After a brief period of spring winter had returned to Almaty. We got dumped with a good foot of fresh snow and temperatures are well below freezing. So cold, in fact, that I had to close the windows in my spectacularly well-heated apartment for the first time. Now that's cold!

Research continues to go well, although I get a bit tired of reading in Russian--and sometimes Kazakh--all day long. I have to make do with funny little anecdotes from my day. My favorite librarian, Asiyat Apai, has taken to making good natured fun of my reading choices. "With you, it's always, golod, golod, golod. Enough already!" ("Golod" is the Russian word for hunger and my topic is the Kazakh famine of the 30s). Even more hilarious was when my reading turned to those old Soviet tomes with the ridiculous titles: "Podeda kolkhoznogo stroia v Kazakhstane," (The Victory of Kolhoz Construction in Kazakhstan) seemed to be about the last straw. She nearly fell off her chair with laughter as she gave it to me, and I could see her giggling at me from afar as I struggled to stay awake through the "Victory."