Year: 2008

RBC, 11.01.2008, Moscow 17:16:33.GM-AVTOVAZ produced 55,052 Chevrolet Niva and Chevrolet Viva cars in 2007, up 15 percent from the previous year, the automobile manufacturer’s press office said in a statement today. The company’s sales grew 14 percent to 54,610 cars. In particular, 6,457 cars were sold in the CIS. By the end of 2007, the company’s dealer network included 121 dealerships in 79 Russian cities and a further 9 in the CIS.

RBC, 11.01.2008, Moscow 16:17:14.Russia’s trade surplus increased 45.82 percent to $13.453bn in November 2007 compared to the same month a year earlier, the Bank of Russia reported. The estimates were given on a balance-of-payments basis. Exports grew 41.1 percent to $36.124bn and imports rose 38.4 percent to $22.571bn. Foreign trade according to the balance-of-payments methodology amounted to $445.935bn in January-October 2007, a 20.8 percent increase from the same period a year earlier…..(Click: read more)

RBC, 11.01.2008, Moscow 16:08:43.Ukraine supplied 4.621bn kilowatt-hours of electricity to Central and Eastern European countries in 2007, down 6.8 percent from the previous year’s figure, the republic’s Fuel and Energy Ministry stated. Electricity exports to the CIS fell 16.9 percent to 4.553bn kilowatt-hours, while imports from a number of countries, including Russia, reached 34m kilowatt-hours in 2007. Ukraine did not import electricity in 2006. Electricity exports to Central and Eastern European countries decreased 12.5 percent to 356m kilowatt-hours in December 2007 compared to the corresponding month a year earlier. Meanwhile, supplies to the CIS dropped 65.2 percent to 252m kilowatt-hours.

RBC, 11.01.2008, Moscow 15:40:17.Russia’s gold and currency reserves stood at $476.4bn on January 1,2008. Therefore, the reserves grew 0.5 percent, or $2.4bn within the last three days of 2007. As a result, the Bank of Russia’s reserves went up a total of $172.7bn, or 57 percent from the previous year. In 2007, Russia has been able to somewhat narrow the huge gap separating it from China and Japan, the world’s leaders in terms of gold and foreign exchange reserves.

RBC, 11.01.2008, Chisinau 14:11:19.In 2007, Moldova increased its currency reserves by a factor of 1.7, the National Bank of Moldova told RBC. As of December 21, 2007, the bank’s currency reserves reached USD 1,333.68m, up from USD 775.29m a year earlier. By the end of the first half of 2007, the reserves stood at USD 878.52m, and the level of USD 1bn was beaten in late August 2007. The rise in currency reserves is attributable to the National Bank’s acquisition of currency surplus resulting from contributions by guest workers as well as new loan tranches from the International Monetary Fund. Earlier, Moldova’s Prime Minister Vasily Tarlev said that the steady growth of the nation’s currency reserves proved its financial stability and encouraged foreign investment.

RBC, 11.01.2008, Moscow 11:39:47.At today’s special dollar trading session for tomorrow deals, the low on deals is currently at 24.35 RUB/USD, RUB 0.13, or over 0.5 percent, below the official dollar rate set by the Bank of Russia for January 11, 2008. The dollar’s recession against the ruble has been prompted by the euro’s steady rise on the global market, where it is now buying some USD 1.4810, up from USD 1.48 at today’s open, and from USD 1.4670 yesterday morning. As a result, the weighted average dollar exchange rate has slipped as low as 24.36 RUB/USD.

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News off the wire!

“Russia’s government has approved the federal bill on the RF joining the World Health Organization’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control. The respective decision was taken at the cabinet’s meeting.
Joining the convention means Russia will introduce a number of restrictions for cigarette producers in the nearest five years, banning the tobacco advertising, sponsorship and sales promotion in part and in whole.

Any state that signed the convention has three years to eliminate any chance for misleading a buyer as to the supposedly lower harm done by the light or superlight cigarettes vs. the ordinary ones. The tobacco producers will have to inform about all components of tobacco smoke and the warning inscription will cover at least 30 percent of each pack.

According to the WHO, smoking tobacco kills each fourth in Russia. Passive smoking is of equal danger, as it increases the risk of lung cancer by 34 percent and the risk of vascular pathology by 50 percent.”(link)
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“Russians die not of disease, but of alcohol, smoking and bad diet. And no proper measures capable of easing the effects of these factors are anywhere in sight,” says the daily.

“Talking about low birth rates in Russia is a habit,” the daily quotes Kirill Danishevsky, a consultant at the Open Institute of Health, as saying. “In the meantime, in this respect we are little different from the European countries. It is a far more complex puzzle why we and our near neighbors – Ukraine and Belarus – are states unique from the standpoint of mortality statistics. On the average Russian men die at the age of 56-58, while many of their counterparts in the West live to 78.

Medics say over-drinking kills 500,000 people with heart problems. Most of them had never complained about bad health. Few know that two bottles of vodka consumed over a period of less than two hours are a lethal dose for most Russians. Analysts say that on holidays and on weekends many of those who drink fall short of the lethal dose by a very narrow margin.

One hundred and sixty thousand of those who die of injuries are victims of hard drinking as well. Alcohol is involved in nearly 80 percent of all murders. These are committed not by maniacs or habitual felons, but by drinking pals.

Tobacco is the second worst killer. According to estimates, 65 percent of Russian men and 30 percent of women are chain smokers. About half of them die of smoking-related diseases.

Kyle

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Hello,

I was drinking my morning cup of coffee and realized that Christmas still has one more time to be celebrated!

On the 7th of January, (in Russia) it is a Religious Holiday for Christmas….(Click: read more for the rest of the article.)
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“Christmas is NOT celebrated in Russia on January 7th. It is celebrated on December 25th. Of course, the follow up question would be “When is December 25th?”

Pre-revolutionary Russia used the Julian calendar universally, i.e. for government, personal purposes and church purposes. When the Soviet government changed to the Gregorian calendar, the Russian Orthodox Church did not make the change. They continued using the Julian calendar, which is (currently) 13 days behind the Gregorian calendar.

Since Christmas is a religious holiday, it was not celebrated as a Soviet state holiday (focus during the Soviet era was on New Year). As a religious holiday, it continued to be celebrated in churches and in homes, privately, on December 25 – but, the December 25 used by the Church. Even with the fall of the Soviet Union, the Church still uses the Julian calendar.

Think of it this way: Go to Moscow. Buy a newspaper on January 7. Look at the date – sure enough, it will say January 7. Walk into a Russian Orthodox church, carrying that newspaper. As soon as you enter the church, it is, for all practical purposes, December 25. (No, the newspaper will not change the printed date). Any announcements, bulletins, Gospel readings etc. will reflect that today is December 25. Turn around, walk out of the church and, as soon as you exit, it is January 7.

It should be plain to see, but this also means that the date for celebrating Russian Christmas is not connected to January 6 as Epiphany, as Julian January 6 falls on Gregorian January 19, which is Russian Epiphany (usually called “Theophany” in the Russian Church).”
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So, I have found it very interesting in Russia! The past has created a managerie out of the Winter Holiday Season!

That is why I love Russia!

Kyle & Svet
http://kylekeeton.com/2007/12/russia-holidays-are-far-from-over.html

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At least 5,000 Russian citizens to celebrate Orthodox Christmas in Israel

MOSCOW. Jan 4 (Interfax) – Five thousand Russian pilgrims will celebrate Orthodox Christmas in the Holy Land in Israel this year – three times more than in 2007, Yury Minulin, the director general of the Radonezh travel company, has announced.

Radonezh organizes pilgrimage tours in Russia and abroad.

“These figures are based on the assessment of the flights from Moscow to Tel Aviv sold by Russia’s Transaero and Sibir (S7) and Israel’s El Al airlines,” Minulin said in an interview with the Interfax-Tourism portal.

In all, these companies are expected to fly between 12,000 and 15,000 Russian travelers to Israel by January 6, half of them tourists and those who intend to see relative. The other passengers are pilgrims and business people, he said. sd
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Kyle

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Hello,

Svet and I love to drive, but the normal drive is like this.(Video)

It really does take 3 to 6 hours to get out of Moscow!

We thought you might like to see some Moscow traffic!

Kyle & Svet

comments always welcome.

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RBC, 03.01.2008, Moscow 10:25:16.Urals Energy Plc. has announced that Morgan Stanley Securities Limited, which acted as the manager of the leading Russian independent oil company’s private share offering, has exercised its over-allotment option. Morgan Stanley purchased 1,643 shares, or nearly 5 percent of the offering. Urals Energy Plc placed 32,857m shares worth a total of GBR65.6m (USD132m) worth of shares on December 5, according to the company’s statement.

RBC, 03.01.2008, Moscow 11:32:06.HydroOGK is planning to rebrand in late January – early February 2008, the Russian power generation company said in a statement today. The company did not specify, which name the consolidated company would use. However, RusHydro was among the proposed names.As reported earlier, HydroOGK is undergoing restructuring in the form of consolidation with electric power plants and is scheduled to start operating as a unified company on January 9. Its shares are projected to be listed on Russian stock exchanges in April 2008. The company’s GDR program is to start in March 2008….(Click: read more)

RBC, 03.01.2008, Moscow 11:42:48.The Moscow government’s 2008 program provides for the construction of some 5.3m square meters of real estate in Moscow. About 1m square meters of housing are projected to be built in the center of the city, including 675,000 square meters of commercial building and 325,000 square meters of housing.Some 4.8m square meters of residential buildings were introduced in 2007.

RBC, 03.01.2008, Moscow 12:42:14.Some 28 hotels are to be opened in Moscow in 2008, the Moscow city government’s representative told RBC today. Vladimir Resin, Deputy Mayor of Moscow signed a decree to this effect. According to the document, 21 hotels are projected to be opened in the center of the city, and the total amount of hotel rooms is anticipated to exceed 5,200.About 3.5m people come to Moscow annually and the figure is estimated to reach 5m in 2010 and 20m in 2025. More than half of tourists coming to Moscow are Russian citizens.

RBC, 03.01.2008, Tbilisi 13:43:56.Georgia’s presidential candidate Badri Patarkatsishvili released a statement today confirming his decision to run for President in the elections scheduled for January 5, 2008. Earlier, Patarkatsishvili’s campaign headquarters had been considering filing a refusal to take part in the elections on behalf of Badri Patarkatsishvili on January 4.

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Hello,

This is Putins farewell 2007 & looking forward to 2008 Speech!

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Hello,

I was drinking my after dinner coffee! (It is a Holiday so I get to drink two cups of coffee!) I was thinking how delicious dinner was.

We had my old time traditional, New Years Dinner, It is now our “Traditional, New Years Dinner!” ; New potatoes, black-eyed peas, fatback and corn on the cob! Svet said:”Yummy, Yummy!”

We had an article on why we eat these foods at New Years; Last night we followed Russian traditions, today we followed American traditions. I truly think that it is a toss up to which is better. All New Year Food is great!

Happy New Year, from:

Svet & Kyle

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