Windows to Russia

Hello,

This mornings cup of coffee was back in Moscow, Russia. I was contemplating about the tornado that hit the village this weekend! (Did I say tornado?)

We will just jump into the nitty gritty…

I had just fired up the shashlik grill and threading the meat and veggies on to the metal sticks. This was around 2 pm on Saturday. We had a great meal planned…

The day was sunny and cool, it was the perfect summer day. I had just finished loading the grill with food and out of nowhere in about 60 second time period. Mother Nature turned the world upside down.

I heard a very familiar noise and for 10 seconds, I just listened and tried to place where that roar of a freight train noise was coming from and we do not have railroad tracks nearby. I stood up from working on the fire and realized that all hell was going to break loose in about 10 seconds. I yelled “Oh My God” real loud and Svet ran toward me. I said get in the doorway of the cabin and hang on. As Svet and Boza went into the door frame area. It hit hard.

You see: When I said “Oh My God” I had the pleasure of seeing a new tornado come out of the only cloud in the sky and hit the lake at our village. (I call that a water spout at that point.) I hollered again at Svet to stay down and Boza of course was crawling in the grass by my feet and Svet came running to me. (Other words like chickens with heads cut off…)

Then for the next 20 seconds it looked like we were going to meet the maker! Trees snapped like gun shots all over the place and all we could do was lean at a 45 degree angle into the wind and prey. The birch trees at our village house bowed almost 90 degrees to the ground and they are about 30 feet tall. We did not lose any trees, but I watched the tornado rip the tops out of several trees and toss 20 food sections like tooth picks.

I looked up and saw the tornado split into two tornadoes and it passed on either side of our house..

I looked at the neighbor house about 200 meters away. The owner was hanging on to a big fence post and looking at the sky. I turned away from him and saw that our grill had turned bright cherry red from the wind and coals, The fire was streaming out from the grill in a straight line for 20 to 30 feet. Svet was watching the fire also. (It had to be at least 100+ km wind speed)

The tornadoes had passed and the wind started to dropped. Svet came with water buckets to stop any fires and I paused us all and we stood not moving while the freight train (tornado) disappeared over the hill…

The man in the house near us was very lucky: He was in the yard and was hanging on for dear life and watched his car raise about 5 feet in the air and float for a few feet toward his house. The car then was gently lowered on his fence and it tilted on its side and was gently lowered to the ground. His house was not touched and he was next to the car and was not harmed. He was hanging on that corner post that you see with the brace on it. He had just drove the car up there from work. He works at the fishery that owns all the ponds…

This picture is of a tree across the road from us that had a huge section of trunk snapped half way down and tossed over a hundred meters in to a field between our places.

Svet was so excited about seeing a tornado. She was not happy about damage that was done but that was her first tornado (We spent all day Sunday repairing the house and fence from the wind damage. We were lucky many others were not as lucky…) and she had caught a site of the one that traveled over the neighbors house.

After it was all over and calmed down, I remembered to checked on the grill. I found out that the meat was done to perfection and veggies were tender. We sat at our picnic table and ate the best meal that we ever had. A meal cooked by a tornado…

Windows to Russia!
comments always welcome.

PS: We wondered about all the baby fish that got sucked up from the lake. This is a hatching pond for the young babies… (did not rain fish on us… :))

Moscow and Beijing to talk about Pyongyang and Obama:
It is hard to find two other top leaders who would meet more often than those of Russia and China. They attend at least two summits per year, plus the inevitable G8 summer meeting (Russia is a member of the club and China is always invited), and plus the summits of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), where the two countries discuss their common policy in Central Asia. There are also regular telephone conversations.

Gazprom to produce 507 bln cu m of gas in 2010:
Gazprom plans to produce 507 billion cubic meters of natural gas in 2010 but could boost output to 600 billion cu m if necessary, a deputy board chairman said on Tuesday.

Russian president orders military talks with Abkhazia, S. Ossetia:
Russia’s president has issued instructions for military cooperation deals to be negotiated with the former Georgian republics of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, the Kremlin said on Tuesday.

UN and Georgia:
Russia exercised its veto power in the United Nations Security Council on Monday and brought an end to the nearly 16-year-old observer mission monitoring a cease-fire between Georgia and its breakaway Abkhazia region.

Medvedev calls for rules to admit new SCO members:
Russia’s president urged on Tuesday for documents to be drawn up, setting out rules for admitting new members to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO).

Russia says Iran’s election is its own business, welcomes president:
Russia, which is hosting a regional summit on Tuesday attended by Iran’s leader, believes that the country’s recent election is no business of other states, a senior diplomat said.

Vintage trams roll down Moscow streets:
In an event celebrating the 110th anniversary of Moscow’s first tram, a line of vintage streetcars rolled out onto the city’s tracks for local residents to ride and photograph. Some trams are celebrities having starred in popular Russian movies.

I was drinking my morning cup of coffee and remembered that I took some pictures last night when I walked the dog. I grabbed the cell phone camera to see what and if they came out.

I got a couple of good pictures out of the 20 pictures – I took. So lets see what I got.

This is 2:30 am in Moscow and the sun is finishing setting or at least the last of the day light. Boza and I took a walk and when we came back at 3:30 am to the same spot in the lower picture. That is when we found that the day was beginning again… (It just got lighter from there.) This is the same window just angled slightly different. It is all North….

Ok – I realize that it is dark, but someone like me who grew up in the country in the USA this is not dark. There is enough light to buck hay all night and not need any head lights on the tractors or trucks.

Strange feeling for this country boy from America, what we need to do is go up North even farther. They say the sun never sets…

Windows to Russia!
comments always welcome.

Ivan Eland in a interview with Russia Today, is a defense policy expert from Washington’s Independent Institute, Ivan shared his views on the additional troops in Afghanistan and other issues related to the war…

Windows to Russia!
comments always welcome.

Freedom House as per par, paid extra attention to Russia, China, Iran, Pakistan and Venezuela again in this fine outstanding piece of verbal garbage. (Link to Report)

According expectations, America’s “human rights activists” did not say anything good about Russia. That is not what gets me riled up though. I know Russia has issues and problems with Human Rights and the President of Russia Medvedev also knows this and he is working hard on changes.

What makes me get upset is the fact that an organization disregards so many incorrigible issues that the USA does and has done. They disregard the events happening at Guantanamo, they disregard the atrocities in Iraq, they disregard the fact that very nearly everything whatsoever is the proper domain of government, they accept torture and still give exceedingly higher rating positions to the United States of America than Russia and many many other countries.

The fact that even one issue as important as Guantanamo is over looked, means that all other ratings on the world that they publish are doubtful, distrustful, dubious, and questionable.

To place America any higher on the scale than Russia is a falsification of information that borders on criminal territory. America has no more freedoms than the people in Russia. It is probable that America may have now have entered a new stage of having less Freedoms than Russia!

Granted Russia has big issues and problems that hopefully will be eradicated as they develop into a stronger unified country. But open your eyes and see that America has the same problems and big issues that they still have never ever solved!

They just “sweep them under the carpet” – That way you don’t see them…

Windows to Russia!
comments always welcome.

Note of example: (Just a tiny example out of hundreds)

• Western Europe and North America: The region continues to earn the highest scores in Freedom in the World. The election of Barack Obama as U.S. president could lead to reforms of problematic counterterrorism policies. Two European countries experienced declines in 2008: Italy and Greece. The survey also voices concern about potential threats to freedom of expression in Canada and Great Britain. (Not a word mentioned about the Iraq war and war in Afghanistan?)

• Former Soviet Union/Central and Eastern Europe: Non-Baltic countries of the former Soviet Union continued their decade-long decline, now ranking below Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East on several survey indicators. Russia and Georgia, which went to war over South Ossetia, were among the region’s notable declines, as well as Armenia, Azerbaijan, Kyrgyzstan and Moldova. Democracy in Central and Eastern Europe remains strong, despite setbacks in Bulgaria and Macedonia. (But we mention the Georgian Conflict that Georgia caused and Russia ended as a major issue in decline!)