Tuesday 9/25

I never properly mentioned or pointed to my photographs, posted last week, of a fire I witnessed around Chernishevskaya. The series begins here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/incandenzafied/1418127716/

At any rate, last thursday I went strolling after class, ostensibly looking for some second hand winter attire. I found a couple decent items, but nothing really stuck. As I was heading back to the metro, I noticed that the street looked a little hazy and I saw the beginnings of a crowd forming a couple blocks away. Being the natural student of the spectacle, and also, fortunately, armed with my camera I went to investigate.

When I arrived, flames were just beginning to shoot out of the chimney and the one fire truck on the scene was making an attempt to quell the blaze. To no avail, of course, the situation was already critical by the time they arrived, and I imagine the main purpose was to make sure the building was vacant. A couple minutes (and photographs) later, the top floor of the building started to flare and the area of the building with the ladder attached collapsed, leaving the fire fighters stranded. I heard from people around me that the building was under repair and so nobody was hurt. Nevertheless, it was pretty terrifying to watch the firefighters crawl along a fragile, half-burnt, catwalk just beneath an explosion of flames.

I stayed until the rest of the firefighting fleet arrived, and the blaze was out. At that point the smoke was getting to me, and I’d become rather inured to the awful spectacle.

Anyways, I’m quite happy with some of the results, and having an exciting subject, for a change, really piqued my desire to keep up with the photography. It’s only too bad I didn’t have any where to submit these, by the time the press corp guys had arrived everything had pretty much finished.

So, right, check out my photographs.

Also, I’m sitting in my new favorite place, City Bar, where they have good beer and free wifi. It’s owned by an American and right across from the US consulate, so that doesn’t bode the best for my linguistic immersion, but all the same it’s a nice place to hang out and catch up on the rest of the world.

Also, finally, the table next to me is occupied by three foreign service officers: French, American, and German, I think. It’ll be interesting to listen to this conversation.