This is the first time I have seen this in Moscow and the kids are having a blast. The fire department has popped a hydrant and are letting the kids have a deserved cool down…
The temperatures this week are going to be knocking on the door of 40 C. and that is wrecking havoc on Russia…
Notice the hydrant in the middle of the road. It is under a man hole cover. This is normal and they have to insert the hydrant before it can be used. So not just anyone can open a fire hydrant…
I was walking the dog and found the street flooded, so I followed the water and ended up at this fairy tale of a spot for children..
The situation in Russia with the fires, is getting worse, not better and we are starting to worry about our village home. Not that we can do much about it and if it burns it burns…
It seems that fire is on both sides of our village though many kilometers away. Luckily the village is protected by a river on one side major byways on the other side. But everyone knows that dry hot winds blows very hot fire…
If the fire decides to go after the village we will just pray that everyone gets out safe…
We can not just take a 450km jaunt and see if everything is OK because many roads are not accessible and it would be a very dangerous thing to do in the first place…
The video is in Russian but that will not distract from the purpose…
I woke this morning and could not see the rest of the buildings in the complex as it looked like a pea soup fog. My eyes were watering and I was sneezing and coughing from the smoke. You would have sworn that our building was on fire. Moscow is covered in a dangerous envelope of smoke. I know have developed a sore throat and blame that on the smoke in the air…
I want to touch on the fact that the Western press has decided that the fires are under control in Russia. Do not believe it…
Firefighters gain control over wildfires in Russia (cnn.com)
A ding dong in the Emergency department of Russia decided to make a statement about how 500 new fires have broke out but we got them all put out quickly! So that became a fact that the fires are under control in Russia…
We sit here and watch today, a total of 7,000+ devastating forest and peat bog fires covering about 500,000+ hectares of land are raging throughout much of the Russian territory. 34 people have died so far! Does that sound like the fires are about out?
I will keep an update going on the fires as I see things that change…
When You have very little as many Russians have and then that is taken from you, It gets sad…
Watch the video as the whole village burns and believe me they have no way to stop the fire in Rural Russia…
Wildfires raging in central Russia due to abnormally hot weather have claimed 30 lives, left 2,210 people homeless and caused damages worth over 4.6 billion rubles ($150 million), the Ministry for Regional Development said on Sunday.
The wildfires have affected 14 Russian regions, destroyed a total of 1,875 homes, with the largest destructions observed in the Nizhny Novgorod, Voronezh and Ryazan regions, the ministry said, citing data as of late July 31.
As many as 771 wildfires were registered in the European part of Russia as of early Sunday, including peat bog fires, the ministry said.
Temperatures across much of western and central Russia have topped 35 degrees Celsius (95 degrees Fahrenheit) in the past five weeks, causing peat bog and forest fires and creating what is thought to be the worst drought in the country since 1972.
Russian Prime MinisterVladimir Putin, who visited the fire-damaged Vyksa district in Nizhny Novgorod on Friday, severely criticized local administrations for their poor handling of the fire crisis and said local government chiefs who had failed to cope with the deadly wildfires must resign.
Many residents in the Nizhny Novgorod region, whose houses had been burnt down in the fires, complained to Putin, at the scene to assess the situation, that the actions taken by local authorities were chaotic and uncoordinated.
Putin has ordered a total of 5 billion rubles ($165 million) to be disbursed from the federal budget to the central Russian areas affected by the wildfires.
He said the families of those who died in wildfires would receive 1 million rubles ($33,000) in compensation each. He also said the government would allocate around 3 million rubles ($100,000) for the reconstruction of each burnt house.
The government will also allocate funds to compensate for the loss of personal property.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev called for the immediate construction of housing for those left homeless by the fires.
Windows to Russia!
Wildfires spread in western Russia, kill 28 (reuters.com)
Five killed as wildfires sweep central Russia (reuters.com)
Raging Wildfires Kill At Least 29 In Russia (news.sky.com)
Russia And California Battle Deadly Wildfires (news.sky.com)
Russia battles hundreds of wildfires (theglobeandmail.com)
Russian army to battle wildfires that have killed 28 (ctv.ca)
Russia sends army to battle deadly wildfires (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
Did you know that Moscow celebrated its 862nd birthday on September 5-6 2009?
Did you know that 66 percent of Russians, think of Moscow residents as a separate category of Russian people? They imagine a Muscovite as a person having a good job, a high income, and fine business qualities. However, when speaking about personal qualities of Muscovite’s, most Russians have negative things to say. 6 percent consider Muscovite’s rude, crude and socially unacceptable.
Did you know that Native Muscovite’s make up only two percent of the population of Moscow about 180,000 people? (Svetlana is a native Muscovite.)
Did you know that Moscow is a densely populated city? There are about 120 people living on each hectare of land in the city limits. For comparison, the density is 40 people in New York, 62 in London, 88 in Paris.
Just some tidbits of information so that you learn more about Moscow and Russia…
An estimated 200 protesters turned out for the rally in downtown Moscow with 35 hauled away in police vehicles. But that number of protesters paled in comparison to the some 300 reporters who were on hand to cover the event…
Lets get this straight – more reporters than protesters…
Hummmmm…
Windows to Russia!
Russian police arrest Kremlin opponent at rally (sfgate.com)
Russia is going to spend a little money in the next few years. Putin promised that Sochi would be ready and the money is starting to flow!
04/02/2008 15:33 SOCHI, February 4 (RIA Novosti) – Russia’s prime minister said on Monday the government will spend 81 billion rubles ($3.3 billion) over the next three years on facilities for the 2014 Winter Olympics to be held in Sochi…..
“The government has adopted a program for the construction of Olympic facilities and Sochi’s development,” Viktor Zubkov told a meeting of the presidential council responsible for preparations for the games at the Black Sea resort.
“It includes 243 facilities. Around 81 billion rubles will be spent on the program in the next three years.”
Zubkov said the six years remaining to prepare for the games is a relatively short period considering the scale of the plans, and urged for final decisions on the facilities’ location and additional, private, investment in the Olympic projects.
President Vladimir Putin, who vigorously campaigned to secure the country’s victory as an Olympic bidder, and spoke English, French and Spanish at a presentation ceremony to win over IOC members, earlier pledged $12 billion to build the city’s facilities for the winter Olympics largely from scratch.
Sochi won the right to host the games during an IOC session in Guatemala in July 2007 after a close race with South Korea‘s Pyeongchang and Austria’s Salzburg.
Environmental groups have warned that large-scale construction work could wreak significant damage in the unique mountainous West Caucasus area, which includes territories on the UNESCO World Heritage List. Critics have also predicted that authorities and organizers will use the opportunity to embezzle government funds.
Apart from sporting venues and hotels, organizers plan to build a mobile communications network, digital broadcasting infrastructure, lay fiber-optic cables, build and modernize four power plants and four cascaded hydroelectric power stations, and to totally rebuild power grids
Transportation services are also to be improved considerably. A light metro is to be built to connect the airport and railroad terminal in Adler to sporting venues. The existing railroad will be reconstructed and two more lines laid, including a high-speed one from Moscow to Adler.
Sochi airport, where a new terminal was built recently, will have a runway extended, and backup airports will be built in nearby cities. New terminals will be constructed in the sea port.
There are also plans to build “Federation” island off Sochi’s coast in the shape of Russia. The island is to be filled with hotels and offices.
Russia will be hosting the Winter Olympics for the first time. Moscow hosted the Summer Olympics in 1980, but the event was marred by a U.S.-led boycott involving more than 60 countries.
I see that Russia is going to be spending a lot of money on the Olympics in the next 6 years. My wife and I can not wait, we want to go!
Windows to Russia!
Russia launches criminal probe of corrupt spending at Vancouver Winter Games (theprovince.com)
WADA Head Says Russia Must Do More Against Doping (nytimes.com)
Russia to increase security for Sochi Olympics (sportingnews.com)
The situation with wildfires in the Russian regions remains difficult, though some stability has been noticed, Prime MinisterVladimir Putin said during a meeting at the Emergencies Ministry’s Situation Room on Saturday.
According to the Emergencies Ministry’s figures on Saturday morning, some 121,500 hectares of forest are burning. There are also 18 peat bog fires, 9 of which are in the Central Federal District.
“The situation we have with wildfires remains difficult, [and] the night before last and yesterday morning we ran into some heavy consequences in some regions [but this] has stabilized a bit; however, on the whole, [the situation] remains quite intense,” Putin said.
Over the last 24 hours, over 1,000 homes have been destroyed and entire villages burned to the ground in the largest wildfire ever to hit the European part of Russia.
An emergency situation has been announced in 14 regions in Russia. Thousands of people have been left homeless.
Temperatures across much of western and central Russia have topped 35 degrees Celsius (95 degrees Fahrenheit) during the past five weeks, causing peat bog and forest fires and creating what is thought to be the worst drought since 1972.
“You all know what the weather forecast is: there’s nothing to be happy about,” Putin said.
Windows to Russia!
Raging Wildfires Kill At Least 29 In Russia (news.sky.com)
Five killed as wildfires sweep central Russia (reuters.com)
Russia And California Battle Deadly Wildfires (news.sky.com)
15 dead as forest fires rage south, east of Moscow (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
Medvedev just started a video area on YouTube and then this pops up last week. I find it interesting that countries are having internet issues such as America shutting down 73,000 blogs on a site last week (They deny it though! :)) China and Google go round and round. Now this, Russia and YouTube…
The Central District Court of Russia’s Far East city of Komsomolsk-on-Amur has ordered a local Internet provider to block access to five websites, including Youtube, for spreading extremist materials, a court spokesman told RIA Novosti on Wednesday.
“The court ordered the Rosnet provider to block access to Youtube, as well as to lib.rus.ec, thelib.ru, zhurnal.ru and web.archive.org, which contain open materials included in the federal list of extremist literature,” he said.
With the exception of Youtube, all the remaining sites are electronic libraries. “In particular, Adolf Hitler‘s Mein Kampf could be found in the electronic libraries’ websites,” the spokesman said.
The Komsomolsk-on-Amur Prosecutor’s Office filed a lawsuit after investigating the website content.
Rosnet on Wednesday appealed the decision.
“Representatives of our company have repeatedly offered… representatives of the Prosecutor General‘s office… ways of blocking extremist content by turning to the hosting providers and owners of websites or the authors of the [extremist] issues. But our proposals were neglected,” Rosnet’s press release said.
Several countries attempt to impose censorship on the world’s largest websites. Pakistan blocked Youtube in February 2008 over “sacrilegious content.” Last year, China blocked Youtube on its territory. (RIA Novosti)
Makes me go Hummmm…
Windows to Russia!
Russian city blocks YouTube (go.theregister.com)
“Russia: YouTube, Archive.org and Other Sites Banned by a Far East Court” and related posts (resourceshelf.com)
Russian Court Bans YouTube Over Extremist Video (newteevee.com)
I was drinking my morning cup of delicious coffee here in Moscow, Russia. I was doing some thinking about a faded black older BMW car that I had seen the other day with a license plate with the number of the devil on it! It went by at a very high rate of speed, as Svet and I stood near the theater taking pictures of horses, in which that we had just seen a movie. I could not and can not understand why someone would put the sign of the devil on their license plate. (registration plate)
I remember shaking my head and mumbled something under my breath, because I thought to myself, that person has issues.
Well today an interesting accident has happened:
MOSCOW, May 7 (RIA Novosti) – A driver had to be cut out of his BMW after a tram rammed into his vehicle, which was displaying the number 666 on the registration plate, a police source said on Thursday.
The accident occurred near a church in east Moscow and the significance of the number 666 on the vehicle’s registration plate made some emergency workers nervous. (Link)
I understand the workers being nervous. I do not believe in many superstitions but one that I take to heart is the number of the devil and even the numbers 999 raises caution with me, which is number of the devil upside down.
I checked some more news sources and I am 99% positive that this is the same car. The driver was young and had no respect for people, horses or other cars. He ran one actually two of the lights that was at the intersection as we waited for a bus. I remember him because I was trying to get pictures of people who were riding horses across this same intersections. I did not get the car on a picture but I got the horses. Not a very good picture but you can still see the horses and they were being ridden through Moscow, late at night. It was this intersection that he weaved around cars at a high rate of speed and tore into the night. I remember his plate and the number of the devil!
If it is not him then there is another BMW with number of the devil on its license plate running around Moscow, Russia.
So now this guy is in serious condition and his car totaled. The people on the tram were not hurt according to reports. It seems that many people in Moscow like to drive on the tram tracks and block the trams all the time. Or try to out run them and get across the intersection before them.
Just like playing chicken with a train at a train crossing. The train wins sometimes…
![Vladimir Putin](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/02/Vladimir_Putin-2.jpg/300px-Vladimir_Putin-2.jpg" "Vladimir Putin")
