Where in the World?

At a time when international travel has come to a screeching halt, I can think of little better service our magazine can provide than to take readers to far-flung places. And so, in this issue’s feature stories, we travel to the Far North and the Far East of Russia, to the Mari El Republic, to one of our favorite villages, and to Antarctica (which gave us a great excuse to put penguins on the Table of Contents page).

In terms of the things I miss most in these pandemic times, limitations on travel come in a strong second behind limitations on real, un-face-masked interpersonal interactions.

This is particularly keenly felt now, because, as this issue is going to press, my father, Jim, is celebrating his 90th birthday. And, because of worries about COVID, our widely dispersed clan was unable to travel to visit and celebrate with him as planned. So we, like the rest of the world, will sit back and wait patiently for a vaccine (and make do with a less than satisfactory Zoom call).