Tales from Three Cities

Ekaterinburg (Yekaterinburg), Russia

Site of the Ipatiev House

56 degrees 50 - latitude

60 degrees 38E - longitude

Tashkent, Uzbekistan

Uzbek bozor

41 degrees 20 - latitude

69 degrees 18E - longitude

Essays & Sketches
from the Other Side of the Planet

From 1998 to 2004 this HouseHusband-Held-Hostage abandoned storytelling at home to live abroad in Tashkent, then in Yekaterinburg, where his Bride was detailed to do diplomat-work while he dealt with a new identity—expat. There he quietly assembled paragraphs and snapshots depicting local characters, ways of life. Besides original materials from Russia and Central Asia, located in this section are post-2004 items: reports of return visits there; also correspondence from friends in Tashkent and Yekaterinburg; also pieces of thought generated in the USA on themes having to do with that world on the other side of the planet.

Updownintown, USA

Bird's-eye view of old center city

XX degrees XXN - latitude

XX degrees XXW - longitude

Baltimore, Maryland, USA

1200 block John Street

39 degrees 18 - latitude

76 degrees 38W - longitude

Stories & Stuff
from Downtown, Uptown, and
the Other Side of the City

Yes, that's right. Despite the homepage title at the top, this web-site takes a keen interest in more than three cities. Baltimore is, of course, Stremba's home base. City stories here will intrigue most non-suburbanites, and can medicate Baltimore residents against urban nightmares, prodigious noise, and pedestrian vulnerability. Other pages in this section recall stories from Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Montana, and places in between. Yet other pages serve as a workbench for getting a few weird ideas into shapes that serve folks living anywhere in uptown-downtown North America.