Zdravstujte tovarishi,

After a long break from writing update emails, I decided that it was time to write a little something about the continuation of travels in Siberia. I feel like these emails should be really deep and personal about all the epiphanies that I have been experiencing here, but Russia has sucked all of this creativity and thought out me. So instead I will tell you about something so Russian that well it just does not get any more Russian. At first I thought that a kvartira right next to the Central Market would be splendid, however, I was slightly naive in realizing that fresh fruit and vegetables also seem to attract old, half drunken men that want to sell their old metal products and etc. And apparently I was also oblivious to the illegal distillery that is quietly located in one of the old wooden homes, that put Tomsk on the map of any Siberian history aficionado. Really I could not quite put my fingers on why there were so many drunks crawling around this area, even by Russian standards. The local Rabbi let me in on the illegal distillery and even pointed out its exact location. So if anyone needs a bottle of inexpensive alcohol please tell me although danger origin unknown. Beside abnormally high levels of alcoholism and divorce that malaise the general public, another problem that seems to plague Russian society is the high involvement in crime amongst Russian males. This has become very apparent to me after I realized that the full arm tattoos that I have been spotting here are not actually a new fad, but rather authentic prison tattoos. Furthermore I did not realize that these tattoos actually tell a story. Apparently they illustrate the crimes that these men committed. In a way these permanently illustrated stories allow for a quick recognition of the exact crime committed and furthermore serve as a way to rank the prisoners in a sort of prison hierarchy. Thus murders are usually placed somewhere on the top, and people who perpetrated crimes that were sexual in origin, are placed somewhere towards the bottom of this hierarchy. As you might have guessed this hierarchy will determine how each prisoner is treated while incarcerated. And while the living standards for many have improved, the majority of Russians are still having a difficult time making ends meet. This is probably the most important reason for why so many have and are turning to crime. On a lighter side I have officially concluded that freedom of press is non existent in this country. While this may seem like an obvious point, I was still hoping to find a different state of affairs of Russian mass media. Not only is the quality of written press low as most newspapers are a mixture of low quality pornography, tabloids, and crosswords but the television here has been mostly been taken over by the government and government supporters. While at first, the six channels offered free to everyone may seem adequate in terms of conveying and receiving information, the sad reality is all the channels are really one and the same. Ironically a week and a half ago, Kanal Rossiya transmitted a detailed newscast about mass demonstrations in Ulaan Batar sponsored by the opposition in light of rigged elections, yet demonstrations sponsored by Yabloko in Moscow and Petersburg never received any attention by the media giants. In fact most people that I have spoken to never even realized that Yabloko held illegal demonstrations in Moscow and Petersburg. Thus this unofficial official press censorship has not only contributed to a very biased state of affairs in Russian mass media but has also effectively created low quality press that the average Russians are eager to buy. At first I thought the thing that I missed kosher food the most but now that I actually sit and ponder, with Russian television in the background, a good newspaper is what I seem to miss the most. I guess the New York Times' liberal slant has nothing on Russian official censure of basically any type of written and televised media. Beside this all is well with me, and in fact I am off on a 'big' excursion to the Altay Mountains. If you have no idea where they are located, do not worry as I was probably as clueless as you are right now. On that note I hope all is well at home and a very early Shabbat Shalom from Siberia.
Piotr