Over and over again, I am struck by the paradoxes. In this country I've known most of my life as America's arch enemy, I find unbounded generosity and warmth toward me and my country. In this country that prizes education and has a high literacy rate, daily life is a struggle. Good people die because they can't get insulin. Over and over, the contradictions emerge.
People fear crime, and put multiple locks on their double-metal doors.
Yet they think nothing of thumbing rides from strangers to get across town. The landscape is changing. Now, all of a sudden, foreign travelers arrive frequently, many investigating the feasibility of establishing business offices. It's progress, and there's no turning back. Back at the newspaper, where conditions are quite primitive by American standards, we discuss once-impossible dreams of establishing and electronic window to the West, so that Uralsky Rabochy editors can have access to news of the world, and where they can share news of their province.