On way to Moscow

I'm at the Portland, Maine airport preparing to fly to New York where I will catch an overnight flight to Moscow.  I am going on a 10-day trip to Russia to do advance work for a spring study tour that will take Global Network and Veterans For Peace members there.

I'll be staying for several nights in Moscow at the famous Cosmos Hotel ($50 per night) that has 2,000 rooms and was built for the 1967 Olympics.  A statue of Gen. Charles de Gaulle stands outside the hotel.  He was the President of France at the time the hotel was built.

I'll be meeting with several Russian journalists and activists while I am in Moscow to get their assistance in preparation for the 2019 study tour that will be composed of 30 people.  They will come from India, England, Sweden, Holland and the US.

Following my several days in Moscow I will go to Crimea to similarly make arrangements there for the study group's visit to that highly contested place.  The US claims that Russia stole Crimea from Ukraine in 2014 but the facts are clear that the primarily Russian speaking citizens of Crimea voted by at least 96% to request joining the Russian Federation after the US-NATO ran the coup d'etat in Kiev in early 2014.

I've never been to Russia before but have long hoped to make the trip.  Now it is happening.

I'll write more in the coming days.

Bruce