Got My Visa and Going Home to Russia… :)

Picked up the visa to Russia and my passport and now I am sitting in the train terminal waiting for the train to Moscow to show up. I have a few hours and they have a great WiFi spot that has really good food. So I grabbed a bite to eat and now I am posting through proxy, a small article…

I always smile to myself at the place that I am working on this article. It is a huge hall of the train terminal and very beautiful. I have posted pictures of it before with the huge chandeliers on the ceiling. This place is full of birds. They have wandered in from the outside over the years and actually have multiplied. No one minds and in fact everyone feeds the birds. I always smile thinking about all my years in food service in America and think about the reaction that the people would have there. I do know that health inspections would never pass with 30+ birds flying all around and sitting on the tables and food counters…

But as I have said many times. There is a different mindset that the people have on this side of the world. The people here are not spoiled…

Yes, that thought came to me and it is as true as the sun rises. I realized what makes the rest of the world so much more fun than the Western world. The main part of the world is not spoiled. They have expectations that are not molded by years of selfish behavior created by a controlled and pampered society…

That is my thinking’s for today…

Next post from Russia…

Kyle Keeton
Windows to Russia!

Political Repression Sucks and it is Becoming More Prevalent in the World…

I have a good article coming up once I get back to Russia. It involves information that encompasses several countries and what I see as a serious impedance to Internet freedoms…

That article will have to wait for a few more days…

Windows to Russia has had to do serious things to stay on-line. I remember that my grandma said once, “You will know when you figure something out, someone else will not like what you say…”

Other words when you hit the “nail on the head” people try to get that nail removed before you drive in all the way in. Because once it is driven in flush it is very hard to remove without everyone around knowing about it…

If you ever have issues getting to Windows to Russia, then there is a simple trick that will work on any website being blocked in the way that Windows to Russia is being blocked in Ukraine. I think that if you use this trick on other websites that you have seen “server not found on” you may be surprised to find that they have been blocked also. The US government does these same tricks also and blocks sites to stymy the flow of information…

Use one of these sites to find a free proxy or wash the page and use it to find out if your favorite site is being blocked or not…

PageWash is recommended by many servers for you too look at your own webpage while the DNS is propagating. It also makes a great proxy bypass to see if the rest of the world can see the site but you can not…

I use something like these sites and there are thousands of sites like this all over the world. Now you know how your kid gets by the school filters that are in place to stop so called bad sites and such…

Thanks for all the readers in the last week. We have hit all time highs in page-views and as you can see the article about all the Ukraine readers and e-mails caused a blockage to occur and this time it was not keyword driven…

Hummm…

Kyle Keeton
Windows to Russia!

Once Again Posting by Proxy with a Cup of Coffee…

Ukraine has blocked Windows to Russia again and that is okay. I only have a few days left till I get to go home and then I will present the whole details. Of what is going on…

So for now I have to post through a proxy again and like I said before it does not stop me and posts will happen anyway. It just makes it much more difficult…

I have lots to say today but it looks like it is going to wait. But I will say that I am enjoying that wonderful cup of coffee and the weather in Kiev is fantastic…

My thinking’s today are real simple: Maybe the whole world needs to stop and grab their favorite drink. Be it coffee, tea, coke, beer, vodka or whatever. Then everyone sip their drink and do some thinking’s. For a long time…

Maybe the world needs to stop playing games one day and take a break because after what I see on the news this morning. The world needs to have a break. It is just plumb crazy right now and being whipped into a frenzy by the media. The headlines are just terrible and if half true we have entered a new stage of stupidity…

Gold in new territory ($1718), DOW crashed -634, London is riot city, the Taliban have found new status as the tough crowd again, America is pre-revolutionary and thousands of other headlines that just gobble up reality with a ferocious endeavor…

So take a break and sip a cup of coffee or what ever your beverage choice is. Because it looks like, “Chicken Little” will have a heyday today…

Kyle posting from Ukraine…
Windows to Russia!

Coffee and E-Mails from Ukraine and Russia…

This morning when I woke up and made that cup of coffee. I fired up the laptop and after it was warmed up. I clicked on my mailbox and I thought that my e-mail box had been spammed. I had an unbelievable amount of e-mails from Russians and Ukrainians that told me where they are from and that they could see the site okay now. They expressed about how good the blog was and that they feel that being blocked was a poor example of a government for Ukraine. Some expressed that it had to be a technical malfunction because they do not want to think what the world would be like if governments start censoring the Internet all over the world…

I can not answer all of these e-mails personally. So I am writing this article in response to these e-mails. So I did a lot of reading this morning. These e-mails came from as far away as Siberia in Russia and a slew of them came out of Odessa, Ukraine…

It is strange because I got a dozen or so e-mails from America and they were derogatory and degrading about Russia and Ukraine. I got one nice one from America, from a wonderful older lady who sends me a note now and then. But her opened eyed response is very rare for America…

I was just about ready to pull the contact page from the blogs, due to spam. But I think that now I will leave it. I was stunned by the positive e-mails for once and now know that people are out there who care…

It is strange that every time I get to the point of not caring and think that only people out there reading are people that try to find fault no matter how tiny and they like to put words in your mouth. That is when I get fed up with putting up with people and their idiosyncrasies…

But along comes a huge response to my Ukraine articles and that makes me smile. It also gives me much reason to keep on writing. Oh I know, some of you will shake your head and say, I wish he would go away. But for over 4 years many have wanted me to go away and some even predicted rudely that I would go away. But now I have outlasted expectations and realize that Windows to Russia has a place in the blog sphere now. It has a huge base of followers that come by in the thousands and thousands a day…

So I want to thank everyone for the great e-mails. They made my day… 🙂

Kyle Keeton
Windows to Russia!

Walking and Thinking in Ukraine in the Early Morning…

I have discovered that you will always find a place of quiet and peace if you just walk around and let it come to you. I found this wonderful bench nestled by the front door of some flats. It is surrounded by flowers and the love of people that care for the little spot of peace on earth…

I stopped for a rest and enjoyed the birds, cats and the dogs wishing to catch the cats that wished to catch the birds… 🙂

Some people have a talent for creating out of nothing and the front of a flat is not the best canvas to paint on. But in this case someone has created a spot of peace and tranquility and I enjoyed it…

I had my coffee with me and decided to enjoy that cup of coffee at the same time. I was doing some thinking’s at the same time and was thinking about all the police that are walking everywhere these last few days. Ukraine is sorta at a boiling point, what with the arrest of the ex prime minister Yulia…

Yulia has a huge following and it is showing when you are out and about around Kiev. I have decided to stay away from the center of Kiev and will hang around my part of town. Today they have expressed that all the supporters of Yulia in the center of Kiev are illegally assembling…

It is a shame that we live in a world of such turmoil. It is not getting any better either. Israel has 300,000 protesters as we read this. Syria is just about to be hit by NATO (Lets hope not), Libya is still being bombed wrongfully, the Taliban just devastated the US Navy Seals and that is just a few things in the last day…

But I also got this shot of the river near our hotel. The hotel is in the background. on the right. The tall building. I really wish to catch the fountains going. (yellow things in water) But they seem to elude me when I have the camera. Another spot of peace and quiet

But hey that coffee is really good this morning and the little spots of peace and quiet have made my heart better for another day. Maybe that little spots of harmony will help me live a little longer… 🙂

Just some thinking’s from Ukraine for today…

Kyle
Windows to Russia!

Sometimes You Find a Tale That Makes You Contemplate…

Once upon a time in Libya:

Once upon a time there was a good farmer in an arid region called Libya. Through hard work, he freed his farm of vultures, wild dogs and pigs who gobbled up the little it produced and turned it into an oasis, providing food not only for the Libyan people but also for an enormous area around, called Africa, whose people he fed and educated for free.

This good farmer was called Muammar. He turned the desert into good fertile land with its own water supply and the perfect conditions for three harvests a year. He treated his land well and worked hard, not taking much of the produce for himself, but instead developing what he had and distributing the wealth among his workers. He was so successful that he even expanded welfare projects to the villages around his farm, providing the people with food, medicine and learning programmes and allowing farmers in Africa to free themselves from bands of thieves who used to come and steal their produce, desecrate their lands and rape their women.

A group of farmers whose land was barren because they did not know how to farm it properly, eyed Muammar and his farm with greed and jealousy. After all, he had enough produce in just one harvest to feed them and their villages for decades. So these farmers, whose names were Nicolas and David, call on a third, named Barack, who was more powerful and together they hatched up a demonic scheme.

Muammar had fired a few lazy workers (Bingazi, Misratah and Tubruq) who were stealing produce and selling it for their own benefit whereas Muammar himself had distributed it to others for free. Barrack, David and Nicolas called them and spoke to them, promising them wealth beyond their wildest dreams if they followed orders.

One day these lazy workers, religious fanatics and perpetrators of the most unspeakable cruelty, started a riot. They raped two girls, the daughters of the foreman, aged four and six, they impaled a six-year-old boy with a stake, they slit the throats of the Negro workers and hacked people to death where they stood.

They called the other workers together, then one of them shot the others and said “Hey! Muammar is shooting us! Come and help!” David, Nicolas and Barack were already waiting on the east and west borders of Muammar’s farm with massive supplies of weaponry. They even had thousands of flags made from before the time Muammar took the farm over, a time when it was the poorest farm in the entire region.

Bingazi, Misratah and Tubruq, “the lazy three”, waved the flags furiously as they started torching food supplies, burnt the granary, destroyed the housing projects Muammar had built for them, set fire to the school he had built and looted the chapel. The other workers looked on aghast and went to Muammar’s house to stand by him to protect the man they had come to call their Brother Leader.

Barack, David and Nicolas, using the little wealth they had accumulated against the collective wishes of their own families and workers, started a savage campaign bombing the buildings which Bingazi, Misratah and Tubruq “the lazy three” had not yet torched, a campaign in which they murdered one of Muammar’s sons and murdered three of his grandchildren, as they claimed to be “protecting” the lazy three. They did not apologise, they just looked over their shoulders and sneered “We regret…” The rest of the sentence was imperceptible but some say it ended “that we did not kill Muammar”. Then they sent in their “journalists” to invent stories about how noble the lazy three were and how terrible were Muammar and his good workers who supported him and loved him.

As the anger and defiance among Muammar’s workers grew stronger and his good and loyal people fought back bravely, the lazy three reeled and asked David, Barack and Nicolas to start a campaign based on destroying Muammar’s water supply so that his workers would be without water. They destroyed the main pipeline irrigating the fields and supplying drinking water then the following day they destroyed the workhouse where the water pipes were made. Water, the essence of life for thousands of years, since Humankind began, was targeted by military hardware. Now how evil is that?

Muammar said he would hold a collective meeting among his workers for them to choose who should lead them but Barack, David and Nicolas refused. After all, the lazy three had already been bought with promises and it was they who should lead the farm, because they would then be controlled and forced to give them their produce.

The people from the region around looked on horrified. Those who had formerly respected David, Barack and Nicolas and their representatives Willy, Hillary and Alan and who knew how worthless the lazy three were (after all, they had formerly been paid assassins creating havoc on other farms) were surprised at the recognition of terrorists, murderers and rapists as the leaders of the farm and disgusted at the acts of child murder and wanton destruction, so they came together to call upon the Justice System to take action.

At first the Justice System in a land called Belgi turned a blind eye, saying that terrorism was not a crime and basically that it couldn’t give a flying duck about the rape and murder of children. However, as the surrounding community became more indignant, the longer this outrage went on, before they took the matter into their own hands, up stepped a strong, brave man whose authority David, Nicolas and Barack were forced to respect.

The end of the story is unclear. Some say it ended with the hanging of Barack, David and Nicolas and their representatives Willy, Hillary and Alan while the lazy three went away to slaughter and rape and burn on another farm. Others say that Barack, David and Nicolas actually controlled the justice system and went unpunished for their crimes. Well, it is only a story…

In this version, Muammar stayed on and rebuilt his farm, always wary of the lazy three whom he had never trusted, and continued to do his good deeds in Libya and Africa, while all the farms around him cut all contacts with Barack, David and Nicolas and renegotiated their deals with a new order of good farmers which had meanwhile appeared.

Barack, David and Nicolas and their farms were never, ever trusted again and were looked upon with hatred, suspicion and derision.

Muammar is still there today, looking after his children and grandchildren and continuing his humanitarian projects.

Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey – Pravda.Ru

Who knows what the end will be, but I do know that there will be an ending and the world will never look the same at the West because of it…

Windows to Russia!

Coffee and Cow Tongue and a Downgrade…

Don’t ask me why eating cow tongue reminds me of the USA being downgraded credit wise but it does. As I was sipping that morning cup of coffee I was enjoying a breakfast of cow tongue. I found a little shop that makes cow tongue sub sandwiches. They have cabbage leafs, slices of red and yellow peppers and a slice of cheese on a sub bun. They are delicious and fit for a king…

The Western attitude toward cow tongue would not be understood on this side of the world. For here cow tongue is considered far better than a cut of prime beef. It is an expensive part of the cow in Ukraine and Russia. I assume that in most of the ex Soviet world the desire for cow tongue is high on the list…

When I was growing up we as a family ate lots of cow tongue in the USA. We were poor and cow tongue could be bought dirt cheap or even free at times. Cow tongue was a food with a stigma attached to it. I remember taking cow tongue sandwiches to school and getting ridiculed for eating cow tongue. Only people who were farmers and poor ate cow tongue. It was considered beneath many people to consider such foods…

I was taken back by the fact that people here on this side of the world love cow tongue and they will pay a high price for it. I see stands at the market places that sell nothing but cow tongue and Sveta and I really like a good meal of cow tongue…

What does that have to do with the downgrade of the USA credit status? Well it just seems to make sense when I looked at the cow tongue sub sandwich that I was eating and thought of all those people in America who would cringe at the thought of eating a cow tongue sandwich. That one day that cow tongue sandwich might just be a delicacy in America also…

The implications of the downgrade are going to be far reaching and as the downgrades continue so will the crumbling of the Western financial empire. The cost of interest on the loans has just gone up and outlook is negative. This should have happened a long time ago but when you control the worlds money you can play games longer than most countries…

So breakfast was a great cup of coffee and a wonderful cow tongue sub sandwich. What was not so great was the news of the downgrade of America’s credit rating…

So I just ate my cow tongue sandwich in silence and sipped my coffee and did some thinking’s about the future of America…

Kyle Keeton
Windows to Russia!

Beautiful day in Kiev Ukraine…

Pictures in order: Off the balcony of my room, the hotel, a boat I like, A boat I use to like that has been sunk and across the river from Kiev and the Cave Monasteries…

I got to take a much needed walk today and I took the old camera with me. My cell phone camera died just before I left and so I tossed this old Rekam camera in the bag. It still works and takes great pictures…

As I said in an earlier post that I am staying just out of the main city of Kiev. But a metro line runs out near me and that makes a perfect place to stay. It is a beautiful Soviet Hotel called the Slavvtich. One guy said it stands for beer. Several others agreed and they seemed happy with that statement so I guess it is the name of a beer…

I was disappointed to see one of my favorite boats has sunk. I have climbed on board in the past and it was an old relic. That is why it went down. No one cared or took care of her… 🙁

It is suppose to be a good weekend and I am going to take a whole bunch of pictures. Kiev is just too beautiful not to take pictures of her. I just love the river…

Have a great weekend everyone…

Kyle
Windows to Russia!

Coffee and those World Stock Markets…

So the stock markets are crashing and the world finances are looking like 2008 all over again. With a big difference, all the tricks and treats are used up…

As I have said in the past on Windows to Russia. The stock market should be abolished. It is nothing but a game and games never end the way everyone likes them to end. There is always a loser with every winner. To me it is just another form of gambling and the house always wins…

I would like to know. Who would have hard earned money in the stock market? Money is too hard to come by to give to the rich and have it taken away at the drop of a hat. I have read article after article about the millions and billions of dollars that have been lost by normal people in this last week, as the DOW has dropped over 800 points…

I watched the Russian stock market this go around and it had an easier time of it and we will have to see if that holds true. Last time the Russian stock market was beat into oblivion and I was surprised that it ever came back. The Russian stock market was one bloody mess last time…

I suspect that it will not be long and we will see America drop another trillion dollars in bail (TARP) out money, for the too big to fail. While us little people become cattle fodder…

Then the fun will begin…

Windows to Russia!

Difference: Kiev is so Tiny Compared to Moscow…

I was up early and running around Kiev with early birds. It was a good thing that I started early to get my work done. It has started to rain and does not seem likely to let up for many hours. I was going to take pictures this afternoon but we will wait and see what the weather does…

I stopped at McDonald’s and got my morning cup of coffee, Americana style of course! Something that I noticed today at McDonald’s is that people in Kiev were holding the doors for other people, so that the door would not smack them in the face. Then I took notice that people were looking back over their shoulders to see if anyone would be hit by a swinging door. Now this is in direct contrast to what I see in Moscow. In Moscow people will just let the door swing and break your nose if you are not careful and holding a door just does not happen…

There is a lot of differences in Kiev and Moscow but the biggest difference is size. Kiev seems so small and easy to transverse. The metro is tiny and very easy to understand. You can literally walk across town in Kiev and Sveta and I have done just that at times…

Kiev is a totally different world than Moscow. It is like the difference between Kansas City and New York. Both big cities but New York is just plain huge. Example is that in Kiev I can be walking around the center of Kiev in less than 20 minutes by metro and in Moscow it would take two hours to get to the center of the city. I am the same distance (as the crow flies) from Kiev as I live in Moscow. But Moscow is just such a massive vast city that trying to transverse it takes hours because of so much humanity to wade through…

I realized just a few minutes ago that I forgot to take my medication this morning. So after I started to have a few problems it came back to me that I had not taken my long acting nitro pill. That is what happens when I do not keep on a scheduled and being in a strange country and in a hotel room messes up my pattern a lot. But now I am back on track and have everything caught back up as of this morning. I took my pills even though late and will adjust my evening pills for the time difference…

I was also able to swing by the train terminal and purchase my return ticket to Moscow. So I officially leave on the 11th of August and will be back home on the 12th…

It looks like I will just take it easy for the rest of the day and with all the rain it looks like a good day to read a book…

Kyle
Windows to Russia!