Each city has its local slang, its terms for places and roads that aren't immediately obvious to non-locals. I've been living in Vladimir now for almost 2 months, and I finally learned a bit of the local slang today. Pekinka (Пекинка)--it's a word I've heard thrown around by my host parents and my students, but I never could understand what it meant. Finally, tonight I was chatting with one of my students on Vkontakte (the Russian equivalent of Facebook), and the word came up in conversation. I took the opportunity to do a quick Yandex (the Russian search engine) search of the word. It turns out that Pekinka is the slang term for the highway I live right next to. Why this funny name? Well, this highway supposedly runs all the way to Beijing, which is called Pekin in Russian. Add a little cute Russian diminutive form, and you get Pekinka, the road I live next to. I'm starting to feel like a local!