Category: Russia

In Russia the term bifocal is known, but the availability is lacking of such glasses. Sveta just picked up my new glasses and that is what I am contemplating today over that wonderful cup of coffee…

When you get older, you one day realize that father time has been sneaking up on you. So now I have a set of glasses that compensate for what age takes away from us…

But in Russia getting those bifocals is not an easy process. In America I just would go to the local pharmacy chain store and find a whole rack of reading glasses. They would have bifocals there also. I found a pair of bifocal sunglasses before I left America years ago, but they are no good inside the flat…

Russia has access to lots of reading glasses but not bifocals. They look at you like you are nuts and bifocals are a very special order form the eye doctor. Other words, “What the heck do you need bifocals for?”

Well I wanted bifocals because that is what makes me happy and comfortable. But that really is not a good enough reason in Russia, except to my sweetie of course and she helped me get bifocals in Russia… 🙂

So we went to the eye doctor and got my eyes checked then went to an eyeglass place and I got fitted for glasses. It took a week and I had my bifocals. But not without the eyeglass place trying to sell me twenty different variations on my glasses. They said I should have no line bifocals, anti-glare bifocals, gradient bifocals and so on and so on and so on…

Actually everything was acceptable until we got to the price. At 5900 rubles ($200) I balked and really questioned the sanity of Russian eyeglass places. But these were prescription type glasses and the Luca brand frames and in Russia this was a special type of glasses and that means, “You pay out the nose for special…” I said no way but Sveta evidently thought that overriding my decision was in order in this situation and went and ordered them anyway…

So I now sit here and type on the computer and I can actually see the keyboard plus the computer screen as clear as can be. I guess Sveta was right, I needed them, whether I think they were too expensive or not…

That is why Sveta is my Sweetie…

Windows to Russia!

The lower house of the Russian parliament on Tuesday approved a bill increasing fines for bribes by up to 100 times the amount of the bribe given or accepted.

The offer or promise of mediation in bribe-taking, including the physical handing over of the bribe, carries a fine of 25,000 to 500 million rubles ($880 to $18 million) combined with a work ban of up to three years.

Over 60% of people convicted of bribery in 2010 received a bribe of under 25,000 rubles with about 3% convicted of accepting a bribe between 150,000 rubles ($5,000) to 1 million rubles ($33,000), according to presidential envoy to the State Duma Garry Minkh.

The bill provides for custodial sentence as an alternative to a fine, which has led critics to argue the new law is open to interpretation and could lead to abuses.

They have also suggested that the size of bribes might grow as a result.

President Dmitry Medvedev’s anti-corruption drive has so far yielded few practical results.

The number of corruption-related crimes involving top government officials and large bribes increased 100% in 2010 year-on-year, Russian Interior Minister Rashid Nurgaliyev said in January.

The Berlin-based non-governmental anti-corruption organization Transparency International has persistently rated Russia as one of the most corrupt nations in the world. In the 2009 Corruption Perception Index, Russia was ranked 146 out of 180 countries, with a ranking below countries like Togo, Pakistan and Libya.

Windows to Russia!

A troy ounce of gold has for the first time exceeded $1500 dollars at the Hong Kong Exchange. Investors are turning to gold and silver as an alternative currency amid fears of an increase in the US state debt and the weakening of the dollar. Here in Russia we watch the gold make a slow but steady climb up the ladder. It is not a wild ride like we have seen in the past but a slow but impossibly steady rise that is ignored by almost everyone…

But in Russia and China they are hording gold as fast as they can. It seems that the warning signs are being ignored by the West except for the ones you all try to call crackpots. In the East it is seriously buy gold, then buy some more. In the East a crackpot is one who does not buy gold and silver. Also they do not believe in gold stocks or papers. It must be real gold and in your hand. For if it is not in your hand then it is not worth more than the paper it is printed on, in times of issues…

I remember in 2006 that Russia was silently stocking gold and silver. (Link) I remember in 2008 that Russian billionaires were moving into gold. (Link) I remember that in 2009 that Russia expressed a desire for gold to become a backing for world currency. (Link) I remember that Russia is increasing her gold reserves at a tremendous pace. (Link)…

All this time Russia, China, India and many many other countries are silently exchanging moderate amounts of worthless paper we call money, for gold and silver. They are doing this at a controlled pace and hoping to accomplish a change over in their holdings of foreign currencies before the world finances crash again. This is not well publicized and when it becomes publicized it will be too late…

I know that the holdings that Russia has of dollars is much less than a few years ago. The sting that happened when Americas finances crashed hurt Russia and she has decided to put a huge buffer between America and Russia this time…

Looks like we may get to see if Russia is better prepared than last time because things are looking real bad around the world as America and Europe struggle with debt that is only imaginable in horror stories and fairy tales…

Windows to Russia!

If it is from Siberia it has to be true – right? I could care less if this is real or not but when I find things about UFOs I just have to post it…

About a month ago this story was floated in the airwaves on a major UFO event that occurred in the region of Irkutsk in Russia’s Siberia. It was explained off as a most likely fake. But several hundred villagers say they saw a huge object, glowing pink and blue, hurtle towards Earth before loudly impacting the ground in a wooded area . The event received widespread coverage in Russia and was reported by Russia’s Inter-fax. An enormous team of Russian government officials, including military personal, secret service agents and science ministry officials made their way to the UFO crash site within hours of the event occurring. Now it seems a video has been leaked onto YouTube showing a dead Alien (see the video below), found in the Republic of Buryatia, not far from the site of the UFO crash…

Is the alien found in this video from that crash? Did it manage to leave the crash site only to die as a result of Russia’s harsh conditions and its injuries? I do happen to remember news about the sightings a month ago. The Russians blogs were lit up with posts…

Warning: the below video possibly contains graphic images…

What seems to be a tiny dead alien is becoming a YouTube sensation. It has gone over a million hits and climbing…

As I said whether it is real or not, is not the point…

But you have to say there has been some interesting stories come out of Siberia. It may have to do with the fact that they are frozen year around and have to do something to keep them busy…

I would say finding dead aliens would qualify as staying busy…

Lets hope they (aliens) don’t come to get their buddies body…

Windows to Russia!

Boza and I just finished a walk. We found our first garden area with bulbs coming up. I knew that flowers had to be at least starting to grow but it has been such a mud bath that we have not been able to get anywhere but the sidewalks. Today Boza and I could walk around behind the buildings in the yards without sinking to our knees… 🙂

Yippy – We found flowers growing…

Now it feels like Spring, even though it was -2 below Celsius last night…

Windows to Russia!

PS: The real faint red spot in the upper right corner is a person cleaning their garden. Many people fence off a small garden area in Moscow. (Or at least try, they usually can get away with it…)

Moscow city authorities are looking for investors to build a Disneyland-like park in the Russian capital, a city government official said on Monday.

“We are constantly in talks with companies that would be interested in such an ambitious project,” Sergei Cheremin, head of the city government’s foreign trade department, said.

Negotiations are ongoing with a number of large European and Russian financial institutions and banks because the project’s implementation “will require the creation of an international consortium,” he added.

Russian investors are showing significant interest in such a project, Cheremin said.

The project should be located on a plot of at least 100 hectares near the city’s outer ring road, he added.

Hummm, Interesting! But could it be open enough during the year to be profitable? With 6 to 7 months of snow and Winter…

Windows to Russia!

This video and interview follow my thoughts pretty close. Russia Today does an interview with Alan J. Kuperman, a professor at the University of Texas argued there is simply no evidence Qaddafi was targeting civilians, therefore there is no possibility Obama could have had evidence or reason to enter Libya and begin a military intervention…

“Civilians are caught in the middle,” he said. “We didn’t stop a bloodbath but we (West) are prolonging and perpetuating the suffering of civilians in Libya.”

He argued that Qaddafi is targeting rebel fighters. There was never a bloodbath of civilians at the hands of Qaddafi…

“We knew that if we wanted – if we waited one more day, Benghazi, a city nearly the size of Charlotte, could suffer a massacre that would have reverberated across the region and stained the conscience of the world,” Obama said in a speech…

“If Qaddafi were trying to massacre civilians there would be thousands killed, not a couple hundred killed,” Kuperman remarked…

Qaddafi said he would show no mercy to rebels, he did not speak about civilians. He even said rebel fighters who laid down their arms and surrendered would receive mercy, explained Kuperman…

“He made clear would not target civilians,” he said. “Obama exaggerated the threat.”

The Libya issue is a huge fabricated lie by the West…

The one thing that has come out about this situation on this side of the world is that more civilians have been been killed by and because of the coalition, than Qaddafi caused…

“A lie told often enough becomes truth!” – credited to Vladimir Lenin…
“Make the lie big, make it simple, keep saying it, and eventually they will believe it!” – credited to Adolf Hitler…

Windows to Russia!

Over the next two weeks. I will be doing 3 or 4 articles on Propane and our car here in Russia. I will get pictures together and as much information as I can remember about the interesting issues that I ran into with propane and reinstalling the system on our car. If you remember we bought our Volga with a dual fuel system. It had both benzine (gasoline) and propane. But due to some technical issues at the motor vehicle place. I ended up having to temporarily remove the propane. The propane was legal after all, it all had to do with a combination of the VIN number on the car and the nice gentleman who was our inspector, who decided to make our life interesting and fun…

Here is a link to that article for those of you who are new to Windows to Russia… (Running Propane (LPG) in our Volga Wagon!)

What is propane? Propane is a product of the refining natural gas and crude oil. Around 3% to 4% of a barrel of oil is produced as propane as a by product. Propane vaporizes at around -44 degrees F. or around -42 C. (That is the temperature that Celsius and Fahrenheit meet in the cold range.) Because it vaporizes at such a temperature, that causes it to mixes with air at ease. Gasoline is liquid at room temperature where as propane is a gas. Other words propane is naturally a vapor as it enters the engine and gasoline has to be atomized by the carburetor or injectors as it enters the engine. It is easier to drive your car on propane and no carburetor or fuel injection needed…

Propane is also an extremely clean fuel. The motor oil virtually never gets fouled which increases engine life. Another plus is propane is very high octane of between 100 and 110. This allows some serious advancing of timing and in my case allows me to gain back any slight power loss by using propane…

Another big factor for Sveta and I as we travel is that propane is available throughout the world. Russia has propane stations everywhere…

Propane: Will not go bad like gasoline will, Burns very clean is not harmful to soil or water, Requires low maintenance, Easy to install (carburetor versions), Very safe, Cheaper than gasoline, Rates at 100-110 octane, Automatically compensates for altitude, and Prolongs engine life. These are just some of the reasons to burn propane…

Now in the next week I will take some pictures of the components of my propane system and try to give some more information on what does what, on our Volga…

A surprise will be the propane tank. It is very interesting…

Windows to Russia!

Part 2 (http://windowstorussia.com/driving-on-propane-lpg-in-russia%E2%80%A6-part-2.html)

Part 3 (http://windowstorussia.com/driving-on-propane-lpg-in-russia-part-3.html)

Today in Russia that thinking that goes with a cup of coffee is centered on Auchan of Russia. Sveta and I had many things to do yesterday and one of them was a trip to Auchan. Now this particular Auchan that we go to is only about 10 km away. That means it will be around a 5 hour trip in Moscow, Russia…

It had been 5 or 6 months since we have been to this Auchan. It just is not worth the trip when you have two meters of snow packed on the ground into 1 meter. Now though the sun is out, the flower bulbs are just starting to sprout, the snow is almost gone and the air is fresh and clean. It just seemed like a good thing to do and so we went to Auchan…

Lets understand what I mean by an Auchan. For you Americans and such. It is like a WalMart. The biggest, baddest and Monstrous WalMart you have ever seen. Until this trip I had thought that WalMart and Auchan were about even on the contest of the biggest single unit that I have ever seen freestanding as a store…

Yesterday we saw the largest, single unit under one roof store, that I have ever seen in my life. I considered this a huge store the last time we went there, but they have over the winter, tripled the size of the building. Plus there is a section that is about 25% of the usable section being readied to be opened in the future…

When we got done Sveta asked me as we started the car, “Was it just me or was that trip really worth it?” I understood her as to mean do we really need to ever go back to a store like that again? I slept on that thought last night and woke this morning with the thoughts over coffee of, “Sometimes you can have too much of a good thing…”

Sometimes a business goes to far. In this case with the rebuilding of Auchan they have reached a limit of what makes a good shopping trip or what makes a shopping trip to hell. The store was so big that it overwhelmed us to the point of dissatisfaction and mega stress. That says a lot because I am a Auchan fan…

I wonder if we humans in this world are just being crushed by excess? Take a look at these Mega Burgers from Japan…
1. Mega Burger From McDonald’s..
2. Mega Meat Burger From Burger King…

I really think that we have exceeded the necessary limits of what is right and wrong. I realize that people have a choice to buy these things or not. Many do buy them (Burgers) just as many will continue to shop at a store that is so big you need a three day vacation just to see the whole store…

I had my own restaurants and one of my biggest sellers was a 1 pound burger called the Farmers Burger. Everyone had to have one and really they were very good. But overkill is the word…

So the fact is Sveta and I will most likely not go back to this Auchan. It is too big, too crowded, too overwhelming and too much of a good thing. Just like we would never buy one of those Mega Burgers, it is just too much of a good thing…

We have decided that we could have bought everything we bought at Auchan at about the same cost right around the corner at the local markets…

Windows to Russia!

The iPhone is not really a seller in Russia. It has failed to generate a stir amongst the masses…

Russian mobile phones’ retailers on Sunday cut off about $100 for iPhone 4 because of the low demand…

In Moscow, 32GB iPhone 4s are sold for 36,900 rubles ($1,190), while 16GB iPhone 4s cost 31,900 rubles ($1,029). While in the United States, the gadget costs $199 – 299 with a two-year contract and 600-700 euros in Europe without a contract…

Russia has a slew of android phones on the market at a much better price than the iPhone is priced at. This drop in price will not change that demand much. The price drop for the iPhone ($100) is the amount that you can buy a good Chinese iPhone for and literally do everything a iPhone can do…

I have a LG android phone and it is fantastic and it does do anything the iPhone does….

So why Buy a iPhone for $1000 Russia? (I could buy 4 of my phones for that…)

Windows to Russia!