THURSDAY NIGHT IN MAIKOP: Well, I finally am able to get on line here. I'm actually not in Krasnodar, but 1.5 hours from Krasnodar in Maikop, the capital of the Adygea Republic. I arrived here on Tuesday evening. The first thing the hotel concierge said was that the water would be turned off for 2 days in the entire city by 6 a.m. So, I filled my bathtub that evening only to discover that the plug didn't work well. Fortunately, the water came back earlier tahn expectd and I was able to enjoy a cold shower this morning.

Let me back up a few days since I missed out on getting this post earlier. My last few days in Moscow were great. I was able to reconnect with a few friends, including my former boss from Interlink, 2 of my former employees from Interlink and my friend and former roommate who now lives in Hong Kong. It was such a treat to see her and her new daughter, who coincidentally arrived on Monday for a 2 week holiday at Zhenya's dacha. We had a lovely afternoon at the Bosko Cafe in GUM overlooking Red Square. I have photos I was hopeful to post, but didn't manage to do it and can't do it from the Internet Club here on Lenin Square.

The company I'm working with here is a cheese factory. They were a former milk producer from the 1940s and about 8 years ago, the chief Engineer/new owner/CEO decided to invest in cheese making equipment and started to make the traditional Adygea cheeses. He revitalized the company and built the business from scratch. HIs staff is untrained in marketing, sales and strategic planning so they need help to improve their marketing and sales operations.

Vera,the young sales director, Sergei, the interpreter, and I met Murat in Krasnodar today to do a bit of market analysis. IT's been fascinating to be thrown back into this environment and I've enjoyed using another part of my brain again! My Russian is not nearly as rusty as I thought. I even watched some of the news this evening and understood quite a bit of it.

There was some sort of bombing or shootout on the beach in Sochi, the Russian resort town on the Black Sea. It's about 5-6 hours by train from here adn I may go there on Saturday. I dont think the incident will deter me as much as the 10 hours of train travel. However, I've heard the train is pleasant and modern.

Apparently, they ahve changed some customs law and about 250 tourists returnign from Turkey were detained and charged improt duties on items such as extra pairs of shoes, fur coats, clothing of all sorts. Turkey was/is the hotspot to go to buy cheap goods and return to moscow to sell them. Now, they are cracking down on it. They interviewed some of the passengers who seemed to be irritated by this new law.

Well, my hour of internet access is almost up, it's late adn I'm exhausted. I hope to get back on line a bit tomorrow. Pretty soon, I'll be on a plane home and my adventures will be over. Or, will they? I'm having some serious thoughts about this country. So many great ideas and possible business opportunities. Heck, they need a sales rep for some big cities adn it's quite possible that these folks make over $5-6k a month selling cheese. NOt a bad gig, eh? It's not investment banking, but the clmate in this area is great adn they are making major investments with the 2014 olympics in Sochi. I went to an amazing supermarket today that has everything under the sun and they take credit cards.

I think I might miss my niece adn nephews too much - and my garden...Choices...