Where it all got started

I was invited to give a lecture to a group of missionaries from Christ United Methodis Church from Jackson, Mississippi and I was thrilled. The lecture was to take place in Krasnodar Natural history museum and it was supposed to be about the history of the area where I lived. I greeted the group and gave them the historic update but then, by the end of the lecture as I was about to finish I told them that I was happy to meet them. I told them that their group was special since it came from Jackson, Miss. And Mississippi has been on my mind since I read All the King's Men by R.P.Warren. I have also told them that I loved W.Faulkner and E.Welty and my PH.D. was in literature of the American South. The group was impressed - they were not prepared to meet in some distant Russian Krasnodar someone who would know much about them and their place even if only through the eyes of the southern writers. I was invited to come to Jackson to make the first hand acquaintance. This is how I came to visit Jackson Mississippi in the spring of 1994.