First thing after breakfast today we went to a local market across the road, which happens every Thursday. Basically a giant flea market where everything from clothes, to tools, to paint, to bread, to you name it, (new and used) is sold by vendors who move from town to town in the area. There are no regular stores in the towns with this kind of stuff. Nothing of interest for us to buy, but interesting to observe how the local economy works. Then we headed for Zhitomer to spend all day in the archives there (see pic). Had to take the picture surreptitiously, as picture taking was forbidden. What a bureaucracy there! We each had to sign about a half dozen different forms filled out by our translators. We had no idea what we were signing. Don had arranged for the files of interest to us to be pulled, but they weren't, so we had to wait for them. We and our translators found it quite amusing that a fellow there kept giving us dirty looks and told everyone in a loud voice to be quiet -- several times. We tried to be as quiet as we could, even resorting to whispering, but we had to talk with our translators and each other. Anyway, it was like looking for a needle in a haystack and Dave, Liz and I found only one record of interest. But it was the one I had most hoped to find -- my Dad's birth record! It confirmed that his name at birth was Erhard Theodor Gohl (written in German as well as Russian) and he was born at 8:00 am on Sept. 15, 1914. The spelling changes in all three names must have occurred later. Cathy and Jim also found some things, but Evelyn found nothing related to the Bartz family. This confirmed what Don had warned us about -- you had about a 50/50 chance of finding something. After the long day at the archives, we went for dinner at very nice restaurant in Zhitomer. We all had Don's favorite there, a soup made with Stalin's recipe (so they said) and pork cutlets with cheese and banana on top (yes banana!). It tasted very good. Then it was back to Pulin again for the night.