Anna Z

When I started this project I thought that a few months would go by and I'd get some sort of results.  The idea in the meantime was to post some sort of content periodically so as to keep this "fresh" in the search engines, at least for the very narrow set of terms I needed.  That has turned out to be harder than I thought.  For all I know today I've already hashed this topic as well (and likely have)!

If you've never met someone and only have a handful of email messages from years ago it's very difficult to try and post thoughts about that person.  It would be much easier, I think, to make some things up.  Likely a lot more interesting as well. 

Tosno.  That's the town Anna claimed to live in.  It seemed to me that she traveled for her work although she described her job as very low level.  I remember one post where she wrote about a hotel room she was staying in.  Just a few short paragraphs but I had a clear picture of not just that hotel but the entire town she was "stuck" in.  Five years later I remember it being cold and somehow dark like the room had just one small light.  I believe she traveled by train and would be home late the next night.  Maybe this is just supposed to be the west's version of Russia in general and she played up on that...

My "New" Anna and I have written back and forth pretty regularly.  We have almost nothing in common so the conversations are short and topic driven but she is a very good person.  Every once in awhile she'll ask how the search is going, which is nice, but it's really just one of the few topics we have to speak on.  I know nothing of her friends or what she does from day to day.  We could just as easily be writing about the weather.  I do like her a lot though and with me growing up during the cold war it still amazes me that I'm communicating with someone from Russia.  To her it's just an everyday thing.  20 years, night and day, amazing.