The row of townhouses where most of the foreign service officers in Vlad live is situated on a high hill, overlooking the city and the bay --the “Golden Horn” -- on which Vladivostok is situated. This shot is taken from our windows and shows the downtown in the lower right of the frame. The district to the southwest of downtown, on a little peninsula that juts out into the Amur Gulf, is on the left in the frame.
Regarding the reported air pollution here: it’s true that, from where we sit, the atmosphere directly above the downtown and the port is pretty hazy. But up where we live the wind clears things out and the air is really quite nice and clean. One drawback to our location is the fact that it really is difficult to get around and to get anywhere of interest or use without a car. This is actually kind of unusual for Russian cities, but Vlad has quite a unique geography for someone with western Russia as a frame of reference.
The consulate is a ten-minute walk away, but that walk is down an extremely steep, rocky dirt road (the "Goat Path," to the diplo-crowd). In present weather, that’s just a slight inconvenience, even with a ten-pound baby in a harness on your chest. (Just hypothetically speaking, of course.) You just have to be a little careful with your footing on the way down, and you get pretty winded on the way back up. But I can see that once it snows and/or ice forms, walking down that path will pretty much not be an option, especially carrying Anya. Hopefully our car will arrive before then! (And it goes without saying, grandparents: yes, we will be extra careful in the car when it's icy and snowy, too!)
We have already received suggestions of people who are willing to help us out for a fee, including a driver whom we can hire to take us where we need to go in the interim before the car arrives. We’ve also been offered some babysitter options, and possibly a person to come in once or twice a week to help keep this cavernous place clean! My hope is to interview a few people over the weekend and get set up in the next several days with a babysitter and perhaps even a regular schedule of getting out for a few hours each week.
Speaking of getting out, I’ve taken Anya down the Goat Path a couple of times this week, both to visit Dan and meet folks at the consulate, and to explore some of the main streets downtown. Last night Dan gave me a real treat: he took care of Anya while I used our tickets to the latest in the consulate’s Public Affairs Section-sponsored music series, a jazz concert with an American vocalist and local Vlad and Khabarovsk instrumentalists. I know it wasn’t much of a sacrifice for Dan, but it was amazing to me how I hadn’t had a chance (and hadn’t noticed) in so long to just sit and enjoy some music, and let my mind wander to anything at all, beyond Anya!
OK, next time I will post some impressions of other things we've seen in town...
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1 comment:
Hey, wow ! Neat. And, besides, you are going to force us all to learn all this new web stuff.
And, yes, CARE on the goat path--like, maybe, you should get hobnail boots for both you and the Xterra.
And, yes, December does seem a drag.
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