New Moscow Library

by Kelly Amabile on

Okay, so libraries in Moscow may not be on your top ten list of places to visit. Or your
top 20 for that matter. But this is a unique one that has just opened, so maybe you’ll thank me for telling you
about it, especially if you are headed to Russia in the near future.

Last week, the Moscow Times had an in-depth feature
about the Russian Abroad Foundation Library. This new library and cultural center is dedicated to the history of
Russian emigration and houses the stories of those who were forced to live around the world because of the Bolshevik
Revolution. Over 3 million Russians fled their country, and the library seeks to keep the heritage and history of this
population safely preserved. With the fall of the Soviet Union, many journals, documents and letters that had been
collected privately were able to be gathered together for public review.

Officials say that besides serving as a home for the extensive archive, the center will also publish books,
host conferences and produce documentary films. Topics such as “The Exodus of the Russian Army and “Russian
emigre filmmaking of the 1920s” are mentioned in the article. It sounds like an excellent place to stop if you’re
a history buff visiting Moscow.

Moon Handbooks: Hudson Valley

by Erik Olsen on

It is pretty much routine these days for travelers to pack some sort of guidebook when they head out on an
adventure. For years, I’ve been a dutiful fan of the guides done by Lonely Planet, Let’s Go, Insight and Moon. But it
is not just the long-distance trips where guidebooks prove their usefulness. Sometimes it is nice to get your hands on
a guidebook that tells you a bit about your own back yard.

So last weekend I mentioned that I took a nice drive up
the Hudson Valley to check out a few of the little towns and to visit the (regretfully bad) Green Corn Festival. Well,
I neglected to mention in my post that for the trip I carried along the
Moon Guides Handbook to the Hudson Valley, and I was
very surprised (and pleased) how good it was. Written by Nikki Goth Itoi, who grew up in the Catskills and so obviously
knows the area, the book does a fine job highlighting the history of the region and providing tips on some of the
lesser known spots (like the Sleepy Hollow Graveyard) that you might otherwise zoom by without a second thought.

Very often the maps in guidebooks are so bad that they are virtually worthless, but the Moon Guides maps were spot on,
and basically obviated the need for me to carry or use my state map. The notes on the various places we visited (Sleepy
Hollow, Irvington, etc.) were also nicely detailed and really helped flesh out our understanding of the area. The book
was so helpful that as the Fall colors arrive in the region this year, I’ll be bringing along the Moon guide again.
Thumbs up.

New West Magazine

by Erik Olsen on

I have been tuning in lately to a great relatively new online
magazine out of my favorite part of the country: The West. Sometimes when I sit here in my little office in Manhattan,
I daydream about the days I lived in Boulder, and I could just walk out the door and have the sprawling American
wilderness at my toe tips. Man, I miss those days sometimes.  

Called New West, the magazine is run by Jonathan
Weber, a co-founder and editor in chief of The Industry Standard, one of the more sorely missed magazines that fizzled
after the dot com bust.

The magzine features articles about conservation and government that you are unlikely to see in any mainstream
publications (someone tell me how many full-time reporters the NY Times has in the West?), as well as discussions on
books and writers, all with a distinctly western theme. There are also some well-done travel pieces like
this one on Telluride, which mentions the
recent Shroomfest, an event that I am sorry I missed if just for the
seminar called Visionary Mushrooms: the Next 25 Years, an Interactive Discussion.

At a time when conservation and Western issues need broader attention, New West is a very welcome addition to a
relatively slim number of publications do a good job covering the region.

Globe Trekker

by Kelly Amabile on

I caught Globe Trekker’s
Beijing City Guide
episode on public television last night. This was unfortunately the first time I have seen anything from
the Globe Trekker series, although
I’ve heard lots of great talk about it. Now I’m officially hooked and need to get my hands on the local schedule for my
station.

Host Megan McCormick did an excellent job of mentioning and visiting the best sites in the city, and did a Great
Wall hike with a local guide that was educational and fun to watch. I enjoyed learning about the popular kite
flying in Tiananmen Square and watching how Peking duck is prepared. What I liked best about the show was
how Megan interacted with the locals. She always said hello in Chinese and respected those she met with a
friendliness that was refreshing. She went out of her way to say hello and speak with those that lived and worked in
the city, setting an inspiring and excellent example for all travelers.

The Globe Trekker site has lots of good stuff, including info on
all their episodes and
specials, a
shop where you can purchase
DVDs
of the show and albums of the music used in
each episode. I like the listening post where you can hear the songs online, and review the
track listings with information about the
artists/music they use. If you are not familiar with this program, do check out the website or show when you have some
time — I don’t think the trekkers will disappoint.

Deep Earth Exploration

by Kelly Amabile on

Getting to the core of what’s down below is a unique subterranean travel
experience that requires superb technology and a team of expert scientists above ground to lead the
exploration beneath. According to Wikipedia’s entry on
scientific drilling, humans have descended as deep
as 2,080 meters in Krubera, the world’s deepest known cave, in the Caucasus mountains of Georgia. And gold miners
in South Africa regularly go deeper than 3,400 meters. However, no human has ever descended further than this
below the Earth’s solid surface.

Advances in ocean drilling technology may now provide the opportunity for equipment to go even deeper. The Chikyu
(which means “earth”) is a $582 million Japanese vessel that plans to cut deeper into the earth’s surface
than ever before.  Operated by Japan’s Center for Deep Earth Exploration (CDEX), the ship is capable of drilling
4,000 meters underwater and an additional 7,000 meters from the ocean bed to the mantle—a depth that has not yet
been reached. This Newsweek
article from the Sept 12 issue explains that full-scale drilling on the Chikyu won’t actually begin for
another two years, but the ship has left shore for several test runs, including one this past August.

This CDEX website has more information about
the ship, as well as photos and specifications. Illustrations of the drilling process can be viewed
here. Very little is known about the
inner core of the earth. Scientists hope to study sediment and rock to learn more about the earth’s evolution, and plan
to add monitoring devices to tectonic plates to ease the study of earthquakes. It will be
interesting to follow the efforts of this exploration to see what is discovered about the core
of our planet.