[Dixielandjazz] JCJB in Russia

[Don Mopsick]

We're back from Russia. The people went nuts over the music. Standing
ovations, encores, flowers. We played 9 concerts in 17 days, traveled about
1/3 of the circumferece of the earth's surface. The farthest point east was
Chita in Siberia, closer to Texas if you continued east than going west. 

 

Every concert was preceded by a TV/radio press conference. We were fed great
Russian food before after each concert. The concerts were all in
Philharmonic halls in the cities we played. Some of the living conditions
were quite primitive, some of the hotels smelled funny, threre were about 4
ocassions when we were awake over 24 hrs. to make the next gig. None of us
got sick. We traveled on one leg in Siberia 42 hours straight on the
Trans-Siberian Railroad, which was like going back in time 50 years.

 

To read Jim Cullum's blogs sent from the road by yours truly, go to 

 

http://blogs.mysanantonio.com/weblogs/cards/jazzing_up_russia/

 

More photos and the blogs will be posted on our site at
www.riverwalkjazz.org <http://www.riverwalkjazz.org/> 

 

I was using the Cingular wireless laptop international quad-frequency Sierra
card. The bandwidth was abysmal and unreliable, but I did manage to send an
email to someone from the middle of Siberia aboard a train! For the most
part I had to wait until we got to a place where there was cable available
to send file attachments and photos. I would have been better off relying on
available Wi-Fi in the hotels. 

 

The Russian wireless infrastructure is about 5 years behind but I have no
doubt they will catch up fast. 

 

mopo

 

Don Mopsick, Riverwalk Webmaster