Day 2 ended up being tour-the-town day. We ended up taking a tourist train with recorded tour information in several languages. It makes it much easier to get the lay of the land that way.

I’m always amazed when tours mention dates, referring to still standing structures, from 500 to 1000 years ago and include names like Charlemagne. I’m also blown away when I hear names or places mentioned in history like Aquitaine and Richelieu (extra points for the first person to give me the literary reference to Richelieu.)

Probably more interesting about Bordeaux is what happened here in 1995, though. The city had been known as a jewel in France. It was said to be a glorious beauty in its day rivaling all but Paris. But, that beauty had fallen into disrepair. So, in 1995, the mayor launched a revitalization plan. He built a very nice, very efficient tram system to move the people around and began cleaning the facades on all the buildings. With that work and those efforts, the city was also named a UNESCO World Heritage site giving it protection and recognition. It’s a really beautiful city with fantastic architecture, all made from stone.

On an unrelated note, my concern about language has been mitigated because we’ve had a translator hanging around with us the last couple days. She is a young Russian girl living here with her French husband and 4 year old son. She’s been great helping us out. I’m not sure if she was assigned to us, or just attached herself to us, but she’s been there. But, the cool thing is we helped her get a job. All right, not really, but she just interviewed for a job with a company that would rely on her language abilities. During the interview, she said she stumbled a bit with her English. So, she’s been practicing with us the last few days, and when they called her yesterday about the job, she made sure to tell them she had been with us and practicing her English. We all got a good laugh out of it.

Last night we went to the opening of the film festival, complete with local sparkling wine, snacks (the French don’t really call them hors d’ oeuvres), talks, more food and vodka) Nice evening and my friends and I all got to set down front in the VIP section since I am an official participant in the festival. Very cool and a lot of fun.

Last few days, the weather has been pleasant and mild, but they keep saying we are supposed to get rain..

Yesterday was a full-on success. And I had a blast.

The opening for my photo exhibit here in Bordeaux was held at a wine shop/gallery that uses their space to exhibit art. The space itself is only about 6 meters wide, but 60 meters deep. The back two-thirds are used for gatherings, tasting and art. Very, very cool place.

When I arrived in Bordeaux after the typical overnight flight, I was pretty shell-shocked. (Have I mentioned my general inability to sleep on planes?) A very tight connection in Paris had gotten my blood pressure up, but it all went well and I made it here without a hitch. I was fortunate enough to get picked up at the airport by some associates of the group putting on the film festival. It’s mildly amusing that I will just get in a car with anyone standing in an airport with my name on a sign…

From the airport, we went straight to the exhibit because I was bringing my photographs with me. We quickly got things sorted out and hung on the walls. The first three or four sets were in an around the wine racks, but then the rest of the images took over the rest of the facility. When I first looked at the walls, I wasn’t sure how it was going to work. They had had local artists paint murals on the walls and I was a little concerned it would distract from the images. But it really seemed to work and the murals just became background. The name of the gallery is L’oenolimit—emphasis on the No Limit. Great place and two new friends (the owners) as well.

After we got the done, it was to the hotel for a couple hours to rest and change clothes and then back to the opening. There were about 40 people there for the opening, which was a little smaller than in Russia, but there were a great crowd, very interested and asked a lot of questions. We were even able to take a walking tour of the photos with me explaining the groups and the situation. It was a lot of fun. And, of course, the owners of L’oenolimit had set out wines for tasting and one of the sponsors of the film festival had set out a selection of snack. All in all, a great day.

Today will be some sightseeing for the afternoon and then to the opening of the film festival itself. We had dinner with an Academy Award winning director last night who created some new animation technique. Should be an interesting evening.

I posted some first day images on Facebook. http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=223280&id=839029017&l=1bef4ccd31.

Tomorrow morning I leave for Bordeaux, France. I’ve never been there. Never been to France at all, and for some reason I am a little more nervous about this trip than any international trip I’ve taken in a while.

I’m going for the third solo exhibit of my Russian photodocumentary, “Russia, Coming of Age.” A couple dear friends are going with me, so I am sure it will be a blast. And it’s not like I’ve never traveled out of the country—this is my third international trip this year alone, and the second new country for the year as well.

I think I’m mildly intimidated by the language. I actually took French in high school and college. So, I should know some, or at least more than I do. But, unfortunately, I remember very little. Every story I’ve ever heard about the French is they tend to be critical of foreigners, and especially Americans, who can’t do much with their language. I am sure it’s not true, or at least no more true than an American’s impatience with visitors here who can’t speak English, but it has me a bit off-kilter.

On the other hand, two events lately have reminded me how very short life can be. In one case a friend of a friend and in another case a family member, but two people have recently have been diagnosed with cancer and within a few weeks been gone or are expected to pass away any day. In just a few weeks they’ve gone from healthy and vital, to gone leaving family and friends struggling to understand what just happened.

Which leads me to my point. I haven’t written much in the last couple weeks as I’ve been home and have just been preparing for upcoming travel and simply taking care of life. Whether travel is your thing, volunteering, painting or whatever, take the time to do it and do it well. Experience life and don’t be afraid to try it. I’ve known too many people over the years who’ve told me they “wanted to try…” but they never got around to it. While I know that is the natural tendency of all of us, I just hate to hear it. I know it represents opportunity lost.

So, assuming I have internet access this next week, I will post my experiences discovering a new place and I’ll let you know if my fears are founded in reality or legend. I hope you take the time to follow along. But, not too much time. Get out and have some of your own experiences while you’re at it.

If you want to practice your French, here is the website for the exhibit: http://cinemarusse.blogspot.com/2010/03/les-evenements-en-cadre-du-festival.html.

It snowed on our last full day in Russia. It was actually fitting as we had decided to go traipse around the Moscow Kremlin that day and it seemed to make sense. The temperatures were warming up though, so it was a wet snow, much different than most of the time we spent in Moscow where the air was so cold it sucked the humidity out of the air.

All in all, a good trip. From a purely professional perspective, it was great to share my Russia project (Russia, Coming of Age) with the Russian people. Many of the comments that I received talked about how my photographs helped them remember their recent past and realize just how much their lives had changed in the last 15 years. Every time I turn around in Moscow, it seems like something else is evolving right in front of my eyes.

From a personal perspective, I came away from this trip with a few new friends, explored some parts of the Moscow region I had never seen before, and revisited some I hadn’t seen since my first trip in 1993. While the purpose of my trip was to exhibit and share my work with the Russian people, I ended up learning as much, if not more, than they did. This trip just reinforced that there are no real differences between the Russian people and Americans.

Of course there are cultural differences. They speak differently, they act differently. But when it comes down to it, they face the same problems (money, jobs, school, homelife, family) that we all do. They aren’t better at it, or worse. They are just people. And on that level, we have a lot more in common than separates us.

If you want to see some photos from the exhibition at the House of Cinema, follow this link. http://dnevnikfest.3dn.ru/index/svjataja_anna_13_03_10/0-09 Its all in Russian, but scroll down to where it says “Открытие фотовыставки Эрика Дугласа” and those are photos from the exhibit. Also, the first minute or so of the second video on that page shows it as well.

I’ve also just posted a few more photos to the Facebook album from this trip. You can see them: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=206377&id=839029017&l=c13976ec47
Until the next time.
Eric.

The city of Korolev, Russia, a suburb of Moscow, is home to the Russian Spaceflight Control Center—the Russian equivalent of the American Mission Control Center in Houston, Texas.

Korolev is also where I’ve spent a large part of my time in Russia. It is where our exchanges began in 1992/1993 and where they still happen today. Throughout my time here, one very special place is always involved. The very special School 11, a school that specializes in teaching English as part of their curriculum. While all Russian schools teach languages, this one pays extra special attention to teaching language and usually one other language as well—on top of the regular subjects like math, science, literature and whatever else.

This school’s focus on English, though, is why we have spent a lot of our time there, and why I have spent much of my time there. Many of the translators we used in the beginning were English teachers from the school, many of the students who’s English skills were judged good enough to come and study in America were from that school and in the fall of 1994, I spent 3 months working with English classes in that school—I was accepted as a teacher, although my only qualification was that I spoke English and could converse with the students helping them to practice.

What that time in the school also gave me was tremendous access. I was able to photograph students while they studied, and eventually they forgot about me. Many of the photographs from that period make up my current “Russia, Coming of Age” project. When I returned to Russia in 2008 to follow up on my earlier photographs, I returned to the school and again got many great images of students which are also featured in the new exhibit.

So, it was natural that on this trip, one of the places I would stop was School 11. This time, though, I showed them my work and let them talk about it. I showed the students a video made up a still images and quotations from people I’ve met over the years. While most of the kids in the room weren’t even born when the earlier photographs were taken, I think many of them were intrigued with what I had captured. And, of course, a couple of the students I photographed in 2008 ended up being in the room this time around, warranting some giggles from the students.

The reason I believe they were interested in what I was showing them was I had been warned not to expect too many questions from there, so I was instructed to talk and fill up the entire hour I was allotted. But, stubbornly, I opened up the floor to questions anyway. They were a little shy at first, but then the questions came and then came and they came. Before I knew it, we were running over our time.

Ultimately, that generation will need to know what has passed on before them, of course, but they will also be the ones to move beyond their past and build anew without the past hanging over their heads. They are the ones to watch.

Heading home in the morning. As always a long, long flight. More when I get back to wrap it all up..