Anglo American School of Moscow

One of the coolest mascots ever.

The Cold War is ostensibly over but that didn’t keep us from being picked up from our Anglo-American School of Moscow provided apartment by a spy.

Or so I suspected from the info sheet given to us by Kris one of the librarians at the school. K. will pick you up at 11am to take you to the Kremlin, she had written. No last name – no hint to as what K stood for – would this person be male, female, old young, an expat or Russian? Much like the city itself – it was a mystery like the initials used to identify without identifying in a Russian novel we waited for the door buzzer to sound at 11am.

Sara and the mysterious K

At exactly 11am K was at the door. Turns out K is a librarian, who does go by the single initial K, with Kris who share the duties K-12 at AAS (K² if you will) she is quick to laugh, walks at a properly brisk city pace and by all outward appearances is not a spy – but then again, that’s what a spy would want you to think isn’t it?

Sara and Kris emerging from the Moscow Underground.

The three of us explored frigid Moscow which had decided to unilaterally launch its own personal cold war against us in the guise of sub-zero (Fahrenheit) temperatures disguised by a bright blue sky.  The next day we continued our investigation with our friends aforementioned librarian extraordinaire Kris, her husband Sean and their fleet footed daughter Elka. Then it was time to visit the school.

Working on some extended metaphor in the middle school

We were splitting our time between AAS campuses in Moscow and St. Petersburg, so we only had three days to crack the code in Moscow. Fortunately, it wasn’t too tough decipher that this is a pretty darn good school. We did assemblies for the elementary and middle schools each followed by some downright insightful question sessions. Then we headed into the classrooms where we introduced some writing frameworks, a couple public speaking sessions and then before we knew it – it was time to hop a train for St. Petersburg.

Sara discusses headgear with the younger set.

Of course, we dipped our toes into a bit of Moscow culture with the head of school Ian, who treated us to a musical performance that was every bit as good as any we have seen on Broadway.

Quick and memorable – our Moscow visit was the perfect mixture of old and new friends – cold weather and warm reception. You don’t need any sort of security clearance for me to pass on info to you that the Anglo-American School of Moscow has it going on.

Sara and K contemplate smokestacks.