a historical context.

The Coat of Arms of Arkhangelsk

The Archangel Michael is the protector of Arkhangelsk.  Thus the name (Arkhangelsk = Archangel), and the cool coat of arms shown below, where Michael is smiting a demon.  Smite, Michael, smite!

Kotlas has its own coat of arms, but as a more modern city (founded in 1917), the images are decidedly more modern. "Котлас" is "Kotlas" in Cyrillic.

We're going to Russia

We're off to Russia on the 25th of April.  We'll be flying into St. Petersburg, then on to Arkhangelsk, and finally Kotlas.  Arkhangelsk is due north of Moscow on the White Sea; Kotlas is roughly southeast of Arkhangelsk.

Elena is currently living in a baby house in Kotlas.  She's a little over two years old, her birthday is on January 26.  She's kind of small for her age, and that's about all we know about her until we meet her.  Other than these: