Transported to the Emerald City

Ulan-Ude is quite lovely and, as I said before, dusty. Wow! The population is a mix of about 25% Mongolian and 50% Russian, with the rest either mixed or miscellaneous. I would venture to guess that I am the only American in this city of 300,000 people as many people are asking where I'm from. The temptation to mess with them is overwhelming since Russians cannot tell a German speaking English from a Frenchman from a South African, but nowadays I just go straight to "California."

I learned last time around that telling people that I'm from Santa Barbara, approximately true since I'm 3/4 of the world away, will cause Russian eyes to light up. Little known in the US, the soap opera of the same name was so popular in this country that the whole nation, from Moscow to Vladivostok, would drop everything to watch "Santa Barbara". Pretty funny.

Now I leave you with Ulan-Ude's greatest claim to fame, watching Oz-like over his eponymous plaza, the largest Lenin head in the world!