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I see the name Elena. It seems that she has enough connections (Her dad.) to allow her to travel unattended through the radiation zone around Chernobyl. I know very little more except what I have read in her website called…
Kiddofspeed – GHOST TOWN – Chernobyl Pictures –
Elena’s Motorcyle Ride through Chernobyl:
I found this site by pure accident and set it aside for a day before I looked at it. I found myself on the 6th chapter to start with and realized that this was a large multiple of works by Elena. I guess I could have looked intensively about who she is, but I found that unnecessary and needless for the enjoyment of the website…
Most pictures were taken by Elena and you will find a story that will stir your soul. She has ventured where few have gone and recorded some very good information and pictures of a disaster that affected the world…
(It made me stop and feel for the Japanese right now because what Elena shows in her trip to Ghost Town is what Japan has in store for their own Ghost Town…)
She revisited Chernobyl again in…
So as I enter deeper into all her sites. It looks like she travels regularly to Chernobyl (Sometimes with a friend and sometimes with her dad…) and it seems that something in her soul drivers her toward the area. Elena lives in Ukraine and also has several other sites that are well worth looking at also…
The Serpents Wall: Will take you on a ride into World War 2…
Stolen Election: About the Orange Revolution in Ukraine…
She even has stories from the Gulag…
Just look at her sites and you will find several themes that she has devoted energy towards. But alas she seems to have changed directions in her life. It looks like 2006 was the end of the main body of information…
In her words: “Writing is just a hobby of mine. I don’t have any commercial interest with this site, neither I sell a war relics.”
It seems that she had a passion and tried to fulfill that passion. On a motorcycle…
I enjoyed my trip on her website today and I hope you do also. Who ever she is I am glad she chose to record her travels in a world that few of us have ever been to…
Windows to Russia!
Today while I am drinking my morning cup of coffee. I decided to post a picture that I took early this morning. This is how you buy the best milk in Moscow…
Actually, they sell milk, cottage cheese and sour cream. All home made and “really really really” yummy…
You can not miss the yellow tank because that is what all milk seems to be transported in. If you buy a liter of this type of milk you will find 2 to 3 inches of real cream on top after it sits awhile. That makes a cup of coffee or that cereal, delicious…
You bring your own container and the price is worked out according to both the buyer and the seller, if container size is questionable…
This milk was 22 rubles a liter and it will not be long and that tank will be empty. The queue stretches around about 200+ people. Not everyone will get milk because, In Russia “the early bird gets the worm…”
Now remember we have milk in cartons that is sold at the stores but if you want “Milk” you gotta get up and run to the local milk spot and don’t forget your container… 🙂
Now you know a little more about Russia…
Windows to Russia!
I have been doing some research on Russia Today. I was curious to see when they started and what kind of reactions the Western press had over this wonderful TV station invading their territory. I found a slew of articles that gave the realization that the Western press was very worried about this new comer called Russia Today. The degrading press that Russia Today got from the West was a huge indicator of the uphill battle that Russia Today has had to endure to get a foothold in the Western worlds press section…
I found many articles of Russia Today soothsaying by the West. It was wishful thinking and blinking in the eyes of the enemy…
This is a typical article, but this one had a video that just put icing on the cake…
MOSCOW, December 12, 2005
Title: Russian News, English Accent
Description: New Kremlin Show Spins Russia Westward
By Bob Bicknell(CBS) This article was written by CBS News Moscow correspondent Beth Knobel.
Tired of American TV? Then the Russians have news for you.
“Russia Today” is a new satellite channel, presenting round-the-clock news about Russia — in English.
The Kremlin already controls all the channels of Russian domestic television. Now, it will be beaming “Russia Today” all around the world to go after the international audience — to repair a national image tarnished by war, corruption and assaults on democracy.
“We hope that we can win people by what we’re showing,” says Margarita Simonyan, the channel’s editor in chief, “by interesting documentaries, interesting stories, by some new information about the interesting country that Russia actually is.”
Interesting stories like the Russian art scene reported by John Kluver, one of the few Americans working for “Russia Today.” A former CNN cameraman-turned-correspondent, he’s still trying to learn the ropes.
And he has no illusions about his employer.
“When I talk to friends and they say, ‘Hey John, what are you doing there? What’s with the new project?’ I usually describe it in English or in Russian as a propaganda tool for the Russian government,” he says.
After working in Russia on-and-off for the last decade, Kluver says he jumped at the chance to show “the positive side of Russia. I see a lot of positive things here and I always have,” he explains.
The station debuted on Saturday after weeks of “technical rehearsals,” when it went through all the motions of producing news but did not actually go out on the air. But in what must be a major embarrassment, it had to halt broadcasting Monday due to technical difficulties.
The channel said that hackers had tried to break into its computer system, forcing the station to shut down temporarily.
Critics point out that with or without “Russia Today,” there’s plenty of bad news about Russia coming out in the Russian and Western media — bad news the Kremlin would like to play down, like the ongoing war in Chechnya, or the crackdown on the free press.
And that’s the sort of criticism the Russian government hopes to deflect with “Russia Today,” explains Mikhail Fedotov, the former Russian press minister.
“The Kremlin’s inside advisors believe professional propaganda might form the splendid and shiny image of modern Russia, without Chechen war, without Khodorkovsky’s case (oil tycoon arrested on fraud and tax evasion charges), without corruption,” says Fedotov, now the secretary of the Russian Union of Journalists.
The new channel may remind people of Soviet television, where reports were designed to put a shiny veneer on the hardships of life.
Although the government is financing the station, “Russia Today’s” young staff claims its coverage of Russia will be fair and balanced, not simply propaganda.
Editor in chief Simonyan, 25, was hand picked to head the new channel after covering the Kremlin for state-owned Rossiya television.
“I don’t feel that my job is to improve the image of Russia,” she says. “You know, improvement is not really an objective thing. I think my job is to bring the western image of Russia closer to what Russia really is. Because right now in many cases, this isn’t what’s going on.”
Simonyan also says that the Kremlin will not dictate what “Russia Today” can or can’t say. “Censorship by government in this country is prohibited by constitution,” she explains. “Like in yours.”
The Kremlin’s already spent at least $30 million to launch “Russia Today,” and will need to spend millions more to keep it on the air.
But there’s one thing it can’t buy — viewers. And with the station available only by satellite, not many Americans may tune in.
“I think there will be people who will want to watch,” says “Russia Today” correspondent Kluver. “I would want to watch if I were back in the United States.”
Unless people do tune in, it will be “Russia Today,” gone tomorrow.
By Beth Knobel
That last line was a doozy and as we all know Russia Today has crushed the competition and been professional while doing it. They have smiled over the Western attitudes about Russia and Russia Today. In fact they have a saying that I see pop up now and again, “Controversy makes us stronger. “They also have a new saying, “Question More…”
Professionalism from the West was not in the hundreds of articles that I found over the years by the West about Russia Today. In fact it was literally just a degrade session from the beginning. Fear of this newcomer by Russia was evident in all the broadcasts and has now grown into a worry at the USA Federal level…
RT was launched as Russia Today by an autonomous non-profit organization in 2005. In 2007, RT’s monthly audience share exceeded that of CNN and Bloomberg TV among NTV-PLUS satellite subscribers in Moscow. In August 2007, RT was the first channel in television history to report live from the North Pole. In 2008, RT’s average monthly reach in Russia indicated a growth rate of 82% within just six months. Over the same period, the channel’s average daily reach grew by 46%. In the same year, the monthly audience among those who have access to or are aware of RT’s broadcasts on Time Warner Cable in NYC exceeded that of BBC America by 11%. The daily audience of RT exceeds that of Deutsche Welle tenfold, within the same network….(Link)
Now these audience figures are egg on the Western face… ”
Russia Today reminds me of “The Little Engine that Could…”
(I think I can, I think I can, I think I can – – I thought I could, I thought I could, I thought I could…)
Windows to Russia!
Open Letter From Russian Doctors In Libya To The President Of The Russian Federation:
President of the Russian Federation Medvedev DA and Prime Minister of Russian Federation VV Putin:
From citizens of Ukraine, Belarus and Russia, working and living in Libya…
Sent on the 24 of March, 2011, From Tripoli, Libya:
Dear Mr. Medvedev and Vladimir Putin,
You said that citizens of the former Soviet Union were destined to become today citizens of different Slavic CIS countries Ukraine, Belarus and Russia.
Despite this, we all believe that it is Russia as successor to the USSR, which is our SOLE safeguard for the interests of our countries and the security of our citizens. Therefore, we appeal to you for help and justice.
Today, there is blatant external aggression of USA and NATO against a sovereign country Libya. And if anyone can doubt this, then we say this obvious fact is well known, because all this is happening before our eyes, and the actions of U.S. and NATO threaten the lives of not only the citizens of Libya, but to us who are on its territory. We are outraged by the barbaric bombing of Libya, which is currently carried out by a coalition of U.S. and NATO.
The bombing of Tripoli and other cities in Libya is aimed not only at the objects of air defense and Libya’s Air Force and not only against the Libyan army, but also the object of military and civilian infrastructure. Today, 24 March 2011, NATO aircraft and the U.S. all night and all morning bombed a suburb of Tripoli Tajhura (where, in particular, is Libya’s Nuclear Research Center). Air Defense and Air Force facilities in Tajhura were destroyed back in the first 2 days of strikes and more active military facilities in the city remained, but today the object of bombing are barracks of the Libyan army, around which are densely populated residential areas, and next to it the largest in Libya’s Heart Centers. Civilians and the doctors could not assume that common residential quarters will be about to become destroyed, so none of the residents or hospital patients was evacuated.
Bombs and rockets struck residential houses and fell near the hospital. The glass of the Cardiac Center building was broken, and in the building of the maternity ward for pregnant women with heart disease a wall collapsed and part of the roof. This resulted in ten miscarriages whereby babies died, the women are in intensive care, doctors are fighting for their lives. Our colleagues and we are working seven days a week, to save people. This is a direct consequence of falling bombs and missiles in residential buildings resulting in dozens of deaths and injuries, which are operated and reviewed now by our doctors. Such a large number of wounded and killed, as during today, did not result during the total of all the riots in Libya. And this is called protecting the civilian population?
With full responsibility as witnesses and participants of what is happening, we state that the United States and its allies are thus carrying out genocide against the Libyan people as was the case in Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and Iraq. Crimes against humanity, carried out by coalition forces akin to those crimes committed by the fathers and grandfathers of today’s Western leaders and their henchmen in Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan and in Dresden in Germany, where civilians were also being destroyed in order to deter, to break the will of the people to resist (Germany remembers it, and therefore refused to participate in this new slaughterhouse). Today they want in such ways to make the Libyan people surrender their leader and the legitimate government and meekly lay down their national oil wealth for the countries of the coalition.
We understand that applying to the international community to save the people of Libya and we were living in Libya, is useless. Our only hope is Russia that has the right of veto in the UN, and specifically its leaders the President and the Prime Minister.
We still hope for you, as hoped in the past, when we took the decision to stay in Libya, and to help its people, medical duty playing its role in the first place. After an abortive coup attempt in late February, the situation calmed down in Libya and the government had successfully restored order. To everyone in Libya, it was clear that without American intervention the country would soon return to normal life. Convinced that Russia, which has veto power, would not allow the aggression of the United States and its allies, we decided to stay in Libya, but were mistaken: Russia, unfortunately, believed the false assurances of Americans and did not oppose the criminal decision of France and the U.S.
We are Ukrainians, Russians and Belarusians, the people of various professions (mainly doctors), working in Libya for more than a year (from 2 to 20 years). During this time, we became well acquainted with the life of the Libyan people and state with few citizens of other nations living in this social comfort, as the Libyans. They are entitled to free treatment, and their hospitals provide the best in the world of medical equipment. Education in Libya is free, capable young people have the opportunity to study abroad at government expense. When marrying, young couples receive 60,000 Libyan dinars (about 50,000 U.S. dollars) of financial assistance. Non-interest state loans, and as practice shows, undated. Due to government subsidies the price of cars is much lower than in Europe, and they are affordable for every family. Gasoline and bread cost a penny, no taxes for those who are engaged in agriculture. The Libyan people are quiet and peaceful, are not inclined to drink, and are very religious. Today, the people are suffering. In February, the peaceful life of the people was violated by gangs of criminals and insane drugged youth whom the Western media for some reason called peaceful demonstrators. They used weapons and attacked police stations, government agencies, military units resulting in bloodshed. Those who direct them, pursue a clear objective to create chaos and establish control over Libya’s oil. They misinformed the international community, and said that the Libyans are struggling against the regime. Tell us, who would not like such a regime? If such a regime were in Ukraine or Russia, we would not have been here and worked and enjoyed the social comfort at home in our own countries and in every possible way such a regime would be maintained.
If the U.S. and the EU today have nothing to do, let them turn their attention to the plight of Japan, the Israeli bombing of Palestine, the audacity and impunity of Somali pirates, or the plight of Arab immigrants in France, and leave the Libyans themselves to sort out their internal problems. We see that today in Libya they want to do another Iraq. Carrying out the genocide of an entire people and those who are found with him. We perform MEDICAL DEBT and cannot leave Libyans alone in trouble, leaving them to be destroyed by the forces of the coalition, in addition, we understand that when all the foreigners leave and no one will tell the truth (the small staff of diplomatic missions have long been silenced), the Americans will arrange here a bloodbath. Our only chance of survival is a solid civil position of Russia in the UN Security Council.
We hope that you, Mr. President, and you, Mr. Prime Minister, as citizens of Russia and as decent people will not allow American and European fascists of the 21st century to destroy the freedom-loving people of Libya and of those who today turned out to be with them.
We therefore urgently request that Russia uses its right of veto, the right earned by millions of lives of the Soviet people during World War II to stop the aggression against a sovereign state, to seek immediate cessation of U.S. and NATO bombing campaign and to demand the introduction of African Union troops in the conflict zone Libya.
Note: The African Union Peace & Security Council delegates that had been accepted by both the Libyan government and the rebel leaders to mediate a peaceful solution between the various parties, were refused entry into Libya by the UN Security Council. This act should have been reprimanded by Russia and China, who should study the AU resolutions, mandate and support its wise decisions]
HANDS OFF LIBYA!
With Respect and Hope
Your Wisdom and Honesty,
Citizens of Ukraine, Belarus and Russia,
located in Libya
Bordovsky S., Vasilenko, S., Vegerkina A., Henry IV, Henry H., L. Grigorenko, DraBragg, A., Drobot V. Drobot, N., Yemets E., Kolesnikova, T., Kuzin, I., Kuzmenko, B., Kulebyakin V. Kulmenko T., Nikolaev AG, Papelyuk V. Selizar V. Selizar About . Smirnov, O. Smirnova, R., Soloviev DA, Stadnik VA, Stolpakova T. Streschalin G. Stakhovich Yu, Sukacheva L. Sukachev V. Tarakanov, T., Tikhon N. Tikhonov VI, Tkachev AV, Hadareva E., Tchaikovsky, O., Chukhno D. Chukhno O. Yakovenko D. et al
The collection of signatures under the Appeal to the heads of Russia and under the request of an international tribunal in The Hague for crimes of U.S. and NATO in Libya.
Source:
Hummm…
Windows to Russia!
Kruzenshtern has set sail on its first voyage this year from the port of Svetly near Kaliningrad…
During this expedition, the four-mast Kruzenshtern, one of the oldest sailing-ships worldwide, will mark its 85th anniversary. Despite such an advanced age, the bark continues to slough through the vast expanses of seas and oceans. This is largely due to Russian sailors and shipbuilders who exert tremendous efforts to prepare the ship for its expeditions. Kruzenshtern’s captain Mikhail Novikov says that the Kruzenshtern is a top-quality ship with high-class seafaring characteristics…
Kruzenshtern has made two round-the-world voyages, which means that it’s in fairly good condition, the ship’s captain says. It was the one picked for the Trans-Atlantic expedition, even though Russia has four other barks besides it…
Kruzenshtern became famous worldwide after it circumnavigated the world in 308 days covering a total 39 thousand sea miles in honor of the 300th anniversary of the Russian Fleet in 1995-1996. The second circumnavigation was in 2005-2006, and in 2009-2010 the legendary bark went on the Trans-Atlantic expedition timed for the 65th anniversary of Allied Victory in the Second World War. In addition, Kruzenshtern has scored a series of victories in yacht races and regattas…
This year, the Kruzenshtern will call at a number of ports in Europe. First on its itinerary is the Spanish port of Vigo on the Atlantic Ocean. On its way back the ship will call at Bremerhaven in Germany where it was originally built, and will then arrive at Hamburg, just in time for City Day festivities. At Lubeck, the Russian vessel will take part in celebrations on the occasion of the 100th jubilee of its fellow bark, the four-mast Passat, which has been a museum since 1960…
Most of its 75-day voyage Kruzenshtern will travel under sail. Its crew comprises 112 military students who will be keeping watch, swabbing the decks and climbing up the 60-meter mast. There are women students too, as women are now as welcome as men to choose a seafaring job…
The Kruzenshtern is slated to return to Kaliningrad on May 17th.
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At least 800 people were slaughtered in the western Ivory Coast town of Duekoue on March 29, the International Committee of the Red Cross said, as it became the latest town caught in the spiral of post-electoral violence engulfing the country. Caritas, a Roman Catholic charity, estimated the death toll was 1,000…
Read more: (Link)
Hummm…
So we are at war in Libya but not in the twenty other places that people are dying by the hundreds and the thousands…
If you use the term humanitarian help to one country then you have to apply it to all countries that they are killing people left and right…
Grow up people. It is not equal…
It is sad, very sad…
Windows to Russia!
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has said government ministers have until July 1 to give up their seats on boards of some of the country’s biggest state firms, the Kremlin said on Saturday.
The Kremlin insists the move is part of efforts to “improve Russia’s investment climate.”
But experts suggest Medvedev is trying to gain ground ahead of the 2012 presidential election by dismissing some of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s closest allies as oil and gas regulators and company directors. Putin has hinted he may try to elbow Medvedev aside at the polls.
In a speech carried by state news channel Rossiya 24 earlier this week, Medvedev said he wanted all ministers to vacate their seats, including Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin as chairman of state oil firm Rosneft and Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin as chairman of Russia’s second largest VTB Bank and diamond miner Alrosa.
Transport Minister Igor Levitin will be replaced at Russia’s flagship airline Aeroflot and Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport, while First Deputy Prime Minister Viktor Zubkov should resign from the Russian Agricultural Bank.
The entire list of the officials to lose their seats was published on the Kremlin website.
The move has rekindled rumors of a growing rift between Medvedev and Putin, who have recently disagreed on a number of issues, most notably on the second conviction of former oligarch and Putin critic Mikhail Khodorkovsky and on the UN-mandated air strikes on Libya.
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Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin test-drove Russia’s new Yo-mobile hybrid car on the ten kilometer route from his residence to President Medvedev’s country house outside Moscow on Friday.
Yo-mobile, a project by Russia’s Yo-Auto, a joint venture between truck maker Yarovit and billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov’s Onexim group, will start production of Yo-Mobile hybrid cars in St. Petersburg in the second half of 2012.
“I am not ready to make any conclusions,” Putin told a high-tech commission meeting. “I want to drive this Yo-mobile of yours to Dmitry Anatolyevich [Medvedev] and show it to him.”
In December, Prokhorov presented three prototypes of the hybrid car, including a hatchback, van and cross-coupe vehicle models. New production cars will cost 350,000-450,000 rubles ($12,000-$15,000).
Putin drove the sports cross-coupe version, accompanied by Yo-auto Director General Andrei Biryukov. Prokhorov drove a microvan.
Biryukov said the complete version of the car would be four-wheel drive and equipped with cruise control, GPS/Glonass navigation and climate control. He said the car was attractively priced because it was based on cheaper new materials.
Yo-mobile is not the first car that Putin has test-driven. In August, he tested a Russian-made Lada Kalina. He drove it for four days from Khabarovsk in the Far East to Chita in Siberia, covering a distance of over 2,000 km (about 1,000 miles).
In November, he drove a Formula one car at a speed of 240 km an hour (150 miles an hour).
Putin’s passion for cars also became prominent when he drove French President Nicholas Sarkozy in a black Mercedes in 2007.
According to his tax declaration, the premier and former president owns two Russian Volga cars, a Russian four-wheel-drive Niva and a trailer car.
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