Nice shots Mike! Did you go anywhere other than Bryansk? I studied Russian history in graduate school -- I lived in Vladivostok for 10 months along with 4 months in Yaroslavl. Unfortunately I was not into photography at the time.
I am not surprised to hear you were detained though. Provincial Russia's first reaction to something strange is to imprison it. The only reason it did not happen to me was that my best friend there was the vice-consul in Vladivostok (he was 26, I was 23)...not many Americans there, so if you are American, you meet all of them. Whenever we got pulled over or questioned by the militsia, his diplomatic credentials got us out of it.
In any case, I am very interested to see your work!