Windows to Russia

Being a country boy from the Midwest of America. Roads to towns or villages as Russians call them, were gravel many times. It seemed that you either had river gravel or limestone gravel as the main roads. But always the base was kept up as a crushed rock of some form…

In our travels around Russia. We find that gravel is not high on the list of importance. The soil has lots of sand in it and no one contemplates using gravel as a road surface. The truth is that these sandy roads do a good job of getting you from village to village. It just looks like you are on a goat trail…

This is main street above in a village of about 100 people. It is much larger than our village. This is a thriving village. We left this village to try to find an even more remote village. The next picture is the main highway to a smaller village. Yes this road is on the maps. This is a real highway and takes you to a real place that lots of people live in… 🙂

We found the village we were looking for hidden way deep into the countryside (it is top left of picture – Sveta is top right of picture) but our road gave out. We had to walk the rest of the way. I was not in the mood to walk so we took some pictures of the river and the new walkway bridge that was recently built. We knew that several years ago that this was a auto bridge but it looks as though cars do not make it to the village anymore…

Village after village is connected by these roads. The only thing that is done to the roads is bridges and even those most of the time are done by local government and local people. A bridge like the walkway over the river would be a project done by the village, otherwise no one could leave the village to get supplies…

Sveta and I love to travel these roads and every village is a new experience. This last picture is what you have to do when you have to work on your car…

We are in the middle of the highway and if anyone would come they just drive around. One of the reasons to own a Volga is that parts are available anywhere and they can be fixed very easily. Every village will have an old Volga or two sitting around and they are prime  for spare parts. It does not matter what year the Volga is, most likely the part will fit…

The roads are well used and you can tell the main roads because they are not overgrown with grass. Sometimes you find 5 roads going into 5 different directions and all you have to do is follow the path that is worn the most. It will lead you to civilization… 🙂

So as you see we made it back to our village and drinking that coffee and tea getting ready for another day of fun…

Kyle and Sveta
Windows to Russia

Sipping that cup of coffee this morning is always extra special in the village. You can hear the birds singing and one that stands out is the cuckoo bird. Sounds just like a cuckoo clock. We have lots of cuckoo birds around the village…

It is going to be a scorcher today. It is already 25 c. and it is just 8 am. That means hot and several thunderstorms this afternoon. The village is a magnet for high winds and lots of rain. That is good because everything you plant grows good. You just have to weed a lot to keep the weeds down…

When it gets this hot you have to do what the villagers do. They take siestas in the afternoon. Sveta and I will do the same. It just is too hot to try to get anything done and with daylight until almost midnight, you have lots of time to get things done. I watched last night and at 11:30 pm I could read a book outside still. The red of the sun was still dancing on the clouds. Then at 4:30 am it was light enough to read outside again. The variances of seasons and daylight here is amazing. In the Winter the night rules and in Summer daylight rules…

I have a fan that I bought years ago and it is a life saver for me in the village. I remember when I first brought it to the village the look that Sveta gave me about a fan in the village. But I think that she has grown fond of it and realizes that it is a life saver in heat like today…

An interesting things happen when ever we have a thunderstorm. They always turn the power off to the whole village. It happens every time and you get use to it after awhile. It was explained to me that it is safer to just kill the power and wait out storms and then check to see if everything is OK and back on with the power… 🙂

I am not sure if this is common all over Russian villages but it is the way it is in our village…

So I am going to have another cup of coffee and listen to the cuckoo birds. We have one sitting right outside on the power-line by the house. He has a little sparrow trying to shoo him away. But the cuckoo is a big bird and the sparrow is not winning… 🙂

Kyle And Sveta
Windows to Russia!

It seems that we finally found what works very good in the village for Internet. It is running at broadband speeds and we can even go faster if we so desire. All through a little usb modem that looks like a flash drive. It is amazing to sit in a place with no running water and lucky to have electricity half the time and have a laptop working with no Internet issues…

Internet is unlimited and cost about 299 rubles a month. The modem cost 750 rubles and came with one month unlimited Internet free. We just pay for a month at a time as we need it. Sort like prepay cell phone. Except in Russia that is the way you do almost all cell phone and Internet. You pay ahead and that is that… 🙂

So I sit here inside our village home and type out this article just like if I was in Moscow. It is really neat and we now can have Internet anywhere that we can get cell phone connection…

I will post an article later today or tomorrow morning. I have lots to do and I am not going to spend it on the computer. I have already changed the oil in the car and installed a fan to help cool the inside of the car. It is one of those old time oscillating metal fans made for a car and mounts on the dash. It works really good…

Sveta wants to go swimming and Boza of course wants to walk a hundred times a day. I have work to do to the village house and of course I have lots of pictures to take… 🙂

Maybe I will post some pictures later. The Village is beautiful this time of the year…

The lakes are all filled and it looks to be a bumper crop year for farm raised fish. They say even in the main news that farm raised Russian fish is going to be plentiful and cheap this year…

Yummy…

Kyle and Sveta
Windows to Russia!

I would not want to be in the oil industry right now in Russia. Putin has been expressing dissatisfaction in the way the oil industry is responding to the government calls to get their (oil industry) act together…

Putin noted that while oil extraction increased by as much as 28.7 percent in the past year, the volume of gasoline available for domestic consumption decreased by 20 percent. “Where did all the crude go?” Putin asked rhetorically before giving the obvious answer: “It was shipped overseas for refinement.” Putin said it was regrettable that most of the domestic oil companies “have not fulfilled their obligations to increase crude-oil refining capacity even while taking full advantage of state benefits.” “Remember that you are working in the Russian Federation. The mineral resources that you use remain the property of the Russian people,” Putin said. Read More >>>

Heads are going to roll in the oil industry in Russia. I wrote several articles about this and Putin has given several warnings. It looks like time is up and three strikes you are out…

I have mentioned also about how Putin looks at Russia and her people. The last statement by Putin says it all…

“Remember that you are working in the Russian Federation. The mineral resources that you use remain the property of the Russian people,” Putin said…

As Sveta would say: “That is just right…”

Windows to Russia!

Sveta and I are getting everything together and we are going to take a trip to our village (Kommuna as it is called now or Sunrise to Freedom as known in the old days) and see what is going on. The weather has been wonderful and Sveta decided to take a week vacation and the village is calling our name… 🙂

I am going to pack the Sammy the Volga Wagon today and check her over. We just filled the gas (propane) tank and the benzine tank, so that means we have plenty of fuel to get to the village on. I thought I would show a picture of where our village is located…

The green arrow on the top of the picture is where we live and the blue star at the bottom is where our village is. It is about 375 to 400 km and that is according to the way you take to get there…

The village is one of my favorite places and I am a lucky American to have such a wonderful place to spend time at. I got the big camera with new batteries and am taking the tripod so that I can get some real nice shots of the countryside…

We also will try to post from the village with our new Eee PC that we just bought. We are going to get a Sim modem and then we will have internet with no issues… 🙂

So stay tuned because in a couple of days we will have a update on the village…

Kyle and Sveta
Windows to Russia
comments always welcome…

The coffee was sad this morning as we here in Russia realized the extent of deaths in a sinking of a pleasure cruise boat on the Volga river in Tatarstan…

Rescuers say there are more than 100 bodies, including 30 children, inside the “Bulgaria” cruiser boat which sank in the Volga River near the Russian city of Kazan, but the search for survivors continues. Twelve people have been confirmed dead…. Read More >>>

Russian Video From Russia has posted a 10 min. video about the tragic accident that took at least 100 lives in what was to have been a pleasure cruise on the Volga river…

Windows to Russia!

 

 

Paris is carrying out talks with Muammar Gaddafi. The son of the Libyan leader Saif al-Islam said in his interview for the Algerian newspaper El Khabar that the authorities of his country are negotiating with the French government and not with the regime’s opponents. Paris indirectly confirms its contacts with Gaddafi. The French Defence Minister says that it is time for the participants in the Libyan conflict to start talks.

In his interview Saif al-Islam quotes the words of the French President to the Libyan envoy. To put it in a nutshell, the Interim National Council (the rebels’ government) was established by the West. The rebels could not survive without the support, money and weapons they get from outside. They will be forced to cease fire after France comes to an agreement with Tripoli.

Similar declarations from Paris sounded several hours before the interview for El Khabar came out. French Defence Minister Gerard Longuet declared that NATO would stop its bombings as soon as the Libyans started a dialogue between each other and their soldiers returned to the barracks.

Information about talks between the Libyan government and the rebels came in the past as well: representatives of both parties mentioned talks either in Italy, or in Egypt, or in Norway. It is not as if the Libyan authorities took an implacable position – even Muammar Gaddafi declared that he was ready for reforms. This means that the stumbling block is the future of the leader of Jamahiriya, pointed out Yuri Rubinsky, the head of the Centre of French Studies at the Institute of Europe of the Russian Academy of Sciences in his interview for The Voice of Russia:

“French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe made a hint that demands for Gaddafi’s dismissal remain. At the same time, the French also said that Gaddafi should stay “next door”: near power but not in power. Thus, Gaddafi has a chance of staying in case of a slow political settlement.”

France and the USA have never agreed on Libya from the very beginning. France was the main initiator of the sanctions and later the military campaign in Libya. At that time the USA mostly kept silent, not wishing to be involved in a new Iraq or Afghanistan. The USA unwillingly headed the allied operation and shifted the command to NATO at the first opportunity. Now that France is ready for peace the White House policy has suddenly become tough. And France, as is known, is ready to promise the colonel certain guarantees: unfreezing some of his and his family’s bank accounts and helping him to avoid the Hague tribunal if he steps down peacefully. The Libyan leader may even be allowed to remain in his native country.

Recall that at the G8 summit in Deauville in May the leaders came to an agreement that there is no room for Gaddafi in the new Libya. At the same time Moscow has repeatedly confirmed its opinion that the Libyan people should determine the future of their country, the authorities and the opposition should start talks. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said recently that it is naive to hope that if Gaddafi leaves everyone will surrender to the opposition. There is no alternative to talks.

Original Source: http://english.ruvr.ru/2011/07/11/53084731.html

Windows to Russia!

The Olympic Flame is going to leave Earth as part of the traditional relay before the 2014 Winter Games in the Russian city of Sochi.

­“Russia was the first country 50 years ago to send a man into outer space,” Alexander Zhukov, president of the Russian Olympic Committee, told the RIA-Novosti news agency. “Now we have the chance to be the first nation to send the Olympic Flame to outer space, and we are proud of that.”

No less than 14,000 torchbearers will take part in the 120-day-long relay, which will see the Olympic Flame covering 28,000 kilometers and nine time zones.

The sacred fire will also be brought to the highest mountain in Europe, Mount Elbrus, as well as to the bottom of the deepest freshwater lake in the world, Lake Baikal.

I had a post about several months ago and it looks like they are going to try to take the flame to outer space…

Hummm – not sure what I think about that…

Windows to Russia!