Yesterday I stumbled upon a fascinating website called Moscow Life. It's a subset of the Friends and Partners website, which I'll have to talk about another day, but which is a collection of sites devoted to Russian-American cross-cultural exploration! I'm really excited about it.

Anyway, back to Moscow Life. This site features nine years (1995 to 2004) of articles and pictures about life in Moscow and the surrounding countryside. I'm unsure who the writer is, exactly, but from reading his writing he seems to be a native English speaker (I'm assuming American) who has lived at least the past ten years in Russia. His name is Andrey Sebrant. I'm also thinking he's married to a Russian woman, because on one of the Friends and Partners links it lists the authors of the Moscow Life pages to be Andy and Masha Sebrant. On the other hand, in one of the essays he remembers the Moscow of his childhood...so I don't know. In any case, the site reads like a native English speaker has written it.

I highly recommend this website for anyone getting ready to travel to Russia. The pictures in the site are amazing and really give good insight into what it's like there. I think the essays and the pictures are actually very reassuring - Moscow and the surrounding areas are very beautiful places and the images on this site show the city for the vibrant place it is.

The only negative thing I have to say about this website is that it hasn't been updated in two years. But the previous nine years' worth of images and words are definitely worth checking out.

(Photo by Andrey Sebrant)