Tver

In a city of half-a-million, you expect to find some internet connectivity. But very few parts of Tver are ADSL-ready, so don't expect to create a high-speed nest for yourself. Internet 'Salons' come and go quite easily here. Right now, after a pretty exhaustive search, it seems like there are two active salons in Tver -- one in the back hallway of the third floor of the "tourist hotel" across from the train station -- that's the nicest one. The other one, though, is downtown ... in a hot basement, on a street just off the main pedestrian promenade. Not very pleasant to work there, but ok. Neither salon has WiFi. Even the Internet Salons in Moscow don't have WiFi. That's not their game. (Games are their game, from what I've seen of the Moscow scene).

But Tver itself is fascinating.

The Volga river promenades & parks are especially lovely. The thousands of old buildings make it look like a potential UN World Heritage site -- sometimes I think of all of Russia should become one. The beautiful 18th-century art museum, which is falling apart, and whose scaffolding for repairs has fallen apart, is in real need of rescue, both for the building and its priceless collection. Of course, no help comes from Moscow, which assigns governors to Russian regions with the sole purpose of extracting as much wealth as politically possible.