New digs

So I moved into a new apartment Sunday night, mere minutes after returning from Belgorod. G. helped me, a man who has already helped me a number of times in a number of ways before. This time, he ferried my boxes and bags between his car and my new apartment building's entryway, while I took them the rest of the way to my flat on the fourth floor. When the last batch of things was waiting for me at the bottom of the stairwell, he grabbed a few things and I grabbed a few things and we went up together. He set my things down at my door, and then poked his head inside, looking to me for my consent. "May I? I'd like to see how the New Russians live."
Of course I showed him in and around, and come Sunday night or Monday I'll show you as well, by posting some new photos to Flickr. For now, here's a photo that offers a view from the bedroom balcony.

An anecdote: When we were driving away from old place, located in a section of town called Cold Mountain, G. asked what street I'd be living on, and I said, like a lost little boy, "Uh, I don't know." Then I reached for something, saying, "But I think it's named after a famous female Russian poet." He pursed his lips, perhaps going through an index of a mental map he kept inside his head. But after I named some nearby landmarks, G. said, "Ah! But no, I think it's a military general, not a famous female poet." So there it is: Marshal Bazhanova Street, just a stone's throw from Pushinskaya and another stone's throw from Sumskaya, the main commercial corridor in town. Good coffee at the end of the street, a restaurant facing my French door, a French bakery just down the way, and lots of students and pedestrians and guys selling cards that program minutes into your mobile phone. A great place.