Surprise, surprise  This is Elder Pocock, the non blogger, adding a post about life in Russia.  Please note that Sister Pocock has already posted a blog this week, so you need to keep going after you see this to read the real news of the week.  

Since coming to Russia I have been fascinated by the security systems they have here.  Maybe there are places in the States that have systems similar to these, but I have never seen anything like in my part of the world at home, so I felt that it would be interesting to many.  I will begin simply.  This first door is the entry to the branch building.  In the upper right hand corner of the door is an electro magnet.  

This is the corresponding component on the door jam side of the system.  When the door is closed, there is a powerful attraction and no normal force could open it.  In this case there is also a keyed lock on this door and on the inner door that are both locked in the nighttime.  They are not too much different than what you would see in the intermountain west.

So during the day, if you were to come to the church, you could ring the doorbell to the church (shown below), and if there were someone there to meet you, they can see in the closed circuit camera who is there and push a button on the system, and it would break the current on the electromagnet and you can easily pull open the door.

 This is a similar idea. This is a gate to enter the courtyard in front of our apartment. You can not see the camera from here, but the attendant can see you and buzz you inside the gated area.  If you are a stranger, they probably will still buzz you in (assuming you don't have a scary look or a weapon of some sort) and then you will come to the concierge.

 All of our concierges are women.  She is there behind the reflection.  They are there from early morning to late at night, and in our case, they let us right in.  They buzz the electromagnet, and the door makes a buzzing noise so we know that we can pull and have it open.

Now if the concierge doesn't recognize you, you have to push the buttons corresponding to the apartment number and that rings the apartment on their domophone.

This is a domophone.  It allows you to see who is out there, and you can decide if you want them to come in or not.  If you choose to let them in, you push the bottom button that says (convieniently in English) door and that deactivates the electromagnet and they can pull the door open.

Then you are admitted into our spacious, newly remodeled entry, which is honestly one of the nicest in Perm.  

They haven't gotten to the elevators yet.  Can't seem to loose the graffiti.  And I would prefer a little less GREEN.

 Another interesting fact about Russia.  They always number their apartments beginning from one to whatever.    Therefore you are never quit sure what floor to get off at.  In our case we are #82, but we live on the 6th floor.  The blue sign in the picture below tells the floor and all the apartment #s that are on that floor.  In some buildings we have tried 5 floors before we found the right level. In most buildings this gray door would be locked, but for some reason, no one ever locks this door.  I am glad.

Behind the gray door is our levels inter entry way.  I couldn't get a good picture, so I took a panorama of the area.  The first door on the left is the other side of the above door.  Then there are two apartment doors next to each other.  Then there is a hallway.  The next gray door is an opening for the utilities and the next door is our apartment (It looks small here-a close-up follows)

This is the door to our apartment.  It is heavy-gauge metal and the top lock has three bolts, the center has one, and the bottom has four bolts going out horizontally and two going vertically, one at the top of the door and one at the bottom on the handle side of the door.  It would take some serious explosive to get through this door.  And as you can see, there is a second door inside (mercifully no locks.)

And this is the way we get in.  The green fob is how we get through the electromagnets if the concierge is not available, and the center key gets through the top lock, and the larger key gets us through the lower lock.  Do we have any reason to feel unsafe?

This is just another look at how they use the four deadbolt system to secure a door.

Is this demonstration giving you any feeling for how difficult it might be to go tracking as a missionary in Russia?  If I would have had to do this back on my first mission, I don't think I would have contacted every person in town like I did in Norway.  I am going to give you one more example of what it takes to visit someone.  The Sisters Tikhonova and Galli and Sister Pocock and I visited a member last week.  This is the entry to the apartment building.  The pink door is the outer door where you ring the buzzer and the concierge screens you to see if she feels you can come in to the third door.  The second door requires no special access.  Sister Tikhonova is holding the third door open.

Now Sister Tikhonova is pushing the keypad for the domophone.  Since we have an appointment, the member is expecting us and he deactivates the electromagnet so we can go in the door to the elevators.

We are in and on our way up to the, now what floor was it we were going to?

I took this picture as we were on our way out, but ordinarily the host would have come out to open this door and it would be cracked to allow you access to the other door.  In this apartment building there were only two apartments behind this door.  His is the one at the end that you can see.  When we get to his door, we take off our shoes and leave them out in the hallway.  This is almost always expected.  Occasionally the people will just wave you in, but it would not be proper to come in with your shoes on unless they specified otherwise.

This is the same place only from the oppisite direction.  This is a high class apartment.  So counting back, we had two secure doors at ground level, and then two more doors at each apartment level.  Do you think they have a very high crime rate in Russia?  I'm betting burglary is low.

They invest a lot of time and money in their security.  This is a billboard advertising the new best door locks.

Just one last interesting tidbit for your enlightenment.  We can grow great icicles here.  Elder Wimber is close to 6ft, and it is about twice as tall as him.  You can't see too well, but there is another level above this, and it continues on up.  Always something interesting to see.  Hope you enjoyed the blog.