Once upon a time: Attila the Hun, Napoleon of France and Alexander the Great were having a deep meaningful discussion. They were talking about what could have been…

Attila the Hun said, shaking his head sadly: “If I had machine guns, I would have conquered all of Europe!”

Alexander the Great said: “That is nothing. If I had tanks, I would have conquered all of India!”

Napoleon of France said, “Who cares about weapons?” as a tear fell from his eye, “If I had the MSM*, nobody in the world would know I was defeated by Russia!” he sniffled…

* (MSM – Mainstream Media – generic for any American/Western media)

I heard this today and really liked it. I am not much on jokes but this one just seems so possibly true…

Kyle Keeton
Windows to Russia!

A train in Russia is not a train with out steaming hot water and a constant supply of tea. I have seen Russians tolerate trains that are -30 below zero, +40 above zero and they tolerate drunks, smokers and loud mouths, but when the car we ride in does not have hot water for hot tea! Then that is riot time and Sveta will lead the riot…

Russian Railways report that their passengers drank nearly 3 million liters of tea this year. This most vital passenger drink was served in over 14 million classical 200ml glasses. This volume is enough to satisfy the population of 3 cities the size of St. Petersburg or one larger city like Moscow. Over 20 million sugar packets with a complete weight of over two hundred tons were emptied into this quantity of tea. All in all, Russian long-distance trains can carry over 54 million passengers a year…

This picture to the left is where you get hot water on a train (samovar) and the picture on the top right is how it is served. Classical Russian tea glass…

Something that the world just does not talk enough about is Russians and tea. The world likes to mention Russians and vodka, but what the world ignores is that Russians drink more tea than vodka any day. In fact I see Russians show mood change and actually get ill from not enough hot tea to drink. Russians drink hot tea like we in America drink hot coffee, plus add the way we (Americans) drink cold beverages on top of the coffee. Russians do not hardly drink any cold beverages at all. It is considered bad for you and your health to drink a beverage with ice in it…

Even after 5 years in Russia I still miss ice, once in a while. The other day I had a diet coke (called cola light) from McDonald’s and it had ice in it. I enjoyed crunching the ice (?) except there was only two small cubes of ice in the cup. That is Russia for you…

So if you travel a train in Russia and you do not like hot tea or hot coffee then you could be in trouble, because that is just about all they serve…

Or do as we do and bring your own cups, tea, coffee, chicory, water and diet cola…

Kyle Keeton
Windows to Russia!

PS: The last train ride we took, I watched a young guy about 25 years old get up every hour and a half and get a cup of hot tea. He even had his alarm set on his phone to wake him up. This went on the complete 15 hour trip. Unless he ate a meal and then he drank two or three glasses of hot tea…

PSS: I think of the  of the 20 million sugar packets that are used on the trains, I found 1 million of them in Sveta’s purse. Her purse is stuffed with sugar packets from all the train rides…

A new metro station, the world’s deepest, will be opened in downtown St. Petersburg, Russia. (?) The new station is called Admiralteiskaya and lies over 100 meters (330ft) below the surface…

Looks like this has been a long and hard project that had many obstacles in its way to completion. So for three decades this station, even though the need was great for its existence, was delayed time and time again for reasons of cash flow to old museums located on the surface…

Finally all that has become the past and now the deepest station in the world will open its doors this week… (Dec. 28th, 2011)

Of course several places claim the deepest metro station in the world…

Ukraine claims deepest station in the world (105.5 metres) is “Arsenalnaya” (“Arsenal”) in Kiev (1960). “Arsenalnaya” (“Arsenalna”, “Arsenal”) is a station on Kiev Metro’s Line 1. The station was opened along with the first stage and is currently the deepest station in the world (105.5 metres). This attributed to Kiev’s geography where the high bank of the Dnieper River rises above the rest of the city…

or

According to the unofficial information, the depth of the station “Puhung” (“Revitalization”) in the Pyongyang Metro is 120 meters. However, as you can understand, it’s very difficult to verify this information…

Kyle Keeton
Windows to Russia!

PS: Now I can vouch that the Ukraine station is really deep, since I use that station all the time…

While I personally do not call this a Russian recipe. (I do not say that too loud here in Russia though.) They (Russians) seem to think that all food started in Russia and if you have served it before and are not Russian, you just copied it from the Russians…

I have to attest that I have seen this recipe at many restaurants and such in Russia and Russians love their cauliflower made this way. I am starting to see a pattern in Russian food and what I see goes like this: Food is (has) not always (been) plentiful and what you do have as food has got to be nutritious and simple. High calories are a main stay in foods and that seems to be in line with my thinking’s. Portions are not big and what you do eat has to be enough to survive on, until the next meal, if it comes. You also have to make do with what you personally have on hand and raise / grow…

So lets make Crumbled Cauliflower from the basic that you would have on hand at home…

Ingredients:

1 fresh cauliflower (about 450g) broken or cut up into small pieces…
Salt for boiling purposes…
8 tbsp. + Butter for frying…
2 Eggs, lightly beaten until even colored…
70g Fresh Breadcrumbs very finely crumbled…

Instructions:

1. Bring a large sauce pan of salted water to a boil…

2. Add cauliflower to the salted boiling water, return to a boil then reduce the heat and simmer uncovered, for 10-15 minutes until slightly tender. Drain very well and pat dry with kitchen paper. Cauliflower should be rubbery…

3. Melt the butter and oil in a large frying skillet. Dip the cauliflower pieces first in the beaten eggs and then in the breadcrumbs, if not covered well repeat the process…

4. Then saute in the hot butter for 2-3 minutes on each side, or until golden brown, adding more butter as needed.

5. Serve immediately as they are really yummy and so simple to make and serves around 4 people. Be prepared though, your family will munch these up as fast as you fry them…

So that is how you make Crumbed Cauliflower a Russian way and style…

Kyle Keeton
Windows to Russia!

Gotta love it and right now the Western press is having a cow over what Russia has just done. I have always said that it is a example of the pot calling the kettle black and now the kettle struck back. I mean the Western press is flat out screaming. There are hundreds of articles demeaning Russia about this report they put out and it looks like the report is mainly centered on America and Europe…

Criticizing the United States for double standards, Russia said President Barack Obama had failed to shut the military prison at Guantanamo Bay and accused the White House of sheltering officials and CIA operatives from prosecution…

The Foreign Ministry’s report “On the situation with human rights in a host of world states,” follows China’s example in highlighting U.S. failings in an attempt to counter U.S. State Department criticism of domestic human rights abuses…

“The situation in the United States is far from the ideals proclaimed by Washington,” Russia’s foreign ministry said in a 63-page report posted on its www.mid.ru Web site. “The main unresolved problem is the odious prison in Guantanamo Bay.”

“The White House and the Justice Department shelter from prosecution CIA operatives and highly placed officials who are responsible for mass and flagrant breaches of human rights,” it said…

Every year since 1976, the U.S. Department of State has published a detailed report on the state of human rights in the world, often with scathing analyses of abuses in China and Russia…

Washington scolded Russia for “governmental and societal human rights problems and abuses during the year” in its report published in April…

Russia also criticized European Union countries for the treatment of religious minorities and Britain in particular for breaching human rights in the wake of August’s riots…

The report focused on the United States and European countries, mentioning China only once and then in passing…

I think that this is a good start and that is the same thing that I thought about it when China did the same thing earlier in the year. It is time that the East started to fire back at the West and as long as the Western world plays abusive games let the all members play the same game…

I have to laugh at the response that is happening from the West. They really dislike having someone point out their flaws and tell the world about them…

Of course this is just the start of the end and it is going to get rough at one point in the future…

But as my grandma would have said, “Sauce for a Goose is Sauce for a Gander!”

Sorry America but the world is just not gonna look the other way anymore and if you keep it up, then expect the world to start pushing back harder…

Kyle Keeton
Windows to Russia!

PS: I always say, “Look in the mirror first and fix what you see wrong there before criticizing others!” Looks like Russia and China are tired of being criticized by hypocrites…