Python Liberation Front

St. Petersburg, Russia; Vienna, Austria; Piestany Slovakia

I just got back from a short (one long 7 day week) business trip to eastern Europe. My impressions are that Russia is a most inefficient country, with bureaucracy slowing down the works of just about everything. At the airport, they process one flight at a time! Of course, St. Petersburg is beautiful, and is the cultural center of Russia. There seems to be some rivalry between St. Petersburg residents and Muscovites ;-))). There is very little sympathy for the hated Soviets (their term for the communists) and we ate at a "pectopah" (restaurant) called "1913", which they explained was the last good year, the peak year of Russian culture and prosperity, just before WWI and the revolution.

Vienna is a little quaint, but beautiful. Sisi, their seemingly idolized 18 inch waste Empress, was murdered by stabbing with a file by an anarchist in the late 1800's, or thereabouts. Piestany, which is just beyond Bratislava, which is just beyond the border and Vienna, is in the area known as "little Detroit" and is bustling with investment in the automotive and other industries.

And that's a very short, five minute set of impressions!