A grand day out

Victor, one of our Russian colleagues, took us out for the day to visit a town called Solikamsk famous for its cluster of 16th century churches which survived the Soviet era intact. Its about 60km north of Yaiva and is the third largest town in the Perm reigion.The churches/cathedrals are not used for worship but house museums - the Troizk cathedral and the Bogoyavlenskaya church where the most interesting ones we visited. Very different to English churches but not much bigger than parish churches really, but quite spectacular with their numerous onion domes etc. Don't forget that I come from Lincoln, so I know what a cathedral looks like!!

This is the Troizk cathedral, but houses a museum and doesn't look anything like a church inside. all the internals were destroyed destroyed during the Soviet era. One of them was turned into a brewery of all things.

The next church - Bogoyavlenskaya Church (church of the epiphany) had a museum of russian religious icons which were quite a thing to see, plus the church internals had retained wall & ceiling murals left in place as a museum in Soviet times. Very interesting in a cultural way and we surprised ourselves in taking such an interest in biblical paintings on bits of wood!

On the way back from the last church, we passed an old lady digging a trench out of the snow. She looked 70+ and it looked like it was hard physical labour clearing a 3' wide by 3' deep passage through the snow. Felts boots on and muttering away she was doing a sterling job. Couldn't quite work out why though?

The other thing that Solikamsk is famous for is the salt mines - Sol is russian for salt, and its on the river Kama. We passed the salt mines on the way into the city and they are massive in scale. All around this area - Solikamsk, Berezniki etc there is a hell of alot of heavy industry. The salt mine alone in Solikamsk employs 11,000 people, then there is the magnesium works with another 3500,so plenty going on.

Popped into Berezniki on the way back for some lunch, and then a look at the frozen river Kama. Fisherman trying hard through holes in the ice, and judging by yesterdays catch, very successful they are too.

Another week gone and another two to go

Reasonably busy week at work after all the excitement of the outage shut down. Everything settling down again and back to day to day life. A few emerging issues which we have had an input - by that I mean solutions to and not creating issues!!!!
We have had a birthday celebration this week, Al B ticked off another year on the planet and we celebrated by getting a bigger bottle of vodka than usual to toast his health and as a special treat I offered to let him stay up late to watch ice hockey on my 42" tv. He even managed to have half a dozen birthday cards to open - all I can say that Mrs Al B must be the organised one to sort that out and sneak them in the suitcase two weeks or so ago.

Its a Friday so that usually means fish on the menu and we found this waiting in the kitchen



Unfortunately, neither of us knows how to gut them, so we declined to help ourselves and had our fish courtesy of Tescos



We're having a trip out tomorrow to a town called Solikamsk courtesy of one of our Russian colleagues - old churches and a salt mine apparently. Should be interesting

Location:Russia

Back on line

A few Internet connection problems but we're back and posting!!

Location:Russia

A day or two off

It's International Womens Day today apparently and so it's a national holiday in Russia. They also have Friday off as a bridging day to make it a decent 3 day break if you include Saturday as most return to work on Sunday to compensate for having Friday off.
Are you with me so far??
We've had a lie in, sorted out the laundry, done a bit to do with work on the laptops and watched a film. It's an exciting life we have and no mistake.
We weren't aware of the impending holiday weekend until the day before, so if we had known would probably have made arrangements for a change of scenery for a few days - a weekend in Perm perhaps!!
It's a thought for the future though.

What's on TV?

As you know - well you probably don't! - but Russian TV is not our first choice of an evenings entertainment.
So after a delightful evening meal together, theres nothing better than the two Als enjoy more than a night at the movies.
Don't worry, no male bonding going on here I can assure you, but Al B has 200 or so movies on his laptop and we manage to get two a night in after catching up on reports, preparing a delightful supper, phoning home, wash & brush up etc. At the moment we are working through the TV series "The Pacific" and it's tempting to watch it all start to finish in one go. Next on the list is "Boardwalk Empire" season 1 which none of has seen.
All on Al Gs 46" TV.
It seems that when we get back to UK we will do nothing but try and catch up with season 2!!
Don't think that will be appreciated.!!

It's not what you do....

.....it's the way that you do it.
In this case it's what we brought with us this time. To make our meals a bit tastier Al B was 8 kg overweight on his baggage allowance - tins of beans, tesco tikka and jalfrezi curry, various other delights, and Al G tended to gravitate towards the Mexican sphere with fajita mix and sauces plus a dash back to europe for pasta sauce. It's not that it's not available in Russia, it's not available where we are!!
So we are sorted for tastier meals, but again all with a pasta, chicken, spud, egg, bread, tin veg, banana or whatever fruit looks ok, rice combo you can think of. We are pretty conservative in our tastes so recipe suggestions on the back of a 500 rouble note please. We are not averse to trying something new but we have to work out what it is in the shops!!!The remains of chicken jalfrezi and rice - as you can see enjoyed by all and weve resisted licking the plate.

"Back in the USSR......."

As the song goes we are back in Yayva again for another month. We actually came over a couple of days ago before we were scheduled to make sure we were on site for the start of a shut down and the associated work that comes with it. It's what we are really here for, to give the benefit of our experience with these activities as we have done this a few times before, and this is pretty much the first time for our Russian colleagues.


This is Al B having successfully blathered his way through Immigration Control at Perm airport
Been a full weekend, been at work for all of it since we landed last Thursday in fact.
One change is that our driver now has a new car to transport us in - out with the Toyota Camry and in with a Land Cruiser no less. However, the weekend is his days off, so we had the pleasure of the works bus at our beck & call for transport. To be fair, it was organised just for us so that's good of them as the alternative is the 2 mile or so walk in the snow.
Talking of snow, weatherwise it's a bit warmer, -15 to 0!!!. This means it's does snow and we've had about 4 inch or so fallen since Thursday.
Were back in the Usadba guesthouse, Al B is back in his old room, but Al G is now in the penthouse a floor above which has a 50" tv and a shower that works with the bonus of hot water!!!! (trust me, it's not quite as palatial as it sounds but its fine).
We have a Russian colleague from Eon staying in the guesthouse, and he is saying that the locality is renown for alot of wolves in the vicinity, the population being sustained by interbreeding with the local dogs to some extent. Bang goes our plans for treks in the woods when the weather improves, and I'll not be wearing anything with red in it that has a hood.
"Oh what big teeth you have", as someone once said.