A Star is Bernstein (Part 2)

This is sort of old news by now but a couple weeks ago I went to Salsk, a little town a few hours south of Rostov. This is where the Soviet government gave many foreign communists land to build communes. So I went there thinking that I would get to the biggest commune, Seyatel. (The name is a play on words; in Russian this means "a planter," you know, a dude who plants, but most of the settlers were Finn- or Russian-Americans from the greater Seattle area. Get it? It turned into the "Stalin Collective Farm", then the "22nd Party Congress Collective Farm" and has now returned to its orginal name as a semi-private company.) When I got there, though, I realized the people who were supposed to meet me had some other ideas, none of which involved going to the farm. They didn't know what it was, actually. They thought I was coming to give a talk at their school. The local press came so at least I got in the newpaper and on tv. In terms of research not very fruitful, but this gift from the children's museum did expand my art collection: