Seven cities and towns in six days: Yekaterinburg, Kachkanar, Serov, Krasnoturyinsk, Severourals, Karpinsk, Nizhniy Tagil, back to Yekaterinburg and off to Moscow! Not much sleep or sightseeing but lots of events, meeting new people, sharing my own faith story and hearing theirs.
Each city was priding itself about something special. One has open gold mines where this precious metal is being simply collected from the three feet depth! Another one puts the legendary T-34 tank on the pedestal – the very last one manufactured here during the WWII. Another yet, exhibits the first steam-engine in Russia, etc., etc. Every other one claims to have Aleksandr Popov – the inventor of radio (beat Marconi by one year!) – to have been born there. And each one has “the deepest man-made hole in the world” – a open mine pit that makes your knees shake when you stand on its edge. Apparently, most of the Periodic Table of the Elements is being dug out of the ground there and some of it you can see, smell, and taste for yourself. The color of snow in the cities varies depending on what the main plant or mine produces 
there: in some it is green for coper, in some it is grey for aluminum, in some – pink or orange for who knows what… People’s faces are literally shining with gold – little sparkles suddenly twinkle on a child’s check or an old lady’s eye lashes. No matter if you order tea or coffee, a distinctly metal flavor would be added to it at no charge.
For this last eight days I was sleeping on a different pillow each night 
staying in people’s homes and apartments. Each morning began by saying goodbye to a host family with whom I had spent the long night before sharing my life and faith story. Most of the day was spent in the car driving me to another city driven by a local pastor or a lay minister, again, hearing their faith stories and trying to encourage them in their life and ministry. The roads were not as bad as I feared – praise God, they didn’t have any major snowfalls for the last couple of weeks. We would arrive and go straight to the church in another city or town, just in time for me to set up my laptop and projector before the 
event. Usually they would give me an hour-and-a-half for the presentation, and then stay for full three hours with the Q&A and teatime after I finished. The host family would usually not participate, and would patiently wait for me by the door, knowing that I would be all theirs for the late-night talk. In many places, there was no Internet connection and no valid excuse for me not to stay up with them until 2 am.
“I have been a minister in this church for twenty years and I’ve never seen or heard the evidence for Christ presented so clearly and so logically”– shared one pastor to another as they passing me – “Make sure you have your church packed tonight.”
I will most probably be back in the Northern Urals some time later this year, as the word gets out to other cities and to secular audiences in the region – colleges, teachers’ conferences, public schools, etc. Hope, it happens in a little warmer time…
Back in Moscow, I am presenting here every day for this last leg of my travel. Thank you for all your prayers.
