By Burt Herman
In the central square of this once-isolated Russian outpost, Soviet founder Vladimir Lenin's statue is now framed by giant TV advertising screens.

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Above the din of children playing, tourists chatting and dogs barking, a muffled clang echoes through the alleyways. It's 70-year-old Pranee Sutdis who, as she has for most of the last 58 years, is hammering steel into bowls with a small mallet.

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At an early-morning hour that most vacationers would spend unconscious, a few intrepid city dwellers outfitted in borrowed boots hunch over a creek full of watercress, carefully cutting the plants with kitchen scissors.

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