Year: 2008

This is how the West looks at Russia and Iran!

Hello,

I was drinking my morning cup of coffee and thought to myself: “We want to travel but it looks like trouble is in the air!”

So, What do I mean by that? Lets look at….

Georgia Will Levy War on South Ossetia in Fall, Kokoity Said

U.S. says further “punitive” steps against Iran needed The White House said on Wednesday it believed Western powers had to take further “punitive” measures against Iran because Tehran gave no concrete reply to their demand that it freeze its nuclear activities.

Russia says Georgian jets overflew rebel region Russia accused Georgia of sending warplanes into a Georgia’s separatist region of South Ossetia overnight, an allegation swiftly denied by Tbilisi.

Iran is “root of all evil”: Israel PM contender Israeli cabinet minister Shaul Mofaz, a contender to succeed the prime minister, denounced his native Iran on Wednesday as “the root of all evil” and said its nuclear program constituted a threat to world peace.

Kyrgyz police uncover US arms cache

‘Georgian snipers are attacking us’ – Ossetian official

Georgia, Britain to hold joint military drills in September
Georgia and the U.K. will hold joint military training exercises in September at the Vaziani base near the Georgian capital Tbilisi, the South Caucasus country’s Defense Ministry said on Wednesday.

Russia to Set Up Missile Defense Sites in Caucasus, Middle Asia

So between you and I: Looks like the Fall Season maybe an interesting time of the year in this part of the world. Should be a good time to travel, need to go see Israel and Iran, before a war there blows everything up. We are glad that we recently traveled to the Georgia area just before all the issues started in Abkhazia and got to see that beautiful country: before it gets blown up!

I wonder if the world could wait until we get to travel to all the places we want to before they blow each other up?

Kyle & Svet

comments always welcome.

Hello,

As you remember on Wednesdays we publish Stories from Soviet Childhood – my generation was brought up reading the stories, and generation of our parents was brought up on them and we tried to bring up our children by reading them good children books. Today we are finishing a story by Nikolay Nosov “Garderners”. If you did not read the first part please click at the little picture. To the right —->

Garderners

(Part 2)

….Besides, we had only a little bit left to dig now.

The next morning we got up later than the others. Oh dear, how achy we felt! Our arms ached, our legs ached and our backs felt as if they were breaking!
“What’s the matter with us?” said Mishka.
“Too much digging in one go,” I said.

We felt a little better after we had moved about a bit, and at breakfast Mishka started boasting to everyone that we were going to win the banner for sure.

After breakfast we all went off to the garden. Mishka and I didn’t hurry. We had plenty of time!
By the time we reached the plots all the others were busy digging away like beavers. We laughed at them as we strolled by.
“You needn’t try so hard because you can’t win the banner anyway!” we told them.
“You’d better get to work, you two!” they shouted back.

Just then Mishka said: “Look at this plot. I wonder whose it is. They’ve hardly dug anything yet. They must be at home fast asleep.”
I looked at the marker. No. 12. “Why, it’s our plot!”
“It can’t be,” said Mishka. “We’ve done far more than that.”
I thought we had too.
“Perhaps someone has gone and changed the markers for a lark.”
“No. All the other numbers are right. Here’s No. 11 and there’s No. 13 on the other side.”
We looked again and saw a tree-stump sticking up in the middle. We couldn’t believe our eyes.
“Listen,” I said. “If this is our plot what’s that stump doing there? We pulled it out, didn’t we?”
“Of course we did,” said Mishka. “A new one couldn’t have grown in its place overnight.”

Just then we heard Vanya Lozhkin on the plot next to ours say:
“Look, fellows! A real miracle! There was a big stump here yesterday and now it’s gone. Where could it be?”
Everyone ran to look at the miracle. Mishka and I went over too.
What had happened? Yesterday they had less than half of their plot dug and now there was only a small corner left.

“Mishka,” I said. “You know what? It was their plot we dug up last night. And that stump we pulled out was theirs too.”
“It can’t be!”
“Well, it is.”
“Oh, what donkeys we are!” groaned Mishka. “What shall we do now? By rights they ought to give us their plot and take ours. All that work done for nothing!”
“Shut up,” I said. “You don’t want us to be the laughing-stock of the whole camp, do you?”
“But what shall we do?”
“Dig,” I said. “Dig like blazes.”

We picked up our spades. But when we started to dig, our poor backs and arms and legs ached so much that we had to stop. We had worked so hard on our neighbours’ plot that now we hadn’t the strength to finish our own.

Before long Vanya Lozhkin and Senka Bobrov finished their plot. Vitya congratulated them and handed them the banner. They stuck it in the middle of their plot. All the others gathered round and clapped. Mishka couldn’t stand it.
“It’s not fair!” he said.
“Why isn’t it fair?” said Vitya.
“Someone pulled that stump out for them. They said so themselves.”
“It isn’t our fault, is it?” said Vanya. “Suppose someone wanted it for fire-wood. That’s their look-out, not ours.”
“Maybe someone dug it up by mistake,” said Mishka.
“If they had it would be lying about here somewhere.”
“Maybe someone threw it into the river,” Mishka went on.
“Maybe this, maybe that. What are you getting at?” But Mishka couldn’t keep quiet.
“Someone did the digging for you last night,” he said.
I kept nudging him to hold his tongue. Vanya said:
“Maybe they did. We didn’t measure our plot.”

We went back to our own plot and started digging. Vanya and Senka stood watching us and snickering.
“Look at them,” said Senka. “They’re as slow as turtles.”
“We’ll have to lend them a hand,” said Vanya. “They’re way behind everyone else with their digging.”

So they lent us a hand. They helped us with the digging and they helped us to pull out the stump, but we finished last just the same.

Someone suggested putting the scarecrow on our plot since we were the last to finish. Everybody thought that was a wonderful idea and so the scarecrow came to our plot. Mishka and I felt very sore about it.

“Cheer up!” said the boys. “If you do your planting and weeding well we’ll take the scarecrow off your plot.”

Yura Kozlov made a proposal: “Let’s award it to the team that makes the worst showing with the rest of the work.”
“Yes, let’s!” shouted the others.
“And in the autumn we’ll present it to the team with the worst crop,” said Senka Bobrov.

Mishka and I decided to work hard and get rid of that nasty scarecrow, but try as we did it stood on our plot all summer long. When planting time came Mishka got everything mixed up and planted beet-roots on top of the carrot seeds. And when we did the weeding he pulled up all the parsley instead of the weeds, and we had to plant radishes instead. I wanted to quit several times but I didn’t have the heart to leave a. chum in the lurch. So I stayed with him to the end.

And would you believe it, Mishka and I got the banner after all. To everybody’s surprise we got the biggest crop of cucumbers and tomatoes.

There was a fuss!
“It’s not fair,” said the others. “They were behind everybody else all the time and they got the biggest crop. How’s that?”
But Vitya said: “It’s perfectly fair. They may have been slower than all the rest of you but they worked the soil thoroughly and they tried hard.”
Vanya Lozhkin said: “They had a good bit of land, that’s what it is. Me and Senka got a bad plot. That’s why we have a poor harvest although we worked hard too. And they can keep their old scarecrow. They had it all summer.”

“We don’t mind,” said Mishka. “We’ll take it with pleasure.”
Everybody laughed. Mishka said: “If it wasn’t for that scarecrow we wouldn’t have won the banner!”

“How’s that?” everyone asked.
“Because it drove the crows away from our plot and that’s why we have the biggest harvest. Besides, it reminded us all the time that we had to work hard.”

I said to Mishka: “What are we going to do with that silly old scarecrow?”
“Let’s go and throw it in the river,” said Mishka.

We took the scarecrow down to the river and threw it into the water. We watched it sail down the river with its arms spread out and we threw stones into the water to make it go faster. When it was gone we went back to the camp.

That day Lyosha Kurochkin photographed Mishka and me standing on our plot beside the Challenge Banner. So if you would like to have a picture of us we shall be glad to send you one.

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Previous stories:

ZIS

Cucumbers

THE CRUCIAN CARP

Mishka’s Porridge

The Pistol
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Best wishes,

Svet

comments always welcome

Hello,

The word is out that China or Russia could buy Humvee this also falls in place with why would Russia want to buy Chrysler?

The answer is they don’t! (I hope)

Russia has its own version of the Humvee: GAZ-2975 “Tigr” – is Russian high-mobility multipurpose military vehicles, manufactured by GAZ. It is military version of GAZ-2330 “Tigr” and has been sometimes referred to as “the Russian Humvee” (while civil GAZ-2330 has been referred to as “the Russian Hummer”).

So the need to buy GM’s dead weight is not very strong for Russia.

Kyle & Svet

comments always welcome.

Hello,

Looks like If Georgia attacks South Ossetia, Abkhazia will in turn attack Georgia to help South Ossetia!
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“If Georgia starts fighting against South Ossetia, Abkhazia will open a ‘second front,'” Abkhazia’s deputy defense minister, Garri Kupalba, told the paper. “Abkhazia will without a doubt take part in military actions.” (Link)
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I also read that Israel is going to stop selling weapons to Georgia, Just one more link to America playing in Russia’s backyard.

“Georgia has become a real goldmine for Israeli arms dealers, who will suffer because of the embargo. Tbilisi had placed orders with several Israeli military manufacturers. Among the weaponry ordered were 70 million rifle cartridges, Merkava tanks, APCs, helicopters, UAVs, fire control systems and night-vision devices.” (Link)

Now the Playing in Russia’s backyard has lead to a statement from Russia: “Russia said on Tuesday it would not remain indifferent if violence continues to escalate in Georgia’s breakaway region of South Ossetia, Interfax news agency reported, quoting a Russian diplomat.” (Link)
————————————————–
Looks like the world better get ready, because I feel that Russia is getting a little bit unhappy about Americas interference in South Ossetia, Georgia, Abkhazia and Iran!

Kyle & Svet

comments always welcome.

RBC, 05.08.2008, Moscow 16:46:33.The Russian stock market continued falling virtually across the board in the afternoon today. As of 4 p.m., the MICEX index was down 2.7 percent at 1,412.31 points and the RTS index was down 3.43 percent at 1,830.76 points. Among the worst performers on MICEX were Gazprom (down 4.25 percent), LUKoil (down 3.69 percent), Rosneft (down 5.38 percent), and Uralkali (down 12 percent). Although banking stocks fared better than the market during the day, they also decreased somewhat, as Sberbank lost 1.32 percent and VTB dipped 0.89 percent.

RBC, 05.08.2008, Moscow 15:49:14.Russia’s Economy Ministry has issued a draft proposal for the country’s long-term social and economic development until 2020 for consideration by the government, said Oleg Fomichev, the head of the ministry’s strategic planning and budgeting department. The document is to be considered at meetings that will be chaired by Russia’s First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov during August and early September, and the Economy Ministry is expected to submit the amended concept to the government for the second time at the beginning of September, Fomichev noted. The government is projected to discuss the concept on September 22.

RBC, 05.08.2008, Moscow 14:23:24.Russia’s inflation amounted to 9.3 percent in the first seven months of 2008 and 0.5 percent in July alone, compared to 6.6 percent and 0.9 percent for the same periods of 2007, respectively, the Federal State Statistics Service (Rosstat) reported today. Core inflation (excluding price fluctuations in certain products caused by administrative and seasonal factors) stood at 0.8 percent in the past month and 7.6 percent in January-July.

RBC, 05.08.2008, Moscow 12:20:26.Investor expectations deteriorated in July, following the sharp criticism of the Russian metals and mining company Mechel made by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, and concerns arose that political risks to investors would continue climbing in Russia, analysts at Merrill Lynch say. After Mechel had been charged with tax evasion and the implementation of an aggressive and dishonest pricing policy, investors became worried that it was an attempt to redistribute assets in favor of the government, similar to the expropriation of the now defunct YUKOS. Experts believe that although the Russian government has recently tried to reassure investors by several positive announcements, uncertainty will remain during the next few weeks. Freezing domestic coal and metal prices may become an important consequence of the assault on Mechel, analysts note.

RBC, 05.08.2008, Moscow 09:34:03.Severstal has completed the acquisition of the US steelmaker Esmark Inc. through a merger of the Russian company’s subsidiary Severstal Wheeling Acquisition Corp. with the US company. The integrated company’s name is Severstal Wheeling Holding Company, and Esmark’s shares will be de-listed from the Nasdaq.

RBC, 04.08.2008, Moscow 19:48:11.Russia’s Agriculture Ministry has proposed a series of measures to streamline the agricultural land policy which are to be considered at tomorrow’s meeting of the government’s agriculture commission, Deputy Agriculture Minister Alexander Petrikov told journalists today. Among other steps, the ministry suggests that land plots should be handed over to municipal governments after the death of their owners, fines for inefficient use or misuse of land should be increased, and the exact criteria for shifting land plots from one category to another should be clearly defined. To cut land development costs, the ministry suggests that subsidies from the federal and regional budgets should be introduced. These moves are to be implemented within a year. In the mid-term, the ministry proposes to reinforce the governments role in land development, set up a state agricultural land use monitoring system, build an agricultural land registry and restore soil fertility.

Mascot of the 1980 Olympic Games in Moscow

2014 days til 2014 Sochi olympics

Hello,

Recently, when we published a very good video of song “My years are my wealth” by Vahtang Kikabidze (“Мои года – мое богатство”, Вахтанг Кикабидзе) we found that 19 July 2008 Vahtang Kikabidze celebrated his 70th birthday! I want you to watch This great video:

http://kp.ru/daily/24135.3/354117/print/

http://www.alefmagazine.com/pub320.html

http://www.1tv.ru/owa/win/ort5_kino.kino?p_kino_title_id=5403

Svet

comments always welcome

Seems Georgia has issues with Autonomous Republics!

Hello,

So Georgia keeps killing people in the breakaway republic of South Ossetia: “It was reported on Friday evening that three people had been killed as Georgian troops continued to shell its capital, Tskhinvali.” Georgia has also: “declared a sniper war on the Republic of South Ossetia and made another attempt to unleash a large scale war,” It was also said. “The republic has so far refrained from retaliatory moves, but will not do so any more.” South Ossetia is bound and determined to be annexed by Russia and Georgia is playing the bully….. (Link)

South Ossetia has again reiterated the desire to become a part of Russia, Eduard Kokoity, who is the president of this unrecognized and breakaway province of Georgia, made the respective statement Wednesday.
“This is our responsibility to Russia and we should execute it with honor no matter how hard and tough it would be, no matter how hard and tough we have been beaten in Beslan and Tskhinvali. They beat us exactly to weaken the standing of Russia,” Kokoity announced during the news conference in Vladikavkaz.

The president emphasized that the ties of South Ossetia with North Caucasus republics of Russia have strengthened recently. “Just take a look how many representatives of these republics have recently visited South Ossetia and Abkhazia, how many calls we are receiving when the situation aggravates. Our brothers are ready to bring forward detachments of volunteers,” Kokoity said.

But South Ossetia will count on its own forces in case of the critical situation, the president promised.

South Ossetia was Georgia’s autonomy in time of the Soviet Union. But Georgia’s First President Zviad Gamsakhurdia cancelled the autonomy and attempted to resolve the problem by force. The armed conflict lasted till summer of 1992, stripping Georgia off control over a portion of South Ossetia.

South Ossetia has been seeking independence ever since but Georgia is ready to offer only the autonomy status.(Link)

Russia’s Foreign Ministry called on Saturday upon Georgia and its breakaway region of South Ossetia to show restraint and search for ways to settle the conflict without violence.

South Ossetia has not yet mobilized its population following border incidents allegedly provoked by Georgia but put its armed forces on high alert, the interior minister said on Saturday.

Georgia and Ukraine are country’s that the USA is illegally playing with. “Bush and Rasputin Dick Cheney have broken a 1991 pledge made by President Bush Senior to Soviet chairman Michael Gorbachev. In exchange for Gorby’s not using the Red Army to crush spreading revolts in East Germany and across the dying Soviet Union, Washington agreed not to advance NATO eastward toward Russia or into the old USSR. Gorbachev’s courageous, humane concession averted a crisis that could have led to a nuclear war.

Gorbachev kept his side of the bargain, allowing the Soviet Union to implode. But the US, sneering at Boris Yeltsin’s bankrupt, demoralized post-imperial Russia, quickly reneged and began advancing NATO ever closer to Russia’s borders. Washington is currently mucking around in Georgia and Ukraine, both parts of Russia’s back yard and considered seriously off limits to the western powers.

Small wonder Bush’s foolish ABM system so outrages the Russians who have every right to moral outrage and being angry as hornets. Bush’s paranoia and obsession with Iran is causing him to risk provoking a military clash with Russia. He is fast pushing Russia’s new President Dimitri Medvedev and PM Vlad Putin to the wall.

John McCain is cheering Bush on. He recently called for Russia to be expelled from the G8 and vowed that if elected president, he would “confront” Russia.” (Link)

Kyle & Svet

comments always welcome.

RBC, 01.08.2008, Moscow 19:23:51.Bank of Moscow placed 10m bonds of the first series worth a total of RUB 10bn (approx. USD 426.99m), the bank said in a statement. More than 20 bids were filed by banks, both Russian and foreign, and asset management companies on MICEX. The lower end of the range of coupon rates was at 8.74 percent. As a result of the auction, the first coupon rate was set at 9.25 percent per annum. The first coupon payment will total RUB 461.2m (approx. USD 19.69), or RUB 46.12 (approx. USD 1.97) per bond.

RBC, 01.08.2008, Moscow 18:43:24.The Russian stock market closed with most traded securities sliding today. The MICEX index edged down 0.19 percent to 1,492.55 points and the RTS index fell 1.2 percent to 1,943.05 points. Among MICEX’s biggest losers were Rosneft (down 2.37 percent), Sberbank (down 1.56 percent), Gazprom (down 1.23 percent), and Surgutneftegas (down 0.75 percent). At the same time, Norilsk Nickel climbed 5.1 percent, LUKoil rose 1.38 percent, and Severstal gained 2.19 percent.

RBC, 01.08.2008, Moscow 18:27:48.The Moscow City Court has imposed a life sentence on Leonid Nevzlin, a former YUKOS shareholder. The court found him guilty of organizing several murders, as well as of an attempted murder and an armed assault.

RBC, 01.08.2008, Minsk 17:44:12.The Belarus authorities are in talks with LUKoil and Rosneft regarding their participation in the privatization of the Naftan refinery and the Polymir petrochemical producer, both state-owned companies, Vladimir Semashko, the Belarusian First Deputy Prime Minister, said today. One of the conditions of sale, he noted, is that the potential investors need to have sales markets available and raw materials to supply to the privatized companies.

RBC, 01.08.2008, Moscow 13:23:55.The Bank of Russia will raise the reserve requirement starting September 1, 2008, the bank’s press office said. The reserve requirement will be hiked from 7 to 8.5 percent for liabilities to non-resident banks in terms of rubles or foreign currencies, from 5 to 5.5 percent for liabilities to individuals in terms of rubles, and from 5.5 to 6 percent for other liabilities.

RBC, 01.08.2008, Moscow 09:11:19.The export duty on oil has been set at $495.9 per tonne effective as of August 1, 2008. Monitoring data shows that the average price of oil stood at $123.36375 per barrel in May-June, and based on that figure the ceiling rate of duty amounts to $495.936 per tonne. The duty on light refined oil products will be $346.4 per tonne, and $186.6 per tonne on heavy oil products.

Hello,

Svet and I went on a wonderful boat ride for her birthday. (Sat. 19th,2008) We spent three fantastic hours on the Moscow River.

The boat was a large river sightseeing vessel. It had a full bar, inside dance hall, outside seats and food. The trip cost about 600 rubles ($24) each.

Svet and I had just gotten out of seeing the Chinese Circus in Moscow. We looked around at the river and realized that there was tours of the river going on. We purchased tickets and off we went. (just click pictures to enlarge)

As you can see we went through the heart of Moscow. Moscow is a very beautiful city and it was hard to pick from the pictures that we took. We took almost three hundred pictures.

In the right photo above (window) is a picture of some of the Chinese that were in the Chinese Circus! (We saw them from the boat)

We ate Pig-N-Blankets, blueberry pies and took hundreds of pictures. Svet said it was her best Birthday.

It was fun….

Kyle & Svet

comments always welcome.