Don't you know how to spell the name of your own town?

Um....no.

My atlas (which I got after I'd been writing Chernomorskoe for a while) says Chornomors'ke. A friend told me that Google turns up more hits with Chernomoskoye. And I've also seen it spelled Chernomorskoye, and possibly every which-way in between. I really have no idea what's correct, so I'm just going to continue writing Chernomorskoe, since I'm used to it.

I learned something really interesting about Chernomorskoe recently; this was a "closed" town, visitors (especially foreigners) prohibited. I'm not sure how long it's been open--I think around 30 years--but I am the first foreigner ever to live in Chernormorskoe. That's one reason why I had such a hard time opening a bank account. No one had ever opened an account for a foreigner before.

Why was Chernormorskoe closed? Because this was a military town. A naval base, to be precise. Actually, I think it still is--although I don't notice sailors around. But yesterday Chernomorskoe made national news. Apparently they lost a rocket launcher or something. Only they didn't actually lose the rocket launcher; it just disappeared from one building and reappeared at another across town. (Actually, I'm not entirely sure what they lost, except that it was big, not a trivial thing to move.) My friend who explained it all to me thought it was really funny.

Yesterday was a History Day for me: after hearing about the whole rocket launcher escapade, my friend took me to see the ancient Greek ruins that are at one end of Chernormorskoe's beach. Several of her colleagues, who all teach at School Number 1, joined us. The sea was a beautiful, unreal turquoise, like a painting. We joked that we should have brought our swimming suits (it was very cold and windy). As we walked along the beach my friend occasionally picked up an unusual shell and gave it to a friend, saying that it was her "salary"--teachers in Chernomorskoe haven't been paid since December.

The ruins appear to have been a small settlement, or maybe they're just not completely excavated. From what I understand, after the Greeks left the Cossacks came, so the architecture is part Greek and part Cossack. In the summer archeologists come from all over, and they tell tourists about the history of the ruins. Some of the archeologists even speak English--supposedly.

Sometimes I wish Chernomorskoe were a bigger town, or at least had a more developed tourist industry. It's frustrating when my inadequate Russian keeps me from understanding things like this--such interesting topics.