This morning the thinking’s over that wonderful cup of coffee (chicory) looks like Sveta and I are traveling to Ukraine this Christmas. We are leaving Thursday or Friday and will be back around Monday morning! It counts on when we can get tickets on the train to go to Ukraine. Since there is no Christmas in Ukraine or Russia on the 25th of December it is just in my head that it is Christmas. In this part of the world it is business as usual and since Sveta and I like to enjoy life we are going to take an extra day and see some sights of the Ukraine capital, Kiev…
It is nice not worrying about a visa this time and since I got a multiple entry visa last time, I have been able to come and go already several times from Russia and I do not have to count my trips any more. It costs very little more to get a multi-entry visa to Russia and it makes a big difference if issues come up that you have to leave several times to do things outside of Russia…
So that coffee is wonderful and it makes the thinking’s extra special today. I am looking forward to going back to Ukraine because there is a gentleman there that I want to try to look up. He was a wonderful person and I really liked his philosophy in life…
Of course we will stay at our usual hotel the Slavutich. as that is the best deal in Kiev. There also is a little pizza place right around the corner from the Hotel that I have already made dibs on for Christmas dinner. It has the best pizza in the world and that is coming from a guy who worked for upper management with Pizza Hut for 8 years. So eating pizza is not high on my list even all these years later…
I will keep everyone informed and may even take the little computer to post while I am there. I still have my modem and Sim card for Kiev and that will allow me to post…
One last thought before I finish my coffee and wind this post down today: Windows to Russia has set all records in views for the last few days. It looks like December will be the largest month in the domains history. If it holds up to the end of the year we will top 16,000,000 views for the year. To be honest I am just stunned and hope that I continue to produce what you want and need for you to keep coming back to Windows to Russia. I could not imagine a better Christmas present for me than to see windowstorussia.com finally come into her own after all these years…
One thing that I am struggling with is whether or not to rent out ad space. I really have never been much on ads and use ad-sense just to pay the servers. I will have to decide what to do because I have a slew of desires to have ads of various types on Windows to Russia. I just personally hate ads and find them unattractive to a site. I would love to get rid of ad-sense but really have to have the money to keep the sites on line. Three servers and possibly a forth is in the works to mirror everything and create a place to store videos and images. With the disaster that America is causing the video industry and keeping videos online almost impossible. A little known or talked about issue is that many, many and many videos from America are blocked so that Russia can not view them. I know because I live in Russia and it is a constant issue for me to deal with. We have to create something to counter the internet stifling by America…
Maybe a donation button would allow me to remove ad-sense completely and keep enough money flowing to support the servers? It is something that I have to think about and it might be worth it to enough readers to have a totally ad free environment. Now this would be the whole domain of windowstorussia.com. Russian News From Russia, Fresh Coffee News, Thoughts of Moscow and Windows to Russia would be ad free if I could get enough money generated by other means than ad-sense to keep it on line…
Good time to think about it is over a good train ride to Kiev and Sveta and I have just such a ride coming this week. In the mean time leave me an e-mail in contact and let me know what you think about a donation button…
Kyle Keeton
Windows to Russia!
PS: Misha Svetas son will watch Boza and I have so much to do to get ready to leave. I love train trips in Russia and Ukraine…