Sorry for the slight change of topic, but to elaborate on the earlier discussion about feeling safe in today's Russia, in 2001 I spent three weeks mostly in S.Petersburg and 4 days in Moscow to visit my Moscow relatives. In SP I was staying in a Russian friend's (who at the time lived in Boston) girlfriend's apartment, on the fifth floor of a tall residential Khrushchev style tower from the sixties, not in best shape, on Manchesterskaya ulitsa in a residential area in a suburb but not that far from the center of SP. The elevator, which was extremely small and always smelled like urine, had a mind of its own and would let you off at certain floors, but not at others. I almost never used it. The building's main entrance's robust iron door had a security code pad on it. The individual apartments had heavy duty double doors, one made of wood, the other one of iron. I felt pretty safe in it, although my hostess, Lena, told me to hide my money and traveler's checks under the ivory keyboard of her upright piano. It required dismantling the keyboard with screwdrivers etc., every time I needed access to my money and then reassembling the whole thing which took quite a long time.
I never understood the necessity for it. Before I left, upon my constant insistence Lena accepted $250 from me for her kindly letting me stay in her apartment. Two weeks after I left, she used that money to buy a second hand computer and monitor. One day after her purchase, her apartment was broken into and not only the computer but also her boombox and some money were stolen. She said that sturdy looking double door was rather easily smashed. She had to replace it right away. It must have made a tremendous noise, it's strange none of the neighbors interfered. It's very likely that someone from the second hand store where she made her purchase was sent to take the computer back. We suspect that because otherwise no one had seen her carrying the computer home, and even if they saw her enter the building, no one could really know where exactly she lived in this three tower apartment complex with more than a hundred or so apartments. But the shop had her address and everything. Then I knew why she was so concerned about her safety. Luckily she wasn't home at the time of the burglary.
