Windows to Russia

I remember well the first 100 posts and that seemed like a big deal. Actually it was a big deal because when you have a very new blog there is no traffic. So the incentive is not very strong to keep going…

But it is letters like this that make all 1500 posts worth the writing: (Information has been blanked for identity reasons.)

Hi there Kyle and Svet!

We love your blog!!

My name is *******. I am a **** & ********, ******* and *******. My wife and I are originally from ************, living in ************ since 1996. We are obsessed with Russian literature and cinema.

Last year, we had the opportunity to visit Russia. We were beyond impressed! It is a beautiful and wonderful country… and the Russian people are incredibly warm, smart and kind. We only had great experiences and we can’t wait to return!!!

Our trip started in St. Petersburg and we took a cruise down the Volga river to Mandrogi, Kizhi Island (truly magical!), Goritsy, Uglich, Yaroslavl and finally Moscow.

Thank you so much for your postings of everyday life in the city. We actually rented an apartment on Novy Arbat and lived there for about two weeks, feeling like Muscovites, and reading your blog we are reliving those wonderful memories.

Thank you once again!!

На здаровье!!
*****************

When we get an email like this it makes us realize that all the work involved in “Windows to Russia” is worth it. It makes us want to continue the forward progress of the “Windows to Russia” blog system of photos, videos and stories!

We get lots of wonderful letters like this and I picked the last one we got, to print. This letter was received last night…

Svet and I want to thank all our readers, we have thousands of daily readers and all of them are very important to us. Our readers come from all over the world.

So Thank You!

Svet and Kyle

Windows to Russia
comments always welcome.

What would you say if I told you that a Russian woman travels all over Russia alone and by bike. You would probably say, No Way!

Well, 70-year-old Yulia Mikhailyuk is such a woman and has been traveling for over 14 years by bike and recently the pensioner who is from the city of Tver, Russia has crossed a huge length of Russia on just a bicycle. She has covered 8,000 kilometers in three months.

Read the whole article from Russia Today: Link Here!

She has achieved the record as the oldest Russian cyclist in Russia and she plans on cycling around the world next year…

You also can watch a video about Yulia Mikhailyuk here: Russian Video: Yulia Mikhailyuk – 70 Years Old Bike Traveller From Russia

Windows to Russia!
comments always welcome.

Looks like Putin did a good job today in Poland. What with all the Western press putting the pressure on full blast about the start of WWII and Stalin!

SPIEGEL ONLINE

You gotta put credit due were it is due. Putin shows that he is one of the worlds best leaders everyday of his life…

Windows to Russia!
comments always welcome.

I just posted an article about our fun this weekend! But I did not put all our fun in this article…

You have to read that article link above to understand what the time frames are for this article. But I will simply put it that it was about 11:00pm Sunday night and we had just watched a wonderful movie. Svet and I stopped at McDonald’s and had a bite to eat…

After we ate I decided to check the oil on our Volga and had the back tailgate and hood open. I was standing by the tailgate when this car with a single young man pulled up and he was showing all signs of distress. He asked to use a phone and Svet let him call from hers. He even got in our car.

I felt no danger from him but knew he was a danger to himself or someone. He was polite and could even speak a little English. Now this young man tried to call about three times on Svet’s phone and then ran to his car. He brought a purse and put it in the back of our station wagon and closed the tailgate. He then asked Svet if he could buy the phone?

We both said, No! He apologized and shook my hand and said thank you. When I held his hand and shook it, I felt the stress in him like a balloon ready to pop. He was showing classic signs of tremendous pressure and I knew he was ready to crack at any second.

He said thank you again before he left. As he started his car, Svet walked to the front of our car and I turned and looked at the young man. He showed me a weapon in his open palm no finger on trigger and he was shaking his head as if to say (A bad thing is going to happen real soon) …

Like I said he was not ill willed toward us. Then he gunned the engine and tore out of there.

I was at that point after he left, I reopened opened the tailgate and looked through the purse. The purse belonged to a young lady and her passport was in the purse. I immediately told Svet to call the police and tell them what happened. I told Svet that he was on his way to either kill this girl or kill himself….

The police finally came and we turned the purse over to them. We tried to explain what happened and like us they had a rough time believing that it happened. It makes no sense if you look at it in a black and white context. But…

I understood what took placed and only because I felt the situation as it unfolded. I heard the car that the young man was driving, as it tore around the parking lot corner. It had an angry sound and it abruptly stopped behind our car. I felt the tension even before he got out of the car. The young man obviously just had a bad falling out with this young lady. He somehow ended up with her purse as the fight ended. He stopped wanting to call her on a phone. She did not answer. He gave us the purse to give us information on who it was he was upset with. He showed me the gun to let me know what he was about to do! As I said, he was not ill toward us and it was more of a son and father second. When dad knows his son has lost it over a girl and you realize you can not stop what is about to unfold… (I hope that his few minutes talking to Svet and I, took the edge off of his anger…)

I just hope that the police got to her in time! (She was single and had a two year old child.)

We will most likely never know what happened…

How was your weekend? Ours was interesting!

Windows to Russia!
comments always welcome

We needed some of these muffler people to fix our car this weekend…

Hey Everyone,

Svet and I had a very interesting weekend. Grab your self a cup of coffee and lets talk about what the weekend was like.

As you know we have purchased a Volga to replace the one that was stolen several months ago. So we are still trying to get everything done and make our new Volga legal for the Russian roads. Saturday was supposed to be the big day to get the tags, but things never happen like they should.

We had to get a new muffler put on the Volga and for this American it should be a easy thing to do. You just go to a shop that works on exhaust, they install a new muffler and then you are on your way with about an hour delay. Nope it will not happen that way when you are in Russia!

We finally found a shop in our new home area and they looked at it and said, “Yup you need a muffler – Just go get one and we will put it on….?”

I said, “We have to go get a muffler so you can put it on?” Notice I was questioning the validity of such a statement… (In Russia they do not get parts – You always get parts for them to put on.)

So we spent 4 hours finding a parts store that cared enough to get off their rears or even look up and help us get a muffler. Took the muffler back to who said he would put it on and found that he was too busy drinking tea for an hour with his buddies to install a muffler. (Urrrgh)

Svet and I went back to the car and found the battery dead as a door nail! So we walked to the parts store and got a new battery. I put the new battery in and filed some information away in my head that not all was perfect with the charging system but it was Ok for now.

Svet found that the guy was still just too busy to make any money by putting on a muffler and we left upset. As we drove away with the Volga sounding like a farm tractor, Svet saw another little sign that pointed down a side road and mentioned that there was a service center that way.

We turned and wallah wallah bing bang – we found a little shade tree mechanic spot that had several young men working. They were very happy to help and charged half of what the other place would have charged. (Yippy)

All in all it took 12 hours to get a muffler put on and Svet and I were happy that we were able to even get it done at all. Now remember we never even got to the tag department…

The next day (Sunday) Svet and I met the Americans (Dennis and Darrell) that I have talked about who for three weeks have been running around Russia. They have had the time of their life and we wanted to spend a last day with them before they went back home on Monday.

I watched the charging system on the Volga die slowly on Sunday but I knew that she would be Ok for that day. We took Dennis and Darrell to the Moscow river and took an excursion for three hours on the river. This is a fantastic way to spend the day. There are hundreds of large boats that will hold hundreds of people at a time and it travels slowly from one side of Moscow to the other and it gives you a view of Moscow that you normally do not see.

After that we said goodbye to them and wished them well. They had the time of their life in Russia and will be back in a few years. Dennis comes every two years and this year he was able to bring his oldest son. Dennis has plans to retire and live in Russia for the rest of his life. I hope he can do that! It is worth it…

Svet and I then pushed our luck and took Sammy the Volga to an international short movie festival. The one thing about Moscow is that there is always something to do…

The movies were fantastic and it was 10:00pm before we started home. That is when the charging system gave out. The head lights were to much and it looked like the regulator or alternator just said goodbye. (Another story is what happened on the way home from the movies!) We got it home and parked as she just started to miss fire from low battery. (Thank goodness!)

Of course this meant that I would wake up on Monday with another whole wonderful thing to do. At least this time I could replace the alternator and regulator. I spent Monday trying to find the parts and installing a new alternator. Svet’s son (Misha) was the one who finally found the parts and drove them over to us. That was a huge help and I was much appreciating his help.

Sammy the Volga is one happy Volga with her new parts and runs like a top now….

How was your weekend?

Windows to Russia!
comments always welcome.

Nuclear Arms Reduction To Become Another Apple of Discord for Moscow and Washington:
Russia and the USA do not seem to be able to come to an agreement regarding the terms of the new treaty about the reduction of strategic offensive arms. It is not ruled out that the new treaty will not be finished before December 5, when START-1 Treaty expires. The United States does not want to cut the number of nukes.

Russian economy to return to pre-crisis level in 2012:
The Russian economy will reach 2008 pre-crisis level as early as in 2012, a government source working in the financial and economic area said on Tuesday.

Russia sends delegation to Libya for revolution anniversary:
A Russian delegation headed by the speaker of the State Duma has left for Libya to take part in Tuesday’s Revolution Day celebrations, marking 40 years since the coup that brought Muammar al-Gaddafi to power.

Russia’s 2010 budget revenues to beat projections – Kudrin:
Russia’s federal budget revenues in 2010 will be more than the planned figure of 6.6 trillion rubles ($207.5 billion).

North Ossetia tightens school security on Beslan anniversary:
Around 3,000 police officers are guarding schools in the south Russian republic of North Ossetia on Tuesday, as locals mourn the victims of the Beslan school massacre five years ago.

Putin arrives in Poland for anniversary of WWII outbreak:
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has arrived in Poland to attend ceremonies marking the 70th anniversary of the outbreak of World War II, and to meet with his Polish and Ukrainian counterparts.

AvtoVAZ resumes production after month-long break:
Russia’s leading car producer AvtoVAZ resumed operation at its main assembly line on Tuesday following a month-long break forced by falling demand and “unstable” social situation in the company.

U.S. resumes training of Georgian troops:
U.S. military specialists are starting on Tuesday a new training course for Georgian troops set to join an international peacekeeping force in Afghanistan, the Georgian Defense Ministry said.

Russia: building a nuclear deterrent for the sake of peace (60th anniversary of the first Soviet atomic test):
MOSCOW. (RIA Novosti correspondent Alexander Peslyak) -It took the Soviet Union less than two years to make its first plutonium bomb. A war-ravaged country risked launching two major defense projects – atomic and missile ones – without the help of its recent allies. These projects turned out to be interdependent and subsequently brought a huge conversion gain to Russia and the rest of the world.

Russia anticipates cooperation with new Japanese government:
Russia is set for constructive cooperation with Japan’s new government after the longtime opposition overwhelmingly won Sunday’s parliamentary elections, the Russian Foreign Ministry said Monday.

Putin, Tymoshenko to discuss Russia-Ukraine ties in Poland:
Russia’s prime minister will discuss bilateral ties between Moscow and Kiev with his Ukrainian counterpart during a working visit to Poland.

This is a good video and gives you an idea why I do not like to go shopping during sales times. This was a before school sale and Eldorado had good intentions – but sometimes good intentions go bad…

Windows to Russia!
comments always welcome.