That darn Kopeek!

Well, we took a tour of the city today with Oksana. She is a student of our translator's who went with us to one orphanage visit. She had a car so drove us around to various places, a photo album of this is here: <click me!>

Also, a Wikipedia page about Krasnoyarsk: <click me!>

We first stopped by the statue and fountain/park area of the founder of Krasnoyarsk. It was more towards the 'new' part of the city and higher up a hill. There is a hill behind the city center, away from the river. We then stopped at the WWII memorial. It was relatively simple but very thought provoking. Russia really played a large role in WWII, stopping the German forces that invaded Russia and helping cause a 2 front war that greatly helped the Allied invasion in Normandy. 

We then made our way to Karaulnaya hill where there is a chapel and the cannon that fires each day at noon. The chapel is an iconic piece of Krasnoyarsk, a picture of it is on the 10 ruble note. Next we drove to a newer part of the city. There were lots of apartment buildings and even a new mall. We went inside the mall and it was almost like home. Heather wants to go back, maybe she can ask Oksana to take her. It even smelled like a mall, odd but it seemed like home a little. There were lots of new buildings going up, mainly tall apartment buildings. It is the place to be if you want to live there, I guess.

We then made our way back to the city center, the old part of the city where we are. We went to the train station, but their fountains were not on today. We stopped at the Revolutionary Park where the Lenin statue was and walked to the clock. Oksana explained what it was for, a pretty neat clock. We had just missed the most recent chime, but we can always go back. Next was the city gate and the Rezanov statue. The foot bridge that is in the picture form the hill at the Dubenskoy statue, it starts here. It is for bikes and walking, going over the river to an island devoted to bike trails and walking trails. We didn't go there as it was a windy day and a long walk (plus we were getting hungry). We then went back to our hotel and Oksana left, then we went to lunch.

It was a chilly day today, very different form yesterday. When we left for our excursion it was snowing small flakes and was windy. It got better later on, but then around 4:30 it was snowing again. Very odd weather. We ate at the pizza place, Mixed Patio. We actually at there this time instead of getting a pizza to go. We did have a few slices of pizza, but tried the pasta, a slice of cheesecake and a small pastry. The cheesecake was good, but more spongy than creamy with a cake-like crust. It was all tasty, though. We did eat dinner at California Pizza, but we tried the 'California' pizza which was the BBQ, also good.

A quick primer on Russian currency. They have paper notes in denominations of 10, 50, 100, 500, 1000, 5000 and coins of 1,2,5 rubles. There are also coins that are partial rubles like our coins called kopeeks, 100 kopeeks in a ruble. The coins are kind of a pain because you start to collect lots of them and the ruble coins are heavy. It's not fun to get change and have more coins to carry around. I had gotten some 10 kopeek coins and thought that they were mostly worthless, but when I got change at the market today I was surprised to get a 5 kopeek coin! Great, more of them, but at least the kopeek coins are small and light. To put it in perspective, 1 US dollar is about 32 rubles (it fluctuates). That means that 1 ruble is about 3 cents or .03 dollars. That would put the 10 kopeek, at 1/10 of a ruble, at about .003 dollars (a third of a penny). Now the 5 kopeek coin is half of that, .0015 dollars or 15/100 of a penny! Scary math, but the kopeek really isn't good for much. I try to pay with lots of coins to get rid of them.

Anyway, enough of that. We are actually going to be going to the orphanage tomorrow. We will still go Monday and Wednesday of next week. At first we weren't going tomorrow as we were worried about Baby Boy and being tired during the early visits. Ludmila talked with the head doctor and things will be fine, so it will become a visit to hang out with him more than lots of play time. Now that he is comfortable with us, we don't need to play time to 'bond' so much, so we can sit and have cuddle time like Wednesday. Sounds god to us.