Just as Muscovites were enjoying the end of wintery conditions and the apparent onset on spring, a blizzard brought road misery and power cuts to the capital and the surrounding region on Saturday.
Three people were reported dead and over a dozen injured as sleet turned road conditions into what one official called “mush.”
In the region around Moscow, some 3,000 people were left without electricity as snow hit power supplies.
Moscow’s Domodedovo airport also reported delays due to weather conditions. Thousands of people were stranded at the airport late last year after a freak ice storm.
In the capital, over 500 trees fell down or were badly damaged.
Heavy snow is forecast to continue for at least the next 24 hours.
One of my favorite articles that is posted every week is on Russian Profile. They have a panel of experts from around the world (Canada and USA today) that give opinions on an interesting question and usually that question is most likely in the Russian peoples mind. That makes it a legit proposition to answer…
Russia Profile Weekly Experts Panel: Are Medvedev and Putin Forming a Two Party System in Russia?
Introduced by Vladimir Frolov Russia Profile 04/08/2011
Last month, three Russian think tanks that claim to advise President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, the two presumed presidential candidates in 2012, issued separate reports warning that Russia’s highly-centralized and uncompetitive political system has become a major obstacle to further economic progress, and that without sweeping political reform, the country faces possible breakdown or even popular revolt on a par with the early 1990s. Should both Putin and Medvedev run in a competitive presidential election in 2012? Should they present two competing visions for the country’s future?
Russian correspondents were seized by Libyan opposition forces on Friday afternoon near the city of Ajdabiya. Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs might seek the assistance of countries with troops on the ground in Libya’s to release the journalists…
The Chief Executive Officer of the German RWT company Stefan Yudish has told the Berlin Forum devoted to the problem besetting the construction of the Nabucco pipeline that the project is at a standstill. Nabucco was conceived to deliver gas from the Caspian region to Europe, bypassing Russia and was also intended to rival the Russian South Stream project. Besides the RWT company the Berlin Forum was attended by the EU countries, the main brain behind the Nabucco project.
The realization of the Nabucco project hangs in the air due to the inability to reach agreement with potential suppliers of gas. However, participants in the project – the Austrian OMV, the Hungarian MOL, the Bulgarian Bulgargas, the Romanian Transgaz, the Turkish Botas and the German RWT periodically try to make a bad situation look good, claiming that their seriously ailing child has good prospects. Perhaps keeping up pretenses have already bored the comrades to death, and Mr. Yudish could no longer live the lie at the Berlin Forum. He said that his company which has invested about 20 million Euros in the Nabucco project wants a speedy start of construction work.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and his Venezuelan counterpart Hugo Chavez on Thursday called for an end to the ongoing bloodshed in Libya and the start of political dialogue, the Kremlin said.
The two leaders, who discussed the situation in the North African country by telephone, stressed the need for all parties concerned “to act strictly in accordance with UN Security Council resolutions,” the Kremlin said.
“Priority at this stage should, without doubt, be given to ensuring the security of civilians,” they said, according to the Kremlin statement.
The head of the political department of the United Russia party Aleksei Chadayev has sent in his resignation from the post, after he criticized Russia’s official stance on situation in Libya in his personal blog. He strongly criticized Russia’s official stance on Libya, saying that joining the international community in condemnation of Muammar Gaddafi is a mistake that could eventually “cost President Medvedev his political future”…
Hummm…
The lines are being drawn and being crossed and most that I see, really dislike most policies that are being instigated right now. Instead of making things better it seems to be causing turmoil and flight of capital and personnel from the rich in Russia…
Experts tend to link the recent capital flight from Russia to President Dmitry Medvedev. Outflows from the Russian rich intensified after the September 28 firing of Yury Luzhkov, Moscow’s mayor for 18 years, according to Alexei Moiseyev, chief economist at VTB Capital. Officials who were concerned that his ouster might prompt more dismissals or a crackdown on corruption sent their money out of Russia, Moiseyev told Bloomberg in an interview.
Then…
Vladimir Mau, the rector of the Russian Academy of National Economy, who also advises the government’s anti-crisis commission, said that more than just money is leaving Russia en masse. “Not just money, but top managers themselves are fleeing with their children, who are sent to study abroad,” Mau said. “Faith in the future of the Russian economy has been reduced to zero, and this is exemplified in the behavior of the rich.”
Looks like France’s Sarkozy stepped in a pair of boots too big for him…
Russia Today is in France doing a news report. It really look like Russia Today has infiltrated almost everywhere in the West now days. They are also in Libya doing reports and of course Russia Today does lots of nice reports on America. It is definitely different reports on the West than what the Western press wants to hear…
It seems that Windows to Russia has a gremlin in the comment section. We are now back to original comments and being spammed like no tomorrow. This happened because the Google Friend Connect system completely invaded our system and even took over our profile section. I at one point had to completely reinstall the blog because it locked me out of my admin. At first I thought Virus but that was quickly removed from the equation and every time I tried to use Friend Connect, I would find code in my email section, comments full of Friend Connect code and about half a dozen other issues…
So a sorry is in order and I am doing some study on it, but that means I can not use it (Friend Connect) until I figure out what the heck is going on. So I rewrote the comment code and took out Friend Connect and all is working great except for I have 523 spam since yesterday and the number is climbing at a fast pace. But to be truthful I have had two dozen legit comments amongst the bad and also discovered that I was missing any and all mobile phone comments… (That I will also apology for and will correct it.)
So I guess I know what I will be doing this weekend and will be spending time coding the blog again. It has been a never ending battle with comments…
Another issues against Friend Connect is that I can not move the comments from it to WordPress so maybe this is on purpose to make me reconsider the comment system on Windows to Russia…
The WordPress system is wonderful for comments but it also is a spam magnet and makes life a living hell with comments. If I block them with a spam plugin like Askismet. I still have to go through each and everyone to check and verify so it means nothing to have it in effect. It just adds more work to checking comments. If I allow Askismet to delete comments that it calls spam then I never see the good comments and believe me, it calls more than a few good comments spam. I get spammed all the time at other sites that use spam control and it seems to be an automatic thing with ip’s from Russia. In fact I gave up on many blogs to comment because they never posted my comment after it was caught in the spam filter…
As far as aftermarket comments: Intense Debate, Disqus and other similar systems are spam magnets. You must moderate and check any and all comments. I can do that with the original WordPress comment system because I can set it to hold all comments until I say OK…
Someday I will have a system that allows us to comment and be posted then and there. The nearest thing was Google Friend Connect and now it went crazy…
I grew up in a world much like Russia is today. As I have said before that is what makes me comfortable here. It is a world that you know and is safe. It is a world that still allows you to make decisions based on your own thoughts and desires…
The world that I grew up in is gone but I discovered Russia and her idiosyncrasies that make life good. So what am I talking about over that morning cup of coffee?
Glad you asked…
The other day I talked about milk and where to get it in Russia…
In the picture to the left you will see an example of how people will and can purchase meat in Russia. Sometimes it is from a van, sometimes they set up a table outside, sometimes they carry it around, go door to door in the flats and ask you if you would like to buy some meat…
Now I will not be picky about what kind of meat. Russians are not picky and meat is meat. I feel the same way…
(Exception is: Ground meat don’t buy meat all ready ground. Grind it yourself…)
But for those who are worried! No! We do not use rat, cat, dog, or any other meat like that. We like chicken, turkey, beef, pork and lamb… 🙂 (I have been asked by e-mails several times…)
Before I got the picture I had to wait for everyone to clear out. There was about 20 people surrounding the van and I could not get a picture of the meat. I call it “Cash and Carry…”
It reminds me of the old days in America. We use to sell meat of the back of a tractor as well as we sold milk, sour cream, cottage cheese and other delights. I remember them well, the government trucks that had some of the best butter and cheese in the whole world. It all came from the back of a truck…
Closer shot for disbelievers...
It is life as I know it in Russia. Whether I am in a village or in Moscow. Or somewhere in between…
I know a half dozen farmers that have been to Russia and Ukraine. They have the same feelings that I do and they would like to figure out how to come to Russia and farm. In fact one of them should be trying to get things together to come to Russia soon and I hope he does…
I watched for a short while and of course Boza was wanting to pay a visit and get some meat. But we stayed back and observed. That is what Boza and I do best in this interesting country…
This is what makes me so endeared to Russia. The way that life is so much like my past and it creates a nice comfort barrier to the world. I am worried though about Russia because she seems to be wanting to become Westernized. Well at least Moscow does. I do know that as vast as Russia is that trying to Westernize all of her would be a thousand year project…
So if Moscow becomes to Western oriented, we will just move a little farther away. We have a little village that is so far back into the wilderness that it will take a few hundred years for modernization to reach it with any gusto…
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and his Venezuelan counterpart Hugo Chavez on Thursday called for an end to the ongoing bloodshed in Libya and the start of political dialogue, the Kremlin said.
In the picture to the left you will see an example of how people will and can purchase meat in Russia. Sometimes it is from a van, sometimes they set up a table outside, sometimes they carry it around, go door to door in the flats and ask you if you would like to buy some meat…