Windows to Russia

Things are changing in the visa department for Americans. I know that my visa run coming up real soon will entail me getting a year visa instead of a 3 month visa as I have done for years now…

I also know that it will be interesting because time frames are always askew when it comes to Russia and America…

I will update the visa situation when I get back, but that will not be for a few weeks. I also am not sure if I have to spend two weeks in Ukraine again. If I do then that will be another whole story in itself… 🙂

My visa expires the 28th of July. So it is time to get invitation, train tickets and a place to live lined out in Ukraine. This time I have to get an HIV certificate from a Russian clinic. Anything over a 3 month visa to Russia has to have a HIV certificate. I am not sure why but to me it seems that 3 months visa is enough time to cause issues with HIV…

So when I get done with this visa run, I will have a one year multi-entry visa…

Stay tuned for updates in the future about visa rules and regulations. As I experience them… 🙂

Windows to Russia!

It is strange but since we moved windowstorussia.com to a new host our readership has doubled. It is almost as if a huge wall was removed that held back people…

So as we are running record page views on Windows to Russia. We almost let “Russian News from Russia” escape our attention and when we realized that Russian News from Russia was running 2 times the page views that Windows to Russia was. I almost freaked out… 🙂

These articles below that have been posted on “Russian News from Russia” in the last few days literally got buried by page views…

Chinese dissident Hu Jia released from prison

Russia publishes its money laundering and terrorism financing list

Russia plans to rent naval pilot training facilities in Ukraine

Russia, NATO must settle ‘missile shield’ issue soon

These articles below on Windows to Russia have been slammed also…

NATO and Missile Defense: No Way Russia…

The Communist in Russia want NATO Disbanded…

NATO/Russia Actions Speak Louder Than Words…

They account for way over a 200,000 page views on Russian News from Russia and Windows to Russia in the last 24 hours alone. Mostly out of America and China. In fact a tidbit of information: In the last few days we have almost equaled all of last months readers from America and we have just started the month. If you remember we were telling in past posts that Germany and China were catching America in readership…

We had been and were convinced that our last host located in America, had been playing games and now we are positive. This is what you call the icing on the cake, so too speak…

We trusted our host to do right by things and we found out that trust was not in the equation…

Windows to Russia!

PS: I will let you know who the host is if you ask by e-mail in contacts. I have already been asked and will responded if I feel that the e-mail is sincere…

Voice of Russia does an interview with Igor Panarin. He is well known for the stir that he created back several years ago with the prediction of America collapsing and breaking up into parts…

He still says that even though his warning slowed the issue of disintegration, by political means, it has not stopped the process and if America is not careful they could still come apart…

Actually this is a good interview and even if you think he is full of crap. Listen because he calls a lot of things correct. I do not think it will happen but he is correct. If the right conditions come together at the same time. Issues could arise…

The rumblings of discontent are growing louder in many forms in America. Clean your ears out and maybe you will hear some of them…

Kyle and Sveta
Windows to Russia

Sometimes I wonder about humans. I have watched the development of using a gun laser site to blind pilots as they land. At first I took it as a isolated issue. But it seems that now, like me, the news in Russia has finally understood that this is a serious problem…

So while sipping that cup of coffee this morning. I did some digging up on information about laser blinding of pilots flying aircraft. Somewhere around 30 incidents of laser blinding have occurred or were attempted in Russia since January of 2011. The first recorded incident in Russia seems to be around 1994 when a teenager tried to blind a pilot of an aircraft. The Moscow area seems to be most prone to laser blinding. Last month during June. Federal aviation authorities of Russia, put out on the news sources that there is an increasing number of laser-related attempts targeting aircraft pilots, with gun site laser targeting devises…

In fact we just had a teenager arrested in Russia this last Monday: “Police in Chechnya detained on Monday a teenager who on Sunday had aimed a laser pointer at the cockpit of a passenger aircraft as it came into land at the airport in the republic’s capital, almost blinding the pilots.”

I can see it now: The airline captain says: Welcome to Moscow, fasten your seat belt and don’t worry about the evasive maneuvers as we try to dodge the laser pointers aimed at blinding us. Just hang on tight and we will make it alive…

There are just some stupid things that people shouldn’t do and pointing laser devices at airline pilots is one of those things…

Windows to Russia!

PS: How did we progress from writing our name on the wall with a laser pointer, to blinding airline pilots? It also looks like this is common in America…

The predicted outcome of the meeting between Medvedev and Rasmussen. NATO says: Russia involved in Europe’s missile defense? No Way! But we can keep talking about it come the NATO summit and G-8 meeting in Chicago in May 2012…

Hmm, I find it interesting that Rasmussen side stepped until May 2012. That is a long ways off. Could be election pressure by America. Since America will bankroll most of the missile defense…

Windows to Russia!

“The Russian Communists say the country’s foreign policy needs to change course as a new world order is looming.

­The country’s course will be radically changed if the Communists come to power after parliamentary elections in December, the party’s leader Gennady Zyuganov has said. The Communist Party (CPRF) will work to disband NATO and establish a full-fledged alliance with Belarus and Kazakhstan.

Russia could revive and remove external threats through a change of power, Zyuganov told the CPRF Central Committee’s plenary meeting held at the weekend. The Communists are planning to come to power via peaceful means to “change Russia’s fate in the interest of the masses,” he stressed. Read More >>>”

I find this an interesting article and from what I see around here in Moscow. The disbanding of NATO would be welcomed by Russians. It makes me wonder will that pull more Russians to look at the Communist party as a viable option again…

Windows to Russia!

Over coffee this morning I was doing some thinking’s about a few e-mails. After being asked more than several times by e-mail how we knew we were blocked and not just hosting problems? Also asked was how could they block just one single site? Those are fair questions…

Answer: A website is made up of various files and in our situation with Wordpress we have what is called an index file. Files have a setting to change the readability of them. The host was changing our index file to unreadable. They physically blocked our index file. They did this from higher up than what we have access to on the server. I tried to change this file back myself but they refused to allow it to be changed. Then they would change the file themselves and allow us access, after prodding by me over the legalities of what they are doing. That is how we knew that the host performed the block themselves. If index file was unreadable, the whole blog was unreadable and that is how they affected only one blog out of all that we have. It was a direct targeting of Windows to Russia…

Hope that answers the e-mails that we got about this issue…

Something that needs to be realized by people who have a website on line. You never have total security from being shut down. You only can take the best and strongest precautions that you can, to circumvent said shut down. In our case we have now removed one more way that the USA can pull the switch when they decide to censor a website…

What was happening was a deliberate block of Windows to Russia and this was done with the hope that I would not see it for several days. If we had been on vacation or something and a way from the computer for days. Then yes it would have worked…

I have seen a lot of this happening anymore…

Windows to Russia!

The big issue in Russia today seems to be centered around the Russia-NATO Council that is in Sochi as I write this article. It will mainly focus on Euro-Atlantic security and the joint AMD system…

The foundation of the focus of the meeting is on the agreements settled on during the Russia-NATO summit in Lisbon on November 20, 2010. Moscow and the NATO during that meeting had agreed to build a Russian-NATO partnership based on the principles of mutual trust, the indivisibility of security, transparency and predictability…

Russia is wanting to see the: Trust, Security, Transparency and Predictability part put into effect. Words are words, but actions speak louder than words…

So far NATO actions are going in the opposite direction of NATO words…

Windows to Russia!

Have a happy and safe 4th of July, 2011!

When I was young this was my second favorite big holiday (Christmas was first of course!) I just loved to set off fireworks. Sometimes I wonder how I survived after thinking about some of the things I did and created with fireworks… 🙂

Happy 4th…

Windows to Russia!

After an interesting day, Windows to Russia has been moved from a USA based hosting to a hosting based out of India… (As several figured that out and expressed to us, their thoughts in comments and e-mails!)

As per this article: “Coffee and Blocked” explains what happened and enough information of why we had to leave. I will state and add that the same day that “Coffee and Blocked” was posted. We were knocked offline again for over three hours. It covered a 6 hour period and was a one sided affair by me. The site would be blocked and I would write an e-mail. (I would also try to connect by live chat and that just did not work either.) Then the site would come back on line and they would never respond. The site would go back down and I would write an e-mail. The site would be unblocked, again with no word from the host. This became a game for about 6+ hours until they tired of said game and gave up on it for the day. It only affected the Windows to Russia blog. All other blogs were unaffected. No explanation was offered by said host…

On Saturday Sveta and I finalized who we wanted to use as our next host. This host right now is only for Windows to Russia. We have acquired two hosts, one in India and one in Russia. We will have a reflective updating mirroring system set up after we are all done and that will allow Windows to Russia to be able to stay on line better against server crashes. Of course this does not happen over night because Sveta and I have to learn as we go…

We are officially on the Indian server as I write this and the new hosting company has been very nice to work with during the transfer. It looks to be a good situation for Windows to Russia and we will decide later about moving all blogs. As of right now Coffee Talk, Thoughts of Moscow, Russian News From Russia and Windows to Russia have been moved. They all reside on the same domain…

Thanks everyone for patience and lets hope over the next few days that we get everything back in the groove again. Sveta and I have learned a lot this weekend and we had fun…

Windows to Russia!

Update: After being asked several times by e-mail how we knew we were blocked and not just hosting problems? That is a fair question…

Answer: The host was changing our index file to unreadable. They physically blocked our index file. They did this from higher up than what we have access to on the server. I tried to change this file back myself but they refused to allow it to be changed. Then they would change the file themselves and allow us access. That is how we knew that the host performed the block themselves. If index file was unreadable the whole blog was unreadable and that is how they affected only one blog out of all that we have. It was a direct targeting of Windows to Russia…