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After leaving early in the morning we arrived in cold and rainy Karaganda. Upon arrival, we were greeted by city representatives bearing flowers for us (and standing in the rain). We ate solyanka, a russian soup, for lunch. It was hot and delicious. We then checked into our "Soviet style" hotel. The hotel looked like it came straight out of some old 70s movie that involved the KGB. Compared to the other hotels we stayed in, it was definitely a bit more rustic and gray. The water was so cold! We then drove to the Karaganda Oblast Musical School. The director, Anatoli Grigoriev, was very proud to show us the numerous awards his students had received. We then went straight to the concert hall and gave an excellent performance, which was received with multiple standing ovations (which we responded to with multiple encores). I think that tonight's performance was our best so far. Wonderful Karaganda audience!
The Embassy arranged a post-concert dinner for us at a local restaurant where we ate with a big crowd of people. Many of the guests were academics in the community who were invited by the local Soros Foundation representative. We met some particularly interesting people at dinner. One was a conductor name Sergei Skripnik. He spoke about as much English as I did Russian, which is not very much! I guess you could say he became one of our "groupies." He really loved our concert and wanted Joe to come back and play the Brahms Concerto with his orchestra. When we were leaving the restaurant he didn't want to let us go! He practically tried to get in the van with us. It was pretty cool getting to feel like a rock star. This has been a fantastic day. I think that the cow tongue was a favorite at dinner, but some of us didn't know what it was at the time.
- Susie
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