There is something to be said for navigating around Moscow with a champion Russian rally race driver. Vadim, the host father, drove rally cars for 10 years and now owns a car and a race team, and you tell it when he navigates his way through Moscow traffic.

Yesterday was spent doing our best to bolster the Russian economy. We went shopping at Izmailovo. This is an enormous outdoor flea market/bazaar. I don’t know that it holds a world record for size, but it seems to go on for miles. There are sections that are for domestic products and housewares, but we were in the Russian souvenir section and that is plenty big enough.

Some beautiful handiwork there as always, along with basic tourist junk and military surplus. I’ve seen a little bit of everything there over the years from one visit to the next. I’ve even included a couple photos from the place in my exhibit. When I first visited there, it was very much just a flea market with people laying their goods on the ground and others with makeshift stalls that looked like they were cut from metal storage containers. Today, it has grown and evolved to include nice wooden, decorated stalls and asphalt paved streets.

Mom was busy talking to a seller about a purchase while I marveled at the young man’s excellent and nearly unaccented English. His response to my question was “I learned to speak English here in the market. Eight years of selling and you will learn to speak Russian, too.” I commented to mom later about just how incredibly smart he must be to have those sorts of language skills.

The shops were set to close around 5 pm and the day was winding down as we made a last purchase. It was something for my daughters, but mom was picking them out. The lady selling them (not saying what in case the girls read this) took an instant liking to mom. By the time we left, she was hugging her and kissing her on the cheek along with offering us meat pies and vodka. We declined. I have pictures with her on mom’s camera. Those will soon follow. She just hilarious, though. We all decided that the odds were high she had been trying to keep warm after standing outside on a cold Moscow day with a little vodka that probably led to her gregariousness. The young man booth next to her was dying laughing, too. Probably because he knew her antics and would be the subject of them himself later.

This was the first time, though I have ever had a chance to visit the Izmailovo Kremlin. This is one of the later additions to the facility and is pretty impressive. A kremlin simply means a fortress, usually stone walls to defend against invaders. In fact, there are 11 kremlins (I think) in Russia. This one, however, is built for the tourist trade and is made to look like an old village. There are shops and museums inside, including a vodka museum and a wedding chapel. We toured the vodka museum and I learned a couple things. Very fun. The place even has a website in English: http://kremlin-izmailovo.com/english.

It was extremely gratifying to see the heads begin to nod in understanding as I explained the reasons for my photography documentary project on the people of Russia. They seemed to understand that their own lives had been changing very quickly and maybe it was easier for someone who wasn’t intimately involved to make objective observations.

Due to traffic and a little time confusion, we got to the exhibit hall just as the opening for my exhibit was about to start, but we had called ahead and the event organizers were very flexible so it was not a problem. Within a few minutes of walking in the door, though, I was being interviewed by a crew with a video camera—with my favorite translator Nadia by my side. No idea who they worked for.

In the exhibit hall, they had set up the display running along a long wall, about 100 feet long with the photographs in pairs. It looked really nice. At one end, we had a table set up with chairs and a microphone. One of the event organizers introduced us and explained the program and then allowed me to speak to the crowd of 50-75 people for a few minutes before people wandered off to look at photographs or attend the next film screening. The hall where the photos are is the “event” room. Last night there was a musical concert there and it is also a café for the House of Cinema. So, there will be good foot traffic all week.

After we left, Vadim asked me if it was worth it to come all the way to Russia to have an opening of my photographs that lasted about an hour. From a purely practical standpoint, its not obviously. The expense of being here is not being offset by anything. I’m not selling the photographs, I’m not selling my books. This is all about the experience. As a writer, photographer and storyteller, it is all about the story. I can take all the photographs I want to take, but if I don’t show them to people—if I don’t tell a story with them—then they are more useless than if I had never taken the photos in the first place.

It’s fun and exciting to the “center of attention” for a minute, but the best part is to see the smiles on the faces of the people as they look at the photographs and remember the changes in their own lives over the last 15 years..

As most of you read this, my exhibit opening will be over, but as I write it (eight time zones ahead of the east coast), we leave for Moscow in about 4 hours.

Last night my host family, my mom and I went to the opening of the 17th Moscow International Film Festival of Young Filmmakers. The festival is dedicated to Saint Anna, the patron saint of youth, by the way. On stage last night, I was honored to have the master of ceremonies talk about my photo exhibition for a moment during his remarks. There were several hundred people in attendance all prepared for an all night party of films, and music and more films. They literally were planning to be there until 6 am today. And for the next 7 days will screen 280 and films of varying lengths and descriptions. I would not want to be a judge. The organizers of the festival have been extremely gracious and helpful getting everything set up and organized and I owe them a debt of gratitude.

Before going to the festival, though, we had to register our travel visas. This is an archaic practice from the time of the Soviet Union where they wanted to know the whereabouts of every visitor. It’s also a way for the government to make some extra money from foreigners. From there we walked over to the Tchaikovsky Concert Hall and bought tickets for a concert later this week. Partly from the size of the city, and partly from the love of music, literature and poetry of the Russian people, there are concerts going on in several different concert halls and theaters every night and they are often sold out.

A disturbing trend I’ve noticed the last couple days is smoking. To be sure, people have smoked here for years, but when I first visited in the 90s, there were very few restaurants so it wasn’t an issue. When I was here in 2008, I don’t recall restaurants being all that smoky. But, the few places I have been in so far on this trip, the air is cloudy. I see a lot of women smoking, especially.

Another increase I’ve seen has been advertising on the streets. It is everywhere. Hand in hand with the increase in advertising though, is an anti-smoking campaign with some very graphic ads telling people to stop. One of the most memorable is a photograph of an infant sleeping with a cigarette having been stubbed out on its back. The caption says “smoking around children is just as bad as this” (loosely translated). It makes me wonder though, if this is the latest phase in the Russian struggle to catch up on all the things they have missed over the last 70s years and compress it into just a few days/weeks/years. Only time will tell.

Spring is coming to Moscow. There is still snow on the ground, about 4 feet thick in my host family’s yard, but it has not snowed since we arrived and the weather is mild, above freezing during the days. And the street sweepers and crews with metal poles are out breaking the remaining ice off of sidewalks. Within just a few weeks, everything will transform as the snow melts off and the flowers begin to bloom..

It’s about 7:45 am as I write this, but pushing midnight at home. Got a decent night sleep, but probably not as long as I should have. On the other hand, waking up at 7:30 in the morning, I guess, means I’m already shifting to this time zone. I’ll probably end up napping in the car again though.

Last night, we drove back into Moscow to take my photographs to the House of Cinema where the film festival will begin tonight. My portion of the exhibition doesn’t actually begin until tomorrow (Saturday), but with everything else going on, they wanted the prints early and I certainly couldn’t blame them.

Walking into the facility last night was amusing. As we entered, we were met by two little older woman and a man, who came out of a side office and immediately began telling us why we couldn’t enter. A quick call to Elena the organizer of the event and we were rescued and whisked inside. My hosts, Vadim and Natasha both commented that they had a very “Soviet” mentality. They didn’t know who we were and were essentially the gate keepers, positioned to deny access to everyone until someone who knew more or had more authority interceded. The exhibit hall itself is definitely Soviet era construction. It’s always amazed me, and Mom was picking up on this last night, too, that Moscow is about 1000 years old and there are buildings here that are 400 years old or more that are still in daily use, and then there are buildings built during the Soviet period that look like they may not last another 10 years. Not that the House of Cinema was unsafe or falling apart, just that it looked tired.

Before we went into the city last night, and some during the car ride, (traffic here is pretty incredible. Even leaving at 7 pm to drive into the city we ran into heavy traffic) as we talked Vadim wanted to make the point that 15 years go when I began this project Russians were tuned into survival and making money. Today, as many of them are affluent and their lives are changing, they are beginning to pursue their own spirituality as well. Natasha his wife has been baptized as well, although she admits she is less interested in the church than her husband, but Vadim takes it very seriously. Remember, though, that most of the Russian people didn’t have access to churches and were forbidden from even attending church until the mid-90s. New churches here are being built here every day.

After the dropping off my prints, the four of us grabbed a light dinner at a small, very quaint café downtown named in honor of the Russian poet Sergey Yesinin. I’ll have to learn more about him when I get home. The Russian people have always had great respect for their poets, though. And from there, we took a quick walk across Red Square at midnight. It was a cold clear night with a stiff wind blowing, but people were still out walking. The lack of clouds in the sky made the ever-beautiful St. Basil’s cathedral stand out even more dramatically against the sky. And then home and to bed, with a quick Skype call to speak to one of my daughters. A little touch of home before bed.

And now off to begin a new day..

It’s been a little over two years since I’ve been here, but now I’m here for my 7th trip to Russia. As I’ve said before, coming here in 1993 for the first time truly changed my direction and my career. It opened my eyes and gave me a greater understanding of cultures around me.

Especially at the time, it became a goal for me to help other people understand that the Russian people were simply people, nearly totally disconnected from their government. I still very vividly remember someone at the newspaper I worked at in the 90s telling me, “We should just kill them all, they are just communists anyway.” I hope that line shocks you.

The downside to coming here is the travel. A 9 hour flight through the night. It’s the best and most efficient way to get here of course, but in spite of all the travel I’ve done I’ve never developed the ability to sleep on planes. Which means I get here totally wiped out. But, I have to tell about the family mom and I are staying with. Vadim, Natalia and Ilya have adopted us for the week. Natalia and her 15-year-old son Ilya picked us up at the airport and brought us to their home, treating us to a traditional Russian lunch, with a twist. They are a very health conscious family and use only fresh ingredients. Natalia is also interested in yoga and they are following Orthodox lent and not eating meat on certain days. All those are changes from the Russia families I met in the 90s.

I was just explaining my purpose for being here to Natasha. When I show my photographs of the Russian people to Americans, I hope that they will come away with an understanding that people are the same everywhere. We all love our kids, we have pets and we do our jobs. But when I show my photographs to the Russian people, I hope it helps them remember and realize just how far they have come in the last 15 years. Supermarkets are popping up everywhere, foreign cars clog the roads and single family homes are as common as apartment buildings. It’s a pretty astounding change from the way things were just a decade ago.

So, no pictures yet, haven’t even broken out the camera to be honest. But tonight and tomorrow I will and will post when I can. Here is another change for you. Mom was just reminding me that in 1994, I stayed here for three months and my only reliable way to communicate was to send faxes home about once a week. Just quick handwritten notes. Today, I am sitting in a home with a strong wifi connection..