School Visit and Home
While in Ryazan, I had the opportunity to be taken to the village of Ukholovo, located southeast of Ryazan. I was able to interview the chief administrator of the rayon, the social director, and the director of education. We had a great discussion about the economy, education, and population of the village and rayon in which it was located. I also was given a tour of the village library.
Following the visit with the chief administrator and the tour of the library, I was taken into the country to visit two rural schools and to meet with rayon school officials. I was taken to Chrilovko where we visited the school in the photo above. It had 38 students and ten teachers. I was then taken to another village named Kalinin where I visited a school with about 100 students. While there, we had a wonderful lunch of borshch, potatoes, meat, and salad. A photo below shows (from left to right) me, the school principal, Elena Biryukova, the Social Director of the rayon, and the Director of Education. They are wonderful people.
The trip home was very interesting in that I sat on the plane next to a young American man who had lived in Yaroslaval for four years. We had a great time exchanging Russian stories. We discovered that Ryazan and Yaroslaval were quite similar. Our flight path to New York took us over Greenland. Below is one photo of that cold, glacier-filled landscape.
