This will be my last post before I head off to Germany on the third. There are not any pictures to show you all this time around as I have spent most of the past week conducting interviews for the stories I hope to write when I return.

It has been a busy few weeks and I can hardly believe that I have less than a week left. Last Friday I went to dinner with Zarina, one of Sergey’s co-workers. She brought along five of her friends from university. We had a pleasant conversation about the future of Russia. After dinner we all went for a walk and they showed me some of the sights at night.

I went to the Moscow party conference of the Other Russia party which is the main opposition to the Putin government. Other Russia is really a collection of opposition parties that are banding together in an attempt to pose a real opposition to Putin and his cronies. One of the founders of Other Russia is Gary Kasparov who you might recall as the former world chess champion.

Last week I also sold one of my pictures to AP here in Moscow. My friend Mansur is writing a piece on the youth groups and he needed a picture of the immigration event that Mestnye held. AP had not sent any photographers to cover this event but since it was Mansur’s story lead they felt they needed a picture. Luckily I had several. I sent over a CD with 19 images and they chose one. Mansur later told me that they were running a 10 picture package with the story and they needed to include other pics from the archive otherwise they would have picked more than just one of mine.

So there you go the trip has been a success in one aspect.

Next time you see me here I will be in Germany where I hope to enjoy some Octoberfest libations.

Tags: Moscow