We left too soon - or you did. For those of you who went home Sunday or Monday and didn't stay for the start of the USSVI/ISA convention, you are missing quite a bit.
For example, yesterday morning Steve Perry caught my attention while I was walking past the pool, and told me there were two guys speaking Russian sitting at the table by him with submarine ballcaps on. We introduced ourselves, and after a few minutes of broken Russian/English conversation, we discovered that we were speaking with Igor Kurdin (2nd from right), former CO of the K-84, a Delta IV boomer, and author of the book 'Hostile Waters', which both of us had read.
His friend, Pavlov (left), was the Port Engineer for the K-84, the Ektarinaburg, in a shipyard, but we couldn't figure out much more than that, our Russian being somewhat worse than their English!
We had a great time convincing him that we were enlisted sailors on the USS WILLIAM H. BATES (SSN 680), and he did get the 'Sturgeon class' part, I think, but we made some new friends and managed to not interfere with international relations!
Brad Williamson - glavnyy starshini (senior petty officer, I think)
Pavlov, friend of Igor, Steve Perry, Igor Kurdin, Brad Williamson
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