Welcome to Perm, Russia.  This is the outside of our apartment building.  It looks new from the outside but in many areas of the inside it is appears old and unfinished. We live on the sixth floor and I must admit, I say a prayer that we make it to our apartment every time we get into the elevators. 

This is the entry way to our apartment.  There are four apartments on our side of the building.  As you can see, there is sheet rock still waiting to be finished but the door is brand new... we just took the plastic off   yesterday.

 

I think we are safe here, don't you?!  Three locks on the outside door and a peep hole to check on those at the door.  We live close to the center of town.  The zone leaders lived in this apartment before we arrived. This apartment was secured due to the ideal central location for a gathering for the elders and sisters.  The church is much farther northwest. We are hosting the 4 sets of missionaries for lunch tomorrow and then we will have our district meeting...all in Russian!  This really does help us learn more of the language.

 You can see from this picture that we have two doors to the entrance of our apartment.  The outside door has all of the locks, the inside door is probably for both insulation and protection purposes.  What looks like a phone by the side of the door is our intercom.  When someone comes to see us, the security lady rings us and we can see who it is on the square monitor.  We push "door" to okay them coming up.  Notice the little, white square below the intercom...that is the light switch.  They are located at hand level.

 Here is our infamous washing machine!  It measures about 17 inches deep, 3 feet tall and 2 1/2 feet wide, but believe me, we are grateful for it. It does a great job and thank goodness it spins the water out really well since we have to line dry everything.  This is the half bath that is located at the front of the apartment.

Outside of our kitchen window, you can see other apartment buildings. We have enjoyed sunny days, thank goodness because most of the day the temperature still registers in the minus digits.  We walked a mile and a half to a store today in -12 degree temps.  Thank goodness for long underwear!

 Right below our apartment is located a small grocery store.  The name of the store is "SEMYA" (that is the phonetic spelling) which means...family. It is open 24 hours a day and has many of the necessary items.  Food here is very expensive even in the larger food stores. You also have to buy the bags to carry your groceries home.  We are getting smarter and taking bags with us when we go.