Feburary 1st – Boris Yeltsin’s Birthday…


Medvedev unveils monument to Yeltsin:

Boris Yeltsin is a strange sometimes volital topic in Russia to discuss. If you mention his name you have about a 50 / 50 split as to what reaction you will get. I have really seen no middle of the road yet…

Russians either like him or they don’t. Now they have a huge statue of him to stare at…

President Dmitry Medvedev has arrived in Yekaterinburg where he is set to attend the opening ceremony of a monument to former Russian head of state Boris Yeltsin, who today would have turned 80 years old. Sculptor Georgy Frangulyan says the monument comprises several pieces of marble weighing 15 tons each and stands at around 10 meters tall. Frangulyan noted that the monument’s dynamic composition symbolises Yeltsin’s energy.

What I am not sure about on this particular occasion: Medvedev has made a few statements about Yeltsin and that Russia should embrace the real value of reforms made by Russia’s first president Boris Yeltsin…

Has Medvedev stepped right or wrong in his endorsement of a man that is either loved or hated equally?

I know what my wife says about him (Yeltsin) and she don’t like him… 🙂

I guess time will see…

Windows to Russia!
  • Yeltsin laid foundations of modern Russia – Medvedev (rt.com)
  • Boris Yeltsin: What’s in a name? (rt.com)
  • Yeltsin: epitome of 1990s Russia remembered (rt.com)
  • Human rights “immediate” issue for society – Medvedev (rt.com)
  • Rehabilitating Yeltsin (bbc.co.uk)
  • Statue of Yeltsin to be unveiled (bbc.co.uk)
  • Yeltsin was fond of protocol, order and would never be late – former head of protocol (rt.com)

Russia: Average Wages Growing Slowly!


Hello,

I was drinking my morning cup of coffee & thinking about one of the highest Googled keywords we have on Windows to Russia.

Average Wages: Several times everyday someone comes to Windows to Russia to see what Russians make in wages. (Not Much, but getting better.)

So this article will give you a better idea about wages in Russia. If you think you would come here to get rich, probably will not happen. If you come to Russia to have fun, that will happen!
———————————————————-
Salary Research Shows Wages Increasing

By Yekaterina Dranitsyna

Staff Writer

Most private companies in St. Petersburg — 95 percent — increased staff salaries in 2007, according to the latest salary and remuneration survey issued by Avanta Personnel recruiting company, and more than 90 percent of local companies plan to raise wages this year.

During the last year, the average salary increase in the city was 12-13 percent, while the maximum increase was reported at 30 percent. In 2008, private companies in St. Petersburg will increase salaries by 10-12 percent on average, while the maximum increase is again planned at 30 percent, Avanta Personnel reported.

“The gap between salary rates in Moscow and St. Petersburg is narrowing. In St. Petersburg the average salary is 84 percent of that in Moscow. In Vladivostok, which holds the third place in Russia, the salaries are just 55 percent of Moscow’s level,” said Anna Yegorova, head of Labour Market Research at Avanta Personnel.

Yegorova indicated that the main factors that influenced last year’s increase were the personal achievements of employees and the labor market situation, though company performance and inflation also affected salary levels.

In the survey, Avanta Personnel analyzed data concerning the HR policies of over 43,500 employers and salaries of over 27,400 employees from 92 international and Russian companies. Half of these companies were foreign, 40 percent Russian and 11 percent joint ventures.

By January 2008, the average monthly income was reported at 31,090 rubles ($1,261) for office managers, 21,520 rubles ($873) for secretaries, 11,375 rubles ($461) for office cleaners, 28,713 rubles ($1,165) for HR managers, 42,828 rubles ($1,738) for shift managers, 23,502 rubles ($953) for production operators, 26,782 rubles ($1,087) for mechanics and 25,506 rubles ($1,035) for forklift truck drivers.

Average salaries in other categories included:

Unskilled workers: 19,726 rubles ($800)

Financial analysts: 32,280 rubles ($1,310)

Accountants: 22,513 rubles

($913)

Sales representatives: 33,322 rubles ($1,352)

Merchandisers: 18,610 rubles ($755)

Software engineers: 45,684 rubles ($1,854)

IT specialists: 29,290 rubles ($1,188)

Besides the basic salary, 66 percent of the survey participants paid performance-based bonuses (12-20 percent of the annual base salary), 47 percent paid bonuses on the occasion of the anniversary of the company or date an employee started to work there, or other one-off bonuses at the management’s discretion, and 37 percent paid guaranteed bonuses either monthly or once or twice a year.

In sales departments, average sales commissions amount to 40-50 percent of the base salary.

The most common benefits provided by employers in St. Petersburg include medical insurance (78 percent of companies) and lunch benefits (73 percent).

Depending on their position, employees could be awarded other privileges. Top-managers are provided with a company car in 57 percent of companies, managers in 29 percent, and sales personnel in 20-35 percent.

Over 90 percent of companies cover their employees’ cell phone expenses, over 80 percent cover business trip expenses and 95 percent provide training programs for employees.

The average annual turnover in personnel at St. Petersburg companies is 14 percent, according to Avanta Personnel.
———————————————————-
The real problem is once you leave Moscow you can see that wages drop fast. The smaller the town the less money you make. Once you get to the villages wages are non existent.

Kyle & Svet

comments always welcome.

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When Do Comments Become a Deficit and a Hindrance?


Spam is Stupid…

For Months now I have done a lot of thinking over many cups of coffee about comments. I have never achieved a balance on Windows to Russia. It is either comment crazy or no comments at all. So as I drink my coffee this morning and realize that I dealt with thousands and thousands of caught spam. I dealt with multiples of hate, death and destruction comments. I had a handful of decent comments. I had a bunch of cut and paste, slam the world, USA, Israel, Russia and much more comments. I had a sleaze of porn comments that got around the filters. I had hours of work just to get a handful of good comments out of the pile of crap. (See the paradox?)

If I allowed comments to run unmoderated and just post as they are presented. I would have an average of 1200 comments a day. But when these comments sell Viagra, porn, hate, love, home windows, basement repair, clothes, hats, boots, t-shirts and hundreds of other items. What good are they?

I myself very rarely leave comments anywhere in the blogging world. When I do, I mean what I say. I have just a handful of blogs to follow and they are what interest me. So I will leave a comment for them as I read their articles. I follow major news sites and see sometimes a 100,000+ comments left on an article. I realized the stupidity when I see many times the first comment left says, “I am first commenter!” Then you realize it is just a game…

Windows to Russia on any given day has 2000+ readers. That swells to many more, half the time. This number is excluded from the thousands of hits I get by spam bots, search bots and such. So for a Russian blog we are busy and I want it to stay that way. But I also realize that statistics point to the fact that less than half, of one half, of one percent of the real readers ever comment. A non blogging reader just does not comment very often. I read many articles that say 10 to 15 percent or more of your readers will comment. I will tell you, “No they do not.” Well maybe that is high percent is true if you play games yourself by commenting all over the blog world then you will get a return comment as a favor. (Is that really a comment?) Even if they try to act intelligent and leave a good comment they are still just there because they want a link.  In the blogging world they all want to link to a high PR blog or site. Hence we leave comments that really have no meaning just to leave a link to our site. All in the glory and grace of the Almighty Google God… 🙁

I track and have been tracking statistics for years now. Windows to Russia has exceeded 4,000,000+ actual hits and that is climbing rapidly. I do not game Alexa, Google Page Rank or any other form of trying to play with my SEO. I also have Google ad-sense now but that is a futile effort at best on my part…

So I have reached a decision after many months of fighting with all forms of comments. I have tired of spending hours everyday sifting through thousands of comments. This is a time consuming process that takes away from the main issue. Posting to “Windows to Russia…”

So I have gone to Google and used its Friend-connect system. Google is very anti-spam and will help curtail tons of spam in that fact alone. The WordPress comment system is a spam magnet and I do not like that. In fact every comment system that I have used internal or external has been a spam magnet with WordPress. The spammers are better than the controllers and they get by almost anything…

So all the old comments are still there. Except the WordPress comment box has been removed. In its place is now the Google Friend-connect system. So now you must sign up and you still will be moderated. I will also put a CAPTCHA in place if need be. To stop spam that is still getting through…

Other words if you are human and you really have something to say. If you are not here just to leave a link. Then we want you to express it. At that point I can give attention to a real comment and maybe something constructive will come out of it…

Comments became a deficit and a hindrance…

Windows to Russia!

Do You Wonder Why Russia is Buying Gold?


Russia posts “gold record”

Russia as I have expressed several times in the past few years, is steadily buying gold. This good article from “Voice of Russia” explains a little about what is going on…

Russia bought a record amount of gold for its gold reserves in 2010. An increase by nearly one third to a total of 784 tons has earned Russia the eight position in the world and may propel it further to the top in terms of gold and currency reserves. Gold remains the only stable asset amid post-crisis currency fluctuations. Russia plans to ramp up its share in world gold reserves and has all the capacities to do so. Statistics say that gold accounts for a bit more than 7 percent in Russia’s reserves, whereas in some countries it exceeds 50%. These countries have no intention of increasing their gold reserves and may even choose to sell them.
Windows to Russia!

Back Home in Russia – Safe and Sound…


I was sitting here thinking about the trip I just made over a good cup of coffee. It is really amazing how bad the coffee can be when you have to buy it from a machine. I tried several cups of train station coffee this trip and found that while it was chocked full of caffeine. They forgot to keep the flavor and it was more like mud than coffee. My grandpa use to say, “That coffee could take the varnish off the furniture…”

So running on coffee (?) for several days, does not help my health and it takes me several days to recover once I am home. It is a fun but rough trip…

This week I will update the visa situation in Ukraine. There has been several changes and that caused me a few problems. Nothing that I could not deal with but if you know ahead of time it is easy to change your patterns for. So a new Ukraine visa post is in the works, to cover new said issues…

I also struggled to get any mobile posting done. The system that I had was flawed (as always) and even though it worked at home. It crashed on the road.  I had to do some research at the motel to discover new ways to post from my mobile phone. I finally came upon a application for my android phone called, “WordPress in Your Pocket“. It was the answer to my issues and as you can see I was able to finally get several articles posted. They were just test posts but it worked and made me feel better after all the failures…

There was something cool about sitting in a McDonald’s and eating a cheeseburger and posting to the blog… (I know, I am weird!)

One last thing for this post. I found out on this trip why America is the worst country but is also the greatest and most wonderful country. On a overnight train like the one to Kiev you find that you are a captive of the train and conversations are necessary just to curtail the boredom. So I was talking to a Yuri. (Always a Yuri on a train!) He was expressing about why America was a terrible country and all that stuff. I listened to him and discovered that he was born in Ukraine during the Soviet era and had lived in America for three years after the fall of the Soviet Empire. He was very well educated and fluent in several languages. So he had knowledge’s that extended beyond just western propaganda in his thoughts…

We were joined in conversation by a quiet Briton (Charles) that agreed with Yuri on most of his thoughts. So I was out numbered right off the start.  But after all was said about how America needs to grow up and get her act together. That America is just a semblance of Democracy. That freedoms in America are a facade. Other words politically, morally and structurally, America sucks… 🙁

There was an interesting kicker to the whole conversation. It was about why America is the greatest Country and that these wonderful items override the bad…

Yuri had said that he gained 30 kilos in America and when he came back to Ukraine he lost all that weight he had gained. He said that food was just so plentiful and cheap, that you found yourself and others just eating all the time. Every business meeting had food and more food. Portions are huge at the restaurants, etc etc etc. The biggest thing to him was the donut shops. He could not control himself over Dunkin donuts… 🙂

{I myself, have lost 20 kilos now after leaving America and that part of his conversation I had to agree with. To much excess food in America…}

So Yuri and the Charles made it clear that America is the greatest country in the world because, you have unlimited cups of coffee refills, unlimited cups of hot or cold tea refills, cheap buffets with unlimited food refills, unlimited Coke-Cola refills and donut shops everywhere. (Does Britain have unlimited food items like America?) There was a couple more things and they all had to do with food… 🙂

Who would have thunk? Dunkin Donuts makes America great…

Sometimes my train conversations amaze me…

Windows to Russia!

The Kiev, Ukraine Train Station…


It was a dreary day and snowing like crazy. I decided while waiting for my evening train back to Moscow, to take a walk. I snapped a few pictures and they came out OK. Not great, but it gives you an idea of the Kiev train station…

While Moscow has multiples of train stations including one called the Kiev station. Kiev only has one train station and it is huge…

I say that it has a new end and an old end to the building. The inside pictures are of the old end and the outside pictures are of the new end. The old end is twice as busy as the new end…

I threw a picture of the church across the street for good measure…

Related articles

Where Oh Where Has The Kiev Mayor Gone…


Leonid Chernovetskyi, the incumbent Mayor of K...
Mayor of Kiev, Leonid Chernovetskyi…

Some interesting news while I was in Kiev this time: For over two months now (and some are saying 5 months) in Kiev. The mayor has not been seen. The TV news at the hotel reported that he left Ukraine this past November to celebrate his 59th birthday in France and never came back…

I wonder if he has been paid the whole time?

Interesting…

Windows to Russia!

Ukraine posting from McDonalds…


I finally found a system that allowed me to mobile post. As I sit eating a hamburger I am typing this. So I realize this is not much but it is a start….

My first three attempts at mobile posting failed…

Lets hope this works. I was able to approve some comments and delete some comments that wished my death…

I have some interesting stories to tell when I get back…

Windows to Russia!

“Posted from Mobile”

In Ukraine and trying to post…


Hey everyone! I am sitting in a WiFi zone. Kiev seems to have free WiFi all over the place…

I am just trying out this mobile blogging thing…

If it works. Then I will do more later. I am sitting in a McDonald’s in Ukraine at this moment. I found a free WiFi and will say a few words.

I got all my business done and can play now.

I ate two cheese burgers and drank a diet coke…

So we will see how these few words come out. Then maybe we will have more than a few words next time…

Windows to Russia!

“Posted from Mobile”

Lessons From the Moscow Bombing – by Eli Cryderman…


At 4:32pm local time, a suspected suicide bomber detonated an explosive device equivalent to ~15lbs TNT in a crowded international arrival zone at Domodedovo airport, the busiest of Moscow’s three airports. At least 35 people were killed instantly while reports of those injured have been reported as high as 168. No one has claimed responsibility for the attack, although it is suspected that a member of an Islamic group hailing from the war stricken Chechen Republic is to blame.

Concerning the horrible loss of innocent life in a Moscow airport yesterday, and with the aforementioned quotes in mind, what can we learn about this event? Sure, there will be plenty of news coverage over the next couple days reviewing the details of the bombing, what actually happened, how it happened, which extremist group is to blame, which talk radio host or political party encouraged it and so on and so forth. But, it’s a new season of American Idol (with new judges!), The Oprah found out she has a half-sister, soon it will be the Super Bowl and this event, like everything else that happens outside of the United State will fade into the collective memory hole and we will miss an important opportunity to learn from history. Perhaps. However, I believe there is a growing Remnant of society which is increasingly rejecting the status quo, although they are outnumbered and with ideas outside the realm of today’s accepted thoughts. They are tired of being spoon-fed their thoughts and are shaping a new consciousness of critical thinking Americans. For them I ask, what can we learn from this airport bombing?

First and foremost is that there are people in this world who want to kill other people. These people and their use of violence should be denounced at every possible opportunity. It is disgusting that after thousands of years of human history, people still haven’t learned to settle disputes without murder.

Second, failsafe security is impossible. The details of how the suspected bomber was able to smuggle a bomb into the arrival area (most likely in a briefcase) and what, if any security measures were in place of the airport will be discussed ad nausea. What won’t be discussed is that there is no possible way to deter a sufficiently motivated individual from killing large amounts of people in public places. Airport security (and the entire US intelligence apparatus) utterly failed on September 11, 2001. A few months later, Richard Reid tried to blow up American Airlines Flight 63 by detonating 10oz of C-4 hidden in his shoe. From then on, people were forced to take off their shoes during “security” screenings, but in December 2009, Umar Abdulmutallab tried to detonate explosives hidden in his underwear. The US government’s response was to force people to undergo irradiating scanners and sexual assaults as a condition for flying. Hopefully our dear leaders don’t find out about Abdulla Asieri, who tried to assassinate a Saudi prince by smuggling a bomb in his rectum; can you imagine what the TSA would require potential airline passengers to submit to before they could board a plane?

Third, they don’t need to blow up airplanes anymore. It used to be that an airplane provided the necessary captive group of people for a terrorist to exact the greatest amount of casualties and psychological damage. But, as airport security has made attacking an airplane more difficult, it has also produced an unintended consequence. If you’re ever in an airport during a busy travel period, where is the highest concentration of people located? Ticketing, baggage claim and ironically enough, the “security” screening area, all of which are not “secured.” Why don’t they require screenings as a condition for entering the airport? Then the lines trying to get into the airport becomes the target. Then make that area “secure.” Which makes the adjacent area the bottleneck and thus, the target. You get the point. This doesn’t even begin to consider all the sporting events, plays, concerts, fairs and other gatherings of people that would be targets, which are already primed to get the new porno-scanners.

Lastly, there are consequences to occupying foreign peoples and their land. Despite what the mainstream media would have John Q. Public believe, suicide bombers are not motivated by religion, but by atrocities they and their people have suffered by an occupying military regime. Osama bin Laden has repeatedly given the reason for al-Qaeda carrying out attacks against the Western world; the militaries of the West have occupied Muslim land in the East, bought, bribed and threatened Middle Eastern governments and engaged in unjustified wars that have killed millions. The people of Chechnya have continued to fight for independence from the Kremlin and have endured brutal, relentless campaigns of violence at the hands of the Russian military. Hopefully this goes without saying, but as Rudy Giuliani proved in the past, describing blowback is not blaming America. We must understand how foreign policy affects those who get a taste of it, up close and personal. Additionally, we should remember that American Colonists fought for their own freedom from a foreign government.

What to take away?

Evil people who would commit violence against others exist in this world and must be condemned at every chance possible. We will never be truly safe from these types of people, but we don’t have to sacrifice our liberties to accommodate such insanity. The current airport security apparatus is dysfunctional to say the least, and it does not work. There needs to be a paradigm shift in thinking about how best to protect people and places. How should airport security or any other type be handled? I don’t know, but free choice in the market has been shown throughout history to yield the best set of parameters and procedures for a given process, whether it’s making widgets or organizing society. Finally, the public must realize that U.S., Russian or any other nation’s foreign policy – specifically that of occupying other nations – has consequences, one of which is attacks on innocent civilians. Will people learn anything from this latest event? History will be the judge.

January 26, 2011

Eli Cryderman [send him mail] is a full-time husband, father, entrepreneur and chemist and a part-time blogger. He is inspired by Nock, encouraged by North and repulsed by the 21st century state. He enjoys spending time with his beautiful family, continually learning and following the teachings of Jesus Christ.

Copyright © 2011 by LewRockwell.com. Permission to reprint in whole or in part is gladly granted, provided full credit is given.

http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig12/cryderman1.1.1.html

Windows to Russia!