Just wanted to send a quick hello from Kazan to everyone!  I’m in the hotel bar getting ready for a day at the office.  It’s getting to be a lot of fun to come over here and see the growth every year.  I’m traveling w/ my partner Peter Bodenheimer, and we are visiting the whole crew, almost 30 people in the office over here now.  We’ve grown from just one office of 3 guys to literally taking over the whole office building.  Amazing.

Last night was the city’s 1005th anniversary and there was a fireworks celebration and lots of revelry in the streets.  In fact, until about 20 min ago, I was sharing the bar with a group finishing up a late night dinner (its now 7am).  Every year we come over here the city changes.  Last night I ran into the first American I’ve ever met over here (on a tour no less).  And on the flight over, there was a crew from a European wireless provider coming over to launch a new 4G network, just the second in the world, here.  We truly feel like New Orleans and Kazan are sister cities this year: we have the world-champion football team, the Saints, and they have the current Russian champion soccer and hockey teams.