When I first came to Akita and saw the Sea of Japan, I stared out across a seemingly infinite space.  Not far away, of course, lay the Soviet Union.  With the Cold War still on, it might as well have been the other side of the moon.  Years before, in Melnitz Hall (at the UCLA Film School) I had seen the famous Japanese director Akira Kurosawa's Soviet sponsored film, "Dersu Uzala."  I felt that he really was able to capture the natural beauty of the wide open spaces of Siberia.  The longer I spent in Japan, which even in Tohoku is crowded for my tastes, the more I wanted to visit Siberia.  That wasn't as easy as you might think, though.

        Until very recently Vladivostok was off-limits to almost everyone, even Soviet citizens.  Like San Francisco it was the site of a very important port and naval installation, not to mention fog, artists, picturesque buildings, the terminus of a famous transcontinental railroad, street cars and hills and more, but unlike San Francisco it was not in what I (or many others) would have called a free country.  I don't know of any gay rights movement there, even now.  Well, as they say in West Africa, no condition is permanent. The Cold War, like all wars, finally ended. Vladivostok opened up.

    Far Eastern State University, the prestigious Soviet (and now Russian) University in Vladivostok, sent its Japanese language professor to teach Russian at my old university.  Other professors there didn't believe that a Soviet University would have had much American studies, but I knew how much Soviet studies the United States had had during the Cold War, and I assumed that the Soviets, unless they were bigger fools than I thought, would have had just as much American studies.

    The Russian professor knew what I was talking about immediately.  He excitedly explained to me in Japanese the structure of American studies at his university, as well as some of the changes it was going through as a result of the collapse of the Soviet Union.  Most importantly, he gave me some addresses and fax numbers through which I could contact his university.

    The English department was greatly expanding, and increasing its American studies, as a result of the post-Soviet openness to the outside world and the increasing importance of English.  They were planning to host a major conference, sponsored by TESOL (Russia Far East section) on teaching American culture.  Would I be interested in coming and presenting a paper?

    WOULD I?!?   I presented two!

    I wasn't able to get out of town  (Hey, they didn't even let people get off the boat until recently!) but I was able to wander anywhere I wanted, with an interpreter if I wanted one, and take any photos I wanted.  It was a fascinating trip, and I came back with a lot of stories, which I will spare you, unless you want to hear them.

    Below (and above) are some of the photos I took in Vladivostok.  Like San Francisco it is a beautiful city if you keep your eyes up, but can be rather unattractive if you look at the mess on the streets, and the homeless and winos.  Like San Francisco it is a city that people could fall in love in.  I hope to post some more of my photos of Vladivostok here as time goes by.
 
 
 

    Stunning views like this are all around. Of course, as with San Francisco, it is easy to find grubby aspects to the city, too, but the natural setting is lovely, and the days in June are long.
 
 

    New contruction is going on everywhere, too.  A lot of the apartment buildings look like disasters waiting to happen, especially to someone as earthquake conscious as a Californian in Japan, but this one was a church from near the university.
 
 

    Downtown in the fog.  This is the waterfront from before the revolution.
 
 

    Headquarters of the State governnment.  (Russia is a federation.)   Just to show you how confused they were, the building is still sporting the Soviet emblem but flying the Russian flag! I was in town for the newest holiday, Russian Independence Day, to celbrate their declaration of independence from the Soviet Union. If everything hadn't been closed I might not have known it was a holiday. People explained that it wasn't that they didn't want to celebrate their independence, but that this was such a new holiday it didn't have any traditions associated with it yet.  I guess it's like the U.S.'s most recent holiday, Martin Luther King Day, in that respect.
 
 

    The Soviet Union invested a lot in its children, and Soviet children's television was world class.   This was a naval training institute for children from the Soviet Union.  It is now open to Russian children, those from other former Soviet republics and even visitors from around the world.  Here is a closeup highlighting the nautical design.
 
 

   The Siberian Tiger is the symbol of Vladivostok, so this statue is found downtown.  Here's a closeup.
 
 

   One of the nicest restaurants in town was this Korean one, under an apartment building.   I didn't eat there, but I did have a lot of great Russian food.  I never even knew that there were different kinds of borscht before!
 
 

    There is, of course, a monument to the heroes of the "Great Patriotic War", as World War II is known in all the former Soviet Republics.  According to information I was given during my visit, approximately half of all American Lend-Lease aid to the Soviet Union, amounting to billions of dollars worth of supplies and equipment, came through the port of Vladivostok.  How it got around Japan I didn't ask.  Maybe by submarine.
 
 

   I guess no former Soviet city would be complete without a set of monuments in Socialist Realism.  Here's one to those who fought the Allied invasion after World War I.  Here's a closeup.  Several foreign countries, including the United States, invaded Russia at that time to try to stamp out the Bolshevik government.
 
 

   Here's another to the heroic workers, soldiers and sailors of the Revolution.
 
 

   Finally, the American consulate in Vladivostok is on Pushkin Street. Pushkin is perhaps the most important writer in the history of the Russian language, and one of the few Russians of even partly African descent.  I wondered how the Russian government would officially portray him.  See for yourself.
 
 
    There are more and more contacts between Japan and Vladivostok, not all of them as pleasant as my trip. The Sea of Japan and the Pacific Ocean around Japan have become sites for the dumping of toxic and nuclear waste, something especially abhorrent to Japanese. A Russian naval officer working for Japanese media as a journalist has been working to expose these dangerous conditions.  Click here to find out the latest about his fate.