As I was writing the above (June 17), Donna returned and we had to finish packing, etc. We managed to get everything packed and packed reasonably well. My panic was justified as we had a good deal of stuff. The money was very heavy and took up a lot of room. Megan carried a big chunk of the cash in her backpack. Sam had a large amount in a carry-on case and so too did Donna. I only had a little, but with the larger bills. Going through the x-ray machine for boarding, Megan got stopped. Her bag looked very suspicious in the x-ray. The bills were stored in blocks of 10,000 wrapped in plastic. Indeed, the money on the x-ray looked a lot like explosives when I saw the picture. The woman wanted to know what was in the bag and Donna took over. Fortunately the person manning security thought nothing of the cash. We were worried that it might cause us a problem.
The flight was hellish. First, the seats are closely packed. They are designed for males who are about 5' 6". Needless to say, I had little leg room. There were also three seats on each side of the plane in each row. Sam, Megan and I sat together, while Donna was a couple of rows back. Relatively quickly into the flight the beverage cart came around. This was good, because the family from hell was directly behind us. Their 2 year-old child would wait approximately 20 minutes before screaming and crying for 5 mintues and then would restart his cycle. They didn't much care. Moreover, she was as wide as tall. So, there were the two "adults" and two kids crammed into 3 seats. I had a beer on the flight and next time I'll take about 6. I lowered my seat tray and it fell apart. Actually, it was attached on one end and not the other. Megan was smart and immediately fell asleep, so I used her tray. When the meal came this was more of a problem. I had a very small plastic spoon. I was able to break off the handle and used it to replace one of the two missing screws on the tray. It worked and I'm sure the plane is still flying around with it in place (with many grateful passengers who now have a tray that works).
The dinner was pretty good, I thought. The hot dish was turkey. Megan did not want anything and did not eat. I thought it was pretty good stuff for airline food.
Entertainment for the flight consisted of the child screaming behind me and his brother kicking Sam's seat for the entire flight. I had to stand about every hour to get some feeling back into my legs. This meant that sleeping was nearly impossible. To help matters, the seat in front of me was empty, so a guy with his child and wife decided to move to that seat and then fully recline it. In the process he completely trapped me. I found a position in which I could keep some feeling in my legs, while snoozing a bit. It meant that one of my knees was slightly extended into the narrow aisle. Sure enough, every single person trekking back to the bathroom, hit my knee going by. This seemed to regularly wake me. It wasn't a problem being kept awake as the kid behind me would let out a crying fit every 20 minutes - as I noted above. At least he was very regular. The guys two rows behind also provided much entertainment by getting very drunk.
The flight was six hours and we went through 6 time zones. We arrived at 8 am, which was 2 am Moscow time. It took them about 20 minutes to push the stair to the aircraft. The Yakutsk airport is not exactly the most modern in the world. As we were leaving one of the drunks from the back was still comatose. He passed out about 15 minutes before we landed. Getting off the plane, two things hit me. First, it was warm!
Second, the air was hazy and heavily smoky. Apparently there are huge tundra fires and the air is
filled with smoke.We headed off to the hotel.
I never have any idea where we're going to be staying. At first we thought we were going to be
staying in one very large apartment. Then it was two smaller apartments. Now it is in a hotel.
Megan and I have the "luxury" suite for which we're paying 900 rubles per day (about $30). It is
very nice. A nice bedroom with two beds (and one in which I almost fit). It also has a nice sitting
room with a TV and a refrigerator and a china cabinet with some nice glasses and tea cups.
Sam's room is smaller, but comfortable. He has to share his bath, whereas we do not. We even have hot
water - I think they turned it on just for us.I unpacked all our stuff and began stuffing forms for the afternoon experiment. I discovered, when unpacking that the 16,000 slips of paper that were cut, were not cut the right way. We need slips that are the size of 10 ruble notes. If paper is cut in half and then each half is cut into thirds, then that is the size we needed. Somewhere along the line the printer was told to make 6 cut on the paper. So he have edge-wise cuts, with long, thin slips of paper that are totally useless. I was not a happy camper. We took some forms that I could sacrifice and made slips of paper. This'll get us through a day or two. At the moment Donna is searching for a printer in town who can do this for us.
We had two experiments back-to-back in the afternoon. I was fading pretty fast given that I had not had any sleep to speak of. One was at 4 and involved all the local interviewers. They were apparently pissed off because they have not been paid and they do not want to work very hard on this part of the research (that sounds familiar). However, after putting them through the experiment, they were very pleased. They made a lot of money and they can tell people that this is on the up-and-up.
The second experiment was at 6 and brought in a bunch of students. We'll be using their images in part of the experiment. This was also run to give Ilsa a chance to run an experiment on her own. She did a very good job - she kept to the script! This is all very promising.
After the experiments we went out to eat. We ate in a somewhat fancy restaurant in a hotel. The food was relatively inexpensive, but the alcohol was not. We skrimped on latter and filled up on the former. Megan hasn't learned her lesson and ordered sausage. This time it came as sausage, but was served thin and cold. It was much more like a smoked sausage, but good. I ordered the meat plate. It was very good, but also served cold. It had ham, sausage like Megan's and horse. The pony was pretty good - horsey flavored and a bit tough, but not bad. It is undercooked and was cold.
Whew, we just finished a somewhat grueling day. I worked all morning and afternoon. In the morning I assembled pictures and then printed them off. The only thing that has worked flawlessly here (aside from the laptop) has been the little HP photo printer. I sent Megan out to scout around for a place that will exchange cash and some paper so that we could cut blank pieces of paper. She found the cash exchange, but not the paper. So, we went out for lunch and searched around. I found a place after hiking around a bit. We headed back and I started Megan and Sam on cutting a ream of paper. While they did so, I stuffed forms. What an exciting day, ughhh.
We assembled everything just before the drive to some village. We apparently had the President of Yakutia's van (or one of them which is assigned to him).
There was plenty of room, so Megan got to tag along. The good news is that Ilsa had found both boxes
and had blank pieces of paper cut for us - and done so properly. Yea! No more cutting, or so I hope.
The bad news is that we had to ride on the roads. While paved, you might imagine how severe winter
weather might affect things. Ilsa told a story that some dignitaries had come to visit and they
accused her of lying to them. They indicated that Ilsa told them that Yakutia has very bad roads.
The claimed "Yakutia has NO roads." They might have a point. The ride was rough, but at least it
was all paved.The drive was great, as far as I was concerned. The city sits down by the rive and the river flats are very wide and very flat. We got out of the flats and climbed a bit. As soon as we did, there was forest everywhere. It is a mix of birch and fir. Because it gets so cold, nothing gets terribly tall.
Anyway, the forest seemed pretty and I hope I get a chance to go for a hike at some point. The next
several days, however, don't seem promising for a hike as we have a lot of work ahead of us.The village was wonderful. It was a bit run down, but overall it seemed prosperous. Cattle and ponies were running loose everywhere. The roads were mainly paved, but there were plenty of dirt roads everywhere. The experiment was in the school and we had 18 people show up. That was about all the room would hold. The school was fairly spacious and I had plenty of room in which to work - although outside the room with the subjects. Ilsa had everything under control. The interviewers were there, but did not bother us. We managed to get everything going just fine. One old guy made things a bit miserable at first and wanted to know why he should stay and what we were doing. However, once we started the first part of the experiment where people had the opportunity to make money, everyone quieted down and decided to pay attention to the instructions. At the end Megan got to help with the "poker chip" draw. She needs to learn to count in Russian up to 19, then she'll be even more entertaining than Sam. I think this'll be her regular routine - at least when she gets to travel with us.
After the experiment we were invited to an interviewer's house for dinner. We accepted and just as well, because there was quite the spread.
We had rice and liver (ughhh), tomato, onion, cucumber salad (very good), chicken-fried whole baby
carp (including the best part, apparently, the innards - the exterior was pretty good, but I left
behind the head and insides), some very good bread, and for dessert a specialty of the region,
whipped cream and black currants. The cream was fresh and heavy. The currants were chopped up and
wonderful. It was a great dinner and I got a picture of the host.The ride back was even bumpier than the ride toward. Hard to imagine, but true. The sun was thinking about setting, but it was only 10. Right now it is 11:30 and still plenty light outside. It is a little darker than usual because it is clouding up. That probably means rain, but that would be welcome in this part of the country. The forest has been burning for a month near Yakutsk (and that is what I smelled at the airport).
The fires have spread pretty widely. They're probably as bad or worse than the fires in Colorado.
We saw some footage today on the television from Colorado.Tomorrow we head to another village. This one 2.5 hours away. Ought to be fun, I guess. We'll be back late, I'm sure.