From Russia to Turkey with Love…


How easy it was to come to Turkey. Crossing the Russian Border leaving was fast and virtually as simple as waving goodby, see you later. Even easier was crossing the Turkish border. They greeted with open arms and they could not have been easier to work with…

So the flight and border crossing was perfect. Not one time did someone want to grab our crotches and feel all over us as you must go through in America. That is really sad and America should be embarrassed to put everyone through that crap…

In Turkey us Americans need to get a visa and that was obtained on the border for 20 US dollars. Russians no longer need to get a visa and they literally dance across the border just like they live there. I thought of how it use to be crossing the Canadian border in America. It was simple and easy…

Once in Turkey, USA dollars rule. Everything is in dollars, then lira, then Euros. All the vendors have lots of dollars to make change with and the art of haggling for a price is alive and well in Turkey. If you buy something, cut the price in half and go from there. When you are done everyone is happy and you get a great deal on things…

The picture above is my view as I type this article. I am sitting on our balcony of the hotel room and we have WiFi right in the room. We are getting ready to go swimming in a little while. The water is warm and beautiful. October is the end of the swimming season here in Turkey and so in effect there is less tourists than in Summer. Right now the hotel is about 75% Russians and it is full. The food is fantastic as is the service personnel. I am very impressed by it all. Since my civilian occupation in the past was the service industry and I always study what happens in that area with a business…

I caught Sveta on the camera as she got ready to leave for breakfast. Isn’t she a sweety?

Sveta and I took a walk last night and we would say that German is the second language and Russian a close second. Forget English as a language to communicate with. We found a whole bunch of shops to buy close, leather goods and other items. Everyone we meet while walking is so nice and feeling safe is the norm around this area…

Turkey reminds us of our trips to Israel and after our first impressions, Turkey is actually better than Israel as far as a vacation place. I would have to warn Americans on visiting Turkey. It is not American orientated. It would hardly be considered British orientated. The food and service is not what us Americans have been brainwashed to accept as normal. But after 5 years in Russia the service here in Turkey is magnificent… 🙂

We also just heard from Sveta’s son (Misha) He said Boza is doing great. Last night we Skyped with Misha and I called my son (Lyle) in America. It is a fantastic thing that Skype…

I am going to get off this computer and go swimming. I will be posting more as I get some pictures of the beach and surroundings. So have a nice day and you will see us sooner or later…

Kyle and Sveta
Windows to Russia!

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Church In The Empty Field!





Hello,

While traveling home from the Village, We came upon a church sitting in a field all by itself. We had to stop and check it out. It is of the same basic style of the other one I just wrote about. So I believe my readers are right. It is Orthodox, but just a different style.

Link to previous post:
http://windowstorussia.com/church-that-god-has-not-forgot.html

I love these old churches. They have an energy in them that can not be described, an energy that is present even though the last church service was silent many years ago. I am discovering that even though the church is vacant and crumbling, God still lives there.

As we drive we see new Monasteries and new churches being built, I wonder why? They have so many old ones to rebuild.

Kyle Keeton
Windows to Russia!

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Ready, Packed, Sipping Chicory and on to Turkey


I thought I would take a moment and make a last post for a few days. So I brewed myself a cup of chicory, added cream and am doing some thinking’s while sipping that cup of chicory. It looks like we are ready for that trip to Turkey…

Sveta’s son just came by and got all the stuff that he needs to take care of Boza. Boza was so excited to see Misha and it looks like Misha was truly happy to see Boza. I think that Misha enjoys the time alone away from the rest of the family and I know that Boza likes Misha almost as much as us. Boza probably likes Sveta’s mom more than any of us, but Misha wanted to watch Boza…

We have a 8 am flight Sunday morning and will get to Turkey at 10 am. It actually is a 3 hour trip but we have an hour difference in time zones. Then we have about a 2 hour trip to the hotel from the international airport. We should get to the hotel just in time for lunch…

I have been looking at the temperatures in Turkey. It is so much warmer there, than here in Moscow. It has been +5c at night and +10c in the day in Moscow. In Turkey it looks like it has been +25-30c in the day and +15 or so at night. We are looking forward to those temperatures…

So the next post will be from Turkey. I have a couple of post that are per-scheduled and they will post on their own. But they are older posts that I have found and need to be put back into the system properly. As we go on this trip Windows to Russia has officially/unofficially reached 3000 posts. I have been going half way in between what is and what should be. If you remember correctly when Blogger Blogspot by Google tried to shut us down and block the blog, we lost way over 250 posts in the process. So I make it an even 200 posts and split the difference. We just hit 2905 with this post and I do it this way so that I never forget what Blogger did to Windows to Russia. It just was not right… 🙁

I want to thank everyone for reading Windows to Russia. It just had a record month in readership. Sometimes I wonder why I do it? But once in awhile I get a comment on an e-mail that makes me realize that people are listening and people are reading. I realize that I am not the most social person and as such I am not a game player on these social networks and such. I do not also play games and comment all over the web just to get links. I simple tell what is happening in my little world in Russia and that simply is all that I can do. Sometimes those thinking’s of mine are not always centered on Russia, but that is all the same because I am in Russia and these are my thoughts in Russia…

Thank you for the thousands of readers a day that come to Windows to Russia. You are why I am writing all these posts… 🙂

Kyle Keeton
Windows to Russia

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Who Wants To Be President!!!


This is an old video that we published several years ago. I decided that it fits what is going on now and needs to be revive…

My Wife found this video. She does not enjoy many things political, so when a video like this makes her laugh, I take it seriously! I liked it and thank her for bringing it to my attention…

Enjoy this video, I really liked it and it is definitely fitting the Russian presidential election coming up in 2012…

Kyle Keeton
Windows to Russia!

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You Gotta Love E-mails From Fear Induced Americans…


I received an e-mail that was based on the latest suicide bombing in Turkey. This e-mail was rude, crude and socially unacceptable and it was all centered around how dumb I am to be going to Turkey on vacation, much less living in Russia…

A suicide bomber blew himself up at a gendarmerie post near the Turkish resort city of Antalya on Friday.

Yes we are going to Antalya. Yes – I read about this bombing and treated it the same, as I do all suicide bombings. With sadness and wonderment about how mentally ill some people are that do such things. But it in no way makes any difference in what Sveta and I intend to do for a vacation. Even though it was within a long stone throw of where we are going to be staying…

Sveta, like I, do not live our lives in fear. We do not live our lives in hiding. We take life as it comes. In fact life is a lot of fun when you are able to set aside the fear of something that is a tiny fraction of what can happen in life everyday…

That seems to be something that more than a few Americans are unable to do. As to the number of e-mails I have received on the subject of traveling to Turkey. For every e-mail that says, “Hey that would be fun!” I get 10 more that say, “You are crazy!”

Then when I get an e-mail as vile as the one I got this morning. I think about what Yoda said in a Star Wars movie:

Fear is the path to the Dark Side. Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering. YODA

Now how true that is and then I think of this:

I used to think the reason I’d like to stop letting fear run my life was that it felt so bad to be afraid, and also that it was pointless–possibly wasted, if the feared thing never did materialize. But now that fear has packed its miserable bags and is running out the door, making slamming noises to call attention to itself, I begin to see how much room fear has occupied. What opportunity opens up! JAN FRAZIER

Today I realize that I feel sadness for people who are not able to explore the world and enjoy the sights and sounds of a society halfway around the world. I feel bad for people that have spent their whole lives in fear of something that might happen. I guess that I am lucky in the fact that my past gave me an opportunity to confront fear, along time ago…

I can’t wait for the e-mails that I get when we finally make our trip to Iran that we want to do… 🙂

Kyle Keeton
Windows to Russia!

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Dove House: Multifamily Dwelling for Doves…







Hello,

I was walking to day, (I must walk everyday, because of heart attacks). So I now take my camera. This time I went a different way and stumbled upon a beautiful Dove House. Now I have talked about this before in this link: Doves.

I would live in this dove house, This was a beautiful,well built and solid home. The Doves living in this place are treated like Royalty.

If You believe in Reincarnation, then coming back as a Dove in Russia would not be a bad life!

Kyle Keeton
Windows to Russia!

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Swallows In The Russian Wilds!




Hello,

While Svet and I were traveling home from the Village this time, We came upon an area of Swallows (birds). So we had to take a look and see why there was so many Swallows. We found nests cut into the hill side of sand, with maybe 1000 birds. When we came up they all left in a flurry and a rush. That allowed us to take pictures. The biggest holes that you see are attempts made by Humans and their dogs and crows trying to dig out the nests.(lucky the holes are very deep and interconnected).

That upset me. The Swallows need safety from Humans and their dogs and the crows.

The Swallow eats all those mosquitoes that suck the life blood out of you in the Villages. So they are good to have! 🙂

As we left we stopped a distance away, The birds all came back! They were flying high in the sky waiting for the big bad Humans to leave. Well we left, but only after taking pictures of their homes. I find this fascinating and a wonderful part of nature.

Kyle Keeton
Windows to Russia!

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Cup of Chicory and the Typhoon Sub…


Silhouette of soviet Typhoon class ballistic m...

Typhoon...

My thinking’s this morning were centered around the decommissioning of the Soviet Typhoon Submarines. I had all but forgotten about these beasts of a submarine. They are like a city under water, complete with the niceties of life. Lets see what Wikipedia says about the Typhoon…

The Project 941 or Akula, Russian “Акула” (“Shark”) class submarine (NATO reporting name: Typhoon) is a type of nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine deployed by the Soviet Navy in the 1980s. With a submerged displacement of 48,000 tons, the Typhoons are the largest class of submarine ever built, large enough to accommodate decent living facilities for the crew when submerged for months on end. The source of the NATO reporting name remains unclear, although it is often claimed to be related to the use of the word “Typhoon” (“Тайфун”) by Leonid Brezhnev in a 1974 speech while describing a new type of nuclear ballistic missile submarine. Soviet doctrine for these vessels was to have them launch SLBMs while submerged under the arctic ice, avoiding the traversal of the GIUK gap to remain safe from the enemy attack submarines and anti-submarine forces. Technically Typhoons were also able to successfully deploy their long-range nuclear missiles while moored at their docks.

So as I was sipping that wonderful cup of chicory. I decided to do some research on this submarine. I have to say it is one big sub. The name that the Russians call it seems better; Shark class submarine. I would say Great White Shark if I named it…

After asking Yandex the Russian search engine about the submarine. I realized that the START III treaty makes this submarine unusable according to the treaty’s wording. Then I realized that Russia is having to make a big ado about this, so that the West will feel so much better about life, knowing that the old Soviet Death Sub is gone…

Myself, I don’t think that these submarines are going anywhere. With the exception of the three of them that are mothballed already. I think that they will tuck away three of these submarines nice n quiet and keep them for a rainy day. This is what the USA would and does do with many old forms of nuclear weapons and delivery vessels…

I also saw an article that was sneaked into the news. It said: A high-ranking source in the Russian Defense Ministry has denied rumors of a planned scrapping of Typhoon class strategic submarines in the near future. Several media sources reported recently that the Russian military had decided to scrap the world’s largest nuclear-powered subs by 2014. “The Defense Ministry has not made such a decision. The submarines remain in service with the Navy,” the official told RIA Novosti on Thursday.

I noticed that the MSN press did not take that news story and run with it. They really like the fact that the biggest and baddest submarine on earth is being decommissioned and that is that…

Kyle Keeton
Windows to Russia!

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Travel Agency Freaked and Our Turkey Plans…


After a few days of wondering what is up! We discovered that the original travel agency that we booked through, freaked out over the fact that an American was traveling by them. They decided that maybe I was not able to do such a thing! Like travel to Turkey by Russia… 🙂

After they wasted several days and tried to get confirmation that someone of greater power would okay, that this lowly American is able to travel from Moscow to Turkey and no one would die from the transaction, it was too late and the hotel that we were going to was booked full until the end of the month of October… 🙁

I feel sorry for Russians and any people in general that are not able to think out of the box. In Russia this is an all too often occurrence because Sveta and I do things different. I am much different than most Americans in Russia. I cross Russian borders by car (Oh heavens!), I drive a Volga (Heaven forbid, why?) and now I am trying to go to Turkey! (Is that legal? :)) But Sveta and I being who we are. Had plan B all ready in action. Because in Russia you must have Plan A, Plan B, Plan C, Plan D and a Plan to alter all those plans. Plan B worked…

We have another place that is Britain shy and Russian and German abused. It is called Happy Dreams Beach Hotel. Well we are very happy with the second choice and as I write this we have our money back from the first travel agency and all paper work and tickets for the second (Plan B) vacation package. We literally got the last room for this whole month…

But back to the Freaking out Russians. It is interesting while I travel Russia. I many times am the first American that people have seen in lots of the areas that we travel through. Moscow may have its fair share of Americans and British people but when you are pulled over 1000km from Moscow by the cops. They most likely have never seen an American driving a car and especially a Volga of all cars, to be driving. I can tell the cops that have never seen an American drivers license. They pass it around as a new toy. Then sometimes they ask for my passport. They never are looking for trouble, they just want to see an American passport way out in the boonies of Russia…

So Sveta and I have a new destination. We now have found a much better tour agency called Natalies Tours. They have been wonderful to work with and had no problems with this American. If you read the link to them, you will find that they are one of the best in Russia and guess what they have sent Americans to Turkey… 🙂

We leave the same day and that is still this Sunday on the 2nd of October. Misha Sveta’s son is watching Boza at our place and we have Sveta’s mother as back up in case Misha gets in a bind. ..

Kyle and Sveta
Windows to Russia!

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Interesting Tidbits Happening in Russia (September 30th, 2011)


Now while we have a news blog that garners around 100 posts a day and that really should be enough for everyone to keep up on what is happening with Russia. I like to list once in awhile what is happening around Russia in the Windows to Russia website…

Lets see what Russia is doing:

  • A portrait of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin was sold at a Moscow auction house for EUR200,000. The picture of the Russian prime minister by Georgian-born American artist David Datuna was bought by an anonymous Russian businessman during the Art-Moscow International Exhibition, which took place from the 21st to the 25th of September…
  • Russia has rejected the third, tamed down, resolution on Syria that was submitted by the European countries. The Russian Ambassador to the United Nations Vitaly Churkin said during the UN-held consultations that he was “; disappointed”; with the latest draft provisions, which, he said, fail to take account of Russia’s proposals…
  • According to the Russian Government’s press service, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has signed an order to raise public sector workers wages by 6.5% as of October 1st. Civil servants wages have again started to grow as of this year following a long break caused by the world financial crisis…
  • The Proton-M Russian launch vehicle has put the Mexican QuetzSat-1 satellite into designated orbit, with the satellite handed over under the contractor’s authority. This came in a statement for the Interfax news agency by an official of the Khrunichev State Research and Production Space Centre in Moscow…
  • Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has given an interview to the heads of three federal TV channels: “Channel 1,” “Russia 1” and “NTV”. The recording was made on Thursday evening at the Presidential residence. The interview lasting 25 minutes will be aired today at 8:30pm simultaneously on the three channels…
  • Russia is tightening monitoring of imports of U.S. meat after reported cases of contamination of ground beef with E. coli at “Tyson Fresh Meats Inc.” in Kansas. The latter plant has already withdrawn 60 tons of meat…
  • Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said on Friday he decided not to run for a second term because Prime Minister Vladimir Putin had a greater political authority and higher ratings…
  • The Palestinians are likely to receive observer status at the UN rather than full membership, Russia’s UN envoy Vitaly Churkin said…
  • Cameras aimed at catching overzealous drivers are to start operating in Moscow on October 1. Anyone caught speeding will be sent a photo and fine by mail. The cameras will also be used to record other offenses, such as driving in the bus lane. Fines for traffic violations will be as high as 5,000 rubles. The majority of cameras are located near bus lanes and on the Third Ring Road, on which speeding is commonplace…
  • President Dmitry Medvedev is going to change radically the government make-up, if he takes up the post of prime minister. “The government should be renewed. This is why, if the Russian people trust the United Russia Party with the formation of the government, i.e. if they vote for United Russia, if they vote for our presidential candidate, if the new government is to be created and I am assigned the job, it will be an entirely new government, a government made up of new people,” the President said in an interview with the 1st, Rossia and NTV TV Channels, due to be broadcast at 20.30 on Friday. “I think this is extremely important,” he added…
  • The Russian navy is getting rid of its most powerful submarines, the Typhoon class. Designed to carry big nuclear warheads, the Typhoon-class submarines are the largest in the world. Their immense size, though, was the main reason why the country decided to decommission the underwater veterans. The vessels did not live up to the new START treaty, which was signed by the Russia and the US in the spring of 2010. The long-awaited treaty considerably limited the strategic arsenals of each country to 1,550 nuclear warheads…

Okay that is enough of that for today. Russia is never dull and I could print forever what she is up to, but that is what Russian News From Russia is for… 🙂

Windows to Russia!

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