Category: Russia

From what I see there use to be an option on Russian election ballots that allowed Russians to vote against all parties involved in said elections. They could express that all options to vote for were so bad that they did not want to vote for anyone…

A Just Russia party leader Sergei Mironov, the former Federal Council speaker, called Friday on President Dmitry Medvedev to again give Russians the option to vote “Against All” in elections.

“We consider it necessary to return the Against All option to the election law and the voting ballots. People with solid citizenship want to express their point of view, and now we are depriving them of this right,” Mironov said during a meeting with Medvedev.

Mironov said that when there is no suitable candidate on offer and no Against All option on the ballot, people see no sense in going to the polls. He added that the Against All column is a “barometer of society’s well-being.”

There was no information about Medvedev’s response.

Now this is a great idea for Russia to reinstate and for America to add to her ballots. Instead of voting for the best of the two evils you can vote – “Against All”… 🙂

Can you imaging 51% or more of the people vote against all? Looks like it would be time to find some better candidates…

That could be a powerful tool to have on a ballot…

Windows to Russia!

Looks like Russia is on a roll: What with a June 15th 2011 deadline. Russia will put a ban on the import of all beef from Brazil for “sanitation worries.” (?) Russia has also banned the import of potatoes from Egypt because of “sanitation worries.” (?) Then of course we have all heard that because of the outbreak of E. coli found in European vegetables, Russia’s sanitary watchdog has banned all imports of vegetables from Europe…

Is there a master chess move behind all thee banning of food imports? Or was someone bored and need to spice international life up around the world?

Maybe Russia will ban chicken again from America and is German pork still banned in Russia?

I guess we will just watch and see what comes out of all this… 🙂

Windows to Russia!

Update: Russia’s ban on vegetable imports from the European Union goes against the norms of the World Trade Organization, EU representative in Moscow Fernando Valenzuela said on Friday. Valenzuela said that the EU believed that Russia was on the final stage of talks to join the world trade club, which implies accepting WTO agreements on sanitary norms. Valenzuela said Russia’s vegetable imports from the EU amount to 600 million euros and play an important role in bilateral trade relations…

Well it all makes sense now! One thing that Putin has made clear is that Russia is not in the WTO and does not need to follow the rules. It costs Russia money to follow the rules and not be a member. So until Russia is made a member. Putin told everyone to quit following WTO rules. It just makes sense and Russia being the last powerhouse of an economy to be blocked form joining the WTO really has no financial reason to obey the WTO rules. If WTO wants Russia to follow the rules then WTO needs to make Russia a member and not expects something for nothing…

Putin on acquiring WTO and obligations: Putin said, Russia is being forced to “sustain losses” and “gets nothing out of a membership that isn’t,”.

“Why in hell would they admit us (WTO) if we do everything anyway? Russia is doing for free that which costs money!”

He then said, “Here is a direct order – don’t do that,”.

“I am asking you – and also tell this to our partners: We will not fulfill anything until we become full fledged members,” Putin said.

http://windowstorussia.com/quote-of-the-day-russias-putin-04082011.html

Just plain makes sense now… 🙂

Geidar Jemal, chairman of the Islamic Council of Russia:

First, I think that the NATO declaration about its readiness to prolong the bombings of Libya for some 90 days is a sign of weakness, because previously I remember they were telling us about their readiness to bomb as long as necessary.

Now limiting the bombings by a certain period of time, by 90 days, surely marks transformation of a very hard policy into something more rational. 90 days is not as long as necessary, because nobody understands what time is necessary. So, 90 days is a sign of unstableness, of certain confusion, because they were certainly expecting Gaddafi to cry ‘Uncle!’ after the first 3 days of bombing, maybe a week of bombing.

But we’ve been witnessing several months of severe punishment, which is given to Libya, to its civil population – because we should take into account the information coming from the Libyan government about more than 7,000 of civil victims of these bombings. This has been going on and on, and nobody sees any end to it. So, 90 days is a manifestation of confusion among European Union’s political and military leaders. It’s absolutely obvious that they are losing the war.

And the European Parliament is divided into factions. There’s a faction advocating peace, which is going to take some measures against Berlusconi and Sarkozy. And the public opinion is also divided. People know there are civil casualties in Libya, and no one believes in humanitarian goals of the European Union. So, 90 days may be a shadow of defeat looming over political leaders.

And certainly this is not helping Sarkozy in his campaign for presidency, same as it is not helping him down his rival Strauss-Kahn, who was charged with sexual harassment. Everybody understands that it was the actual French president who initiated the case. And it didn’t help Sarkozy to remove his adversary from the political scene. Libya is much the same case. He thought it would be a short victorious war with declared humanitarian rules. But everyone understands now Sarkozy proved to be just a fool, who put himself into a very uncomfortable situation – himself and Europe too.

I think Gaddafi is playing very cleverly, that times works for him. And even if he doesn’t manage to keep his post and leaves the country, he’s done the European Union so much harm – not by himself, but the European Union, through him, has done so much harm to itself, it is European Union’s guilt – that this harm with stay with the Europeans. Nobody will ever say that the European Union helps peoples to do away with totalitarian regimes.

Everybody understands that it is an absolutely inhuman intrusion into the interior life of peoples and so below the European morality that it had been hardly imaginable before all this happened. Now we see that Europe is absolutely hypocritical, that it thinks in double standards. And 90 days is, I think, a declaration of defeat.

Geidar Jemal

Original Source: http://english.ruvr.ru/2011/06/02/51200012.html

We took a pleasant journey this weekend to our village home. Thought you might be interested in what we pay for gasoline and propane here in Russia…

Filled up the tank with petrol (gasoline) this week – 21 rubles a liter…
Filled up the LPG (propane) tank this week – 14 rubles a liter…

3.78541178 liters = 1 gallon…

79.5 rubles per gallon for petrol (gasoline) = $2.84 an American gallon for gasoline…
53 rubles per gallon for LPG (propane) = $1.89 per American gallon for propane…

Our trip we just took was just a few km short of a 1000km and we drove all but about 10km on propane. No issues on getting fuel at any time and no waiting lines for fuel anywhere…

Gotta love that LPG…

Windows to Russia!

PS: I keep seeing the medias in the West proclaim that Russia is collapsing from Fuel shortage.  I have yet to see a gasoline issue in Russia. Lines at the Moscow stations are normal for the 5 years that I have lived here. Propane is not an issue. Moscow is the only place that seems to have high prices but that is easy to get around, just look at the prices before you buy. There can be as much as 5 or 6 rubles difference in price per liter and the stations are right next to each other… 🙂

I was sipping that great cup of coffee this morning and doing some thinking’s on what I have watched developed during the last year between Russia and China. It has been a low key development and the Russian news has been giving tidbits of information about the energy plans being geared toward China by Russia. Low key on the news front but huge on the energy front…

An example of this information is this : Russian Deputy Prime-Minister Igor Sechin said on Tuesday following the seventh round of the China-Russia energy negotiators’ meeting that Russia will finalize a 30-year deal with China by the 10th of June to supply a total of 68 billion cubic meters of gas annually… (Read More >>>)

Now my thoughts over that morning cup of coffee were about all the new pipelines for oil and gas lines, that have been built or being built to China. This weekend I watched trains with oil tank and coal cars going toward China. The trains had hundreds of cars attached full of oil and coal. I am here to tell you that China is taking all the oil and gas that Russia will give to her and if China could get all of Europe’s oil and gas they would take that also. The only thing that has stemmed the flow of gas is a price haggling between Russia and China for now and that will soon be overcome…

I did an article a year or so ago about how all oil was transported to China by train car from Russia. Then Russia opened a oil pipeline. The pipeline is flowing and the train cars are still rolling… (That should tell you something!)

Russia and China are also close to an agreement to build a joint oil refinery and that will signal a beginning of a new market era in oil byproducts between Russia and China…

China is an energy consumer and Russia is an energy supplier. That alone ensures that they will be in bed together and they live right next door to each other to boot…

Windows to Russia!

The World’s BreadbasketBy Andrew Roth

Russia Profile06/01/2011On July 1 Russia will not renew its export ban on grain products that has been in place since August 2010, Vladimir Putin told reporters on May 28. The possibility of an additional 15 million tons of grain for the world market, as some have projected, would come at an important moment when American and European countries are facing poor harvests and the world market is looking for additional supplies. While analysts are optimistic about grain exporters’ reentry into foreign markets, obstacles include possible future tariffs and export quotas, as well as questions about Russia’s future reliability as a grain exporter.

Windows to Russia!

Obama’s Russia ‘Reset’: Another Lost Opportunity?
By Stephen F. Cohen

Obama’s decision to base his Russia policy on a partnership with the presumed “liberal” Medvedev, in the hope of promoting his political fortunes over Putin’s, has further limited support for the reset in Moscow. (Like the US media, Obama and his advisers continue to denigrate Putin as a leader with “one foot in the old ways” and even one who, as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton once remarked, “doesn’t have a soul.”) This political wager on Medvedev repeats the longstanding White House practice of mistaking a personal friend in the Kremlin—“my friend Dmitri,” Obama calls Medvedev—for broad support in the Russian policy class. Indeed, openly backing Medvedev for the Russian presidency in 2012, as Biden did so improperly while in Moscow in March, has revived the Russian elite’s resentment over US interference in its internal affairs and reinforced the view that only Putin can be trusted not to “sell out Russia to the West.”…

Article source: http://www.thenation.com/article/161063/obamas-russia-reset-another-lost-opportunity

Oops – You should have a good read on this article. It is what I have been saying for over a year now about what is happening in Russia and the American reset farce…

Windows to Russia!

PS: Our Search Reset Link – http://www.google.com/cse?cx=partner-pub-6949949917702753%3Aqac5zxa3urv&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=reset&sa=Search

The news media is working up the frenzy against Yemen. This change in tactics came about on the heels of China telling the dogs to back down over Pakistan and Russia telling the same dogs to go home over Syria…

Fighting continues in Yemen capital: (Link)
Days of armed clashes between tribal fighters and government troops have turned Sanaa into a battleground…

Yemen Worse Than Libya: (Link)
Diplomats describe Yemen as “worse than Libya” as dozens die in clashes…

Plus hundreds more links of total disparage and death in Yemen…

Maybe the West can do a humanitarian (war) mission in Yemen also. I am sure the people deserve to be saved and murdered just like the people in Libya are being saved and murdered by NATO…

Wow – maybe we can get into another short war. Like Libya…

Windows to Russia!

Sveta and I just had a wonderful long weekend at our village that is called Sunrise to Freedom. I have written many articles about this village. This is a link to our articles on Sunrise to Freedom… (Read More >>>)

So this morning as I was drinking that wonderful cup of coffee. I was thinking about the village and how nice it would be to live there. It is so much the same as when I grew up in America that it really makes me homesick for the old days…

We have electricity in the village house, but that is where the niceties stop. You walk to the well and fill up buckets with water and wood is the fuel of choice to heat water, unless you are fancy like us and have propane. But propane is in small tanks and you have to haul those tanks yourself. Also finding propane is easy but finding someone with enough energy to fill it is another story all together. You also have the modern convenience of outhouses to let you know that you are in the modern world…

Speaking of outhouse ours survived the winter. Sveta and I rebuilt the outhouse and after the tons of snow that fell this last winter, I was sure that it would be crushed into the ground. But it was not! We also had re-supported our back overhang on the house and Sveta was sure that that would be on the ground. But it looks like Sveta and I are pretty good at “Jury rigging” because it all still stood strong and solid… 🙂

I realized that one of the attractions of the village is the fact that what you do is up to you and know one is there to tell you that you can not build that, or cut that, or smash that and or eat that…

Another true pleasure in the village is fresh goats milk. Our neighbor almost always supplies us with goats milk. That is as long as she has extra. This year momma goat has had four kids and by that fact she is producing a ton of milk. The kids are eating solids now and so momma goat is a milk producing machine at this particular moment. Sveta and I got several liters of goats milk while we were there this time and that makes for a perfect weekend. Raw goats milk is the best bar none. Real cream for the coffee and just shake the rest up good for the best glass of milk that you can find…

Our village is located near a fish farm that produces literally tons of farm raised carp. Carp is a delicacy in Russia. So there is always people coming and going taking care of the fish. Several of the men that still live in our village work on the fish farm…

So Sveta and I had a wonderful weekend and when we got home I realized that it was Memorial day weekend in America. But for Sveta and I, it was a weekend full of special memories and fun. For me it was also another trip back down memory lane to a time that was definitely cleaner, better and more fun than what the world has turned into…

Windows to Russia!

PS: Sveta and I will make several more trips to the village this year. We have lots of work to do on the old village home and we need to make sure that she will be a good village home for years to come…

Something that is very interesting while traveling Russia is the unheard of growth everywhere that you see while traveling. I mean unbelievable growth of businesses. Businesses from all over the world…

The real interest in this growth for me started the last train trip to Ukraine. I was on a day time train and had a good window seat. I was stunned at the factories being built and warehouses being built. There had to have been at one point 50 km of nothing but newly built warehouses in various stages of completion. I recognized many German names among the companies and one of the biggest warehouses that I have ever seen in my life belonged to the Broen company of Denmark. I quit counting at a hundred docks for big tractor trailer rigs in a row…

This interest that I filed away in my head, extended over into this latest trip that Sveta and I just took to our village. I spent the driving part of the trip studying the changes in business along the way to our village. Now we travel about 400 km on way so we get a good look at what is happening way down south of Moscow…

Sveta and I saw many upon many new warehouses being built and all kinds of new economic growth happening on our excursion to our village. One thing that was a pleasant surprise was the amounts of new roads being built and the highways that we traveled this time were tip top modern highways. Road construction everywhere…

One village near the little village that we go to had a huge chicken farm. It was brand smacking new. I saw it last year when the beginnings of the farm was being started and I had no idea at that time what it was. But now it is clear that it is a chicken farm. It looks like a modern American chicken farm in America. They have neglected to put up a sign telling us who owns this farm. But it is fenced and guarded and I know what a modern Chicken farm looks like. This is in fact a antibiotics fed chicken farm for mass produced very fat unhealthy chicken meat. Looks like someone has figured out how to get by the Russian rules on chicken. And I will lay money on the fact that an American company is behind it… 🙁

The plain fact is that everywhere Sveta and I went this weekend we saw new buildings, new businesses, new construction and thriving older businesses. I saw lots of new tractors in the fields and a whole bunch more old fields opened up and planted this year. In fact Sveta and I saw hundreds of new farm trucks running the roads from farm to farm. They are Russian made (KAMAZ) and orange in color. There also is four new John Deere dealers and two new Cummins dealers (Plus a Cummins factory) in the various small towns. If that tells you anything at all. (It tells me something!) It is strange to see John Deere green in the Russian fields…

I have a head for noticing things and that is what insured my survival in many past situations and excelled my business escapades. I can assure you that lots of money is being circulated in the farm arena in Russia…

On top of the money being circulated. Sveta and I noticed this time that there is kids everywhere. We are out in the middle of nowhere and we see 4 or 5, (around 8 to 12 year old) boys fishing and shooting BB guns. The classic moment was seeing three boys sitting on a creek bank with fishing poles and a little Dachshund dog protecting them and telling them how to fish… 🙂 They were 10 km from the nearest village…

That is what I call fishing…

Windows to Russia!