Siberian Exile, Day 3

Dmitry and his fiance Rita met me at my flat, and we took the bus over to the central park, where Igor and I tried to go yesterday. This time the weather was nice, so we successfully rode the Ferris Wheel. It was a great view from up at the top. As usual, my photography was pretty horrible, but Rita is a photographer, so maybe I can get some good pics from her later. Those two didn't feel up to English, though later, Dmitry proved to be pretty good, and I of course could not hold much of a conversation in Russian. Luckily, Rita speaks pretty good German. We did pretty well in German. I'm actually surprised how much I remembered.

After this, we walked over to a museum that had a bunch of war artifacts from the Napoleonic era to Afghanistan and Chechnya, which had some pretty neat stuff. Also there was a separate museum section. All they could get across to me was that it was a museum of "tiny things". Needless to say, I was intrigued. Turns out it was an exhibit of works by Vladimir Aniskin, who apparently is a famous sculptor, who carves microscopic sculptures and paints them, like on a grain of rice, or on the end of a hair. The exhibit is essentially rows of microscopes on a table, where you go an look through the microscope at the sculpture on the end of a hair and such. Just crazy enough to work.

Please check out Rita's photos of the afternoon.

Of course, I'm learning that no Russian day is complete without a huge meal. This time at a Restaurant for a "Business Lunch" (at 3PM), which is apparently the way to get a very expensive meal for much cheaper. I'll try to put some of the highlights below. Since this dinner was for Igor, Andrey and Dmitry's brithdays, I couldn't keep up with all the things going on and the names of the dishes too (and there were many). Also, I got volunteered for Karaoke, since I could sing the English songs, or so they presumed.


Ñ…Ð¾Ð»Ð¾Ð´ÐµÑ†	kholodets	We had another one of these
ÐžÐ»Ð¸Ð²ÑŒÐµ	Olivier salad	Another one of these
Ð¡ÐµÐ»ÑŒÐ´ÑŒ Ð¿Ð¾Ð´ ÑˆÑƒÐ±Ð¾Ð¹	Dressed herring	The name is actually "Herring under a fur coat". It's Salt Cured Herring covered with layers of boiled vegetables (beets, carrots and such), onions and mayonnaise.
Ð¾ÐºÑ€Ð¾ÑˆÐºÐ°	Okroshka	A surprisingly good cold soup, made with Kvass, a drink made from fermented rye bread. It has finely diced raw vegetables, and boiled potatoes, and finely diced meat(can be beef, veal, pork, or ham, this one was Brisket), and wedges of boiled eggs. As with most soups in Russia, you add in sour cream just before you eat it. One interesting aspect is that it is slightly carbonated due to the Kvass.
	Smoked Catfish	I didn't catch the name of this, dish, but it was essentially two whole Catfishes smoked.