Day 8

Woke up this morning and went for a run. As I was running, I really started to notice the ubiquitous piles of trash and random debris that litter every street except for the occasional main street in this city. Last year, when I saw these same piles of trash, I was filled with a sense of wonder, interest, and curiosity. Now, facing the prospect of living here for another three months, wouldn’t someone just pick all that stuff up? I have no desire to live in these conditions. The Russians have it in them, the insides of their homes are spotless, clean and well furnished. But they have no interest/desire in cleaning anything else outside their personal space. And while I’m on this rant, there’s a lot of brick work being done in the city; i.e. the paving of sidewalks and public areas with rows of colored bricks. It’s quite pretty and it’s loads better then the potholed concrete or rocky dirt that preceded it, but I still have my gripe. Like most brick work, these bricks are laid out in an offset stair step pattern. So, when they get to the edge of the road, or the wall on the other side, these workmen, who apparently have no idea how to cut a brick in half, leave half brick sized gaps every other row of bricks where the dirt and mud seep through or the holes catch the toes of the unsuspecting pedestrian. And it looks terrible. Sorry…

Voronezh Moment of the Day

So, I was running along and the road went from paved to dirt for no apparent reason as it often does. I was running under a bridge and found myself literally in the middle of a construction site. But not just any construction site, a Russian construction site. A pretty good idea of the safety standards can be illustrated by the fact that (a) I wandered into a heavy construction site and didn’t notice until I was nearly hit by a rolling hydrogen container and (b) I have never seen a hard hat in my entire time here. Ever. So, to make a long story short, I managed to dodge the swinging cranes and possibly inebriated Russian workers and continued my run.