Windows to Russia
Mascot of the 1980 Olympic Games in Moscow2014 days til 2014 Sochi olympics
Kyle & Svet
Hello,
Recently, when we published a very good video of song “My years are my wealth” by Vahtang Kikabidze (“Мои года – мое богатство”, Вахтанг Кикабидзе) we found that 19 July 2008 Vahtang Kikabidze celebrated his 70th birthday! I want you to watch This great video:
http://kp.ru/daily/24135.3/354117/print/
http://www.alefmagazine.com/pub320.html
http://www.1tv.ru/owa/win/ort5_kino.kino?p_kino_title_id=5403
Svet ![](http://i201.photobucket.com/albums/aa306/kylekeeton/Butterfly-01-june.gif")
comments always welcome
Seems Georgia has issues with Autonomous Republics!Hello,
So Georgia keeps killing people in the breakaway republic of South Ossetia: “It was reported on Friday evening that three people had been killed as Georgian troops continued to shell its capital, Tskhinvali.” Georgia has also: “declared a sniper war on the Republic of South Ossetia and made another attempt to unleash a large scale war,” It was also said. “The republic has so far refrained from retaliatory moves, but will not do so any more.” South Ossetia is bound and determined to be annexed by Russia and Georgia is playing the bully….. (Link)
South Ossetia has again reiterated the desire to become a part of Russia, Eduard Kokoity, who is the president of this unrecognized and breakaway province of Georgia, made the respective statement Wednesday.
“This is our responsibility to Russia and we should execute it with honor no matter how hard and tough it would be, no matter how hard and tough we have been beaten in Beslan and Tskhinvali. They beat us exactly to weaken the standing of Russia,” Kokoity announced during the news conference in Vladikavkaz.
The president emphasized that the ties of South Ossetia with North Caucasus republics of Russia have strengthened recently. “Just take a look how many representatives of these republics have recently visited South Ossetia and Abkhazia, how many calls we are receiving when the situation aggravates. Our brothers are ready to bring forward detachments of volunteers,” Kokoity said.
But South Ossetia will count on its own forces in case of the critical situation, the president promised.
South Ossetia was Georgia’s autonomy in time of the Soviet Union. But Georgia’s First President Zviad Gamsakhurdia cancelled the autonomy and attempted to resolve the problem by force. The armed conflict lasted till summer of 1992, stripping Georgia off control over a portion of South Ossetia.
South Ossetia has been seeking independence ever since but Georgia is ready to offer only the autonomy status.(Link)
Russia’s Foreign Ministry called on Saturday upon Georgia and its breakaway region of South Ossetia to show restraint and search for ways to settle the conflict without violence.
South Ossetia has not yet mobilized its population following border incidents allegedly provoked by Georgia but put its armed forces on high alert, the interior minister said on Saturday.
Georgia and Ukraine are country’s that the USA is illegally playing with. “Bush and Rasputin Dick Cheney have broken a 1991 pledge made by President Bush Senior to Soviet chairman Michael Gorbachev. In exchange for Gorby’s not using the Red Army to crush spreading revolts in East Germany and across the dying Soviet Union, Washington agreed not to advance NATO eastward toward Russia or into the old USSR. Gorbachev’s courageous, humane concession averted a crisis that could have led to a nuclear war.
Gorbachev kept his side of the bargain, allowing the Soviet Union to implode. But the US, sneering at Boris Yeltsin’s bankrupt, demoralized post-imperial Russia, quickly reneged and began advancing NATO ever closer to Russia’s borders. Washington is currently mucking around in Georgia and Ukraine, both parts of Russia’s back yard and considered seriously off limits to the western powers.
Small wonder Bush’s foolish ABM system so outrages the Russians who have every right to moral outrage and being angry as hornets. Bush’s paranoia and obsession with Iran is causing him to risk provoking a military clash with Russia. He is fast pushing Russia’s new President Dimitri Medvedev and PM Vlad Putin to the wall.
John McCain is cheering Bush on. He recently called for Russia to be expelled from the G8 and vowed that if elected president, he would “confront” Russia.” (Link)
Kyle & Svet
comments always welcome.
RBC, 01.08.2008, Moscow 19:23:51.Bank of Moscow placed 10m bonds of the first series worth a total of RUB 10bn (approx. USD 426.99m), the bank said in a statement. More than 20 bids were filed by banks, both Russian and foreign, and asset management companies on MICEX. The lower end of the range of coupon rates was at 8.74 percent. As a result of the auction, the first coupon rate was set at 9.25 percent per annum. The first coupon payment will total RUB 461.2m (approx. USD 19.69), or RUB 46.12 (approx. USD 1.97) per bond.![](http://i201.photobucket.com/albums/aa306/kylekeeton/coffee.gif")
RBC, 01.08.2008, Moscow 18:43:24.The Russian stock market closed with most traded securities sliding today. The MICEX index edged down 0.19 percent to 1,492.55 points and the RTS index fell 1.2 percent to 1,943.05 points. Among MICEX’s biggest losers were Rosneft (down 2.37 percent), Sberbank (down 1.56 percent), Gazprom (down 1.23 percent), and Surgutneftegas (down 0.75 percent). At the same time, Norilsk Nickel climbed 5.1 percent, LUKoil rose 1.38 percent, and Severstal gained 2.19 percent.
RBC, 01.08.2008, Moscow 18:27:48.The Moscow City Court has imposed a life sentence on Leonid Nevzlin, a former YUKOS shareholder. The court found him guilty of organizing several murders, as well as of an attempted murder and an armed assault.
RBC, 01.08.2008, Minsk 17:44:12.The Belarus authorities are in talks with LUKoil and Rosneft regarding their participation in the privatization of the Naftan refinery and the Polymir petrochemical producer, both state-owned companies, Vladimir Semashko, the Belarusian First Deputy Prime Minister, said today. One of the conditions of sale, he noted, is that the potential investors need to have sales markets available and raw materials to supply to the privatized companies.
RBC, 01.08.2008, Moscow 13:23:55.The Bank of Russia will raise the reserve requirement starting September 1, 2008, the bank’s press office said. The reserve requirement will be hiked from 7 to 8.5 percent for liabilities to non-resident banks in terms of rubles or foreign currencies, from 5 to 5.5 percent for liabilities to individuals in terms of rubles, and from 5.5 to 6 percent for other liabilities.
RBC, 01.08.2008, Moscow 09:11:19.The export duty on oil has been set at $495.9 per tonne effective as of August 1, 2008. Monitoring data shows that the average price of oil stood at $123.36375 per barrel in May-June, and based on that figure the ceiling rate of duty amounts to $495.936 per tonne. The duty on light refined oil products will be $346.4 per tonne, and $186.6 per tonne on heavy oil products.
Hello,
Svet and I went on a wonderful boat ride for her birthday. (Sat. 19th,2008) We spent three fantastic hours on the Moscow River.
The boat was a large river sightseeing vessel. It had a full bar, inside dance hall, outside seats and food. The trip cost about 600 rubles ($24) each.
Svet and I had just gotten out of seeing the Chinese Circus in Moscow. We looked around at the river and realized that there was tours of the river going on. We purchased tickets and off we went. (just click pictures to enlarge)
As you can see we went through the heart of Moscow. Moscow is a very beautiful city and it was hard to pick from the pictures that we took. We took almost three hundred pictures.
In the right photo above (window) is a picture of some of the Chinese that were in the Chinese Circus! (We saw them from the boat)
We ate Pig-N-Blankets, blueberry pies and took hundreds of pictures. Svet said it was her best Birthday.
It was fun….
Kyle & Svet
comments always welcome.
Hello,
Today we continue reading stories by Nikolai Nosov (Николай Носов) and start to read his next story Gardeners, 1938: about life and adventures in a pioneer camp.
![](http://i201.photobucket.com/albums/aa306/kylekeeton/RussianVideo/Gardner1.jpg")
Mishka [a boy’s name] and I asked to be put in the same team. Before we came to camp we had agreed that we would work together and go fishing together and everything.
Vadik Zaitsev[a boy’s name] proposed having a Challenge Banner to be awarded to the team that finished the digging first. Everybody agreed and it was decided to pass on the banner to the best planters and then to the best weeders. And the team that raised the biggest harvest would take the banner back to town.
Mishka and I made up our minds to win that banner.
“We’ll win it at the start and we won’t let go of it all summer and it’ll go back to town with us,” said Mishka.
We had been given a piece of land near the river. We measured it, marked off the plots and stuck in wooden markers with numbers on them. Mishka and I got plot No. 12. Mishka wasn’t satisfied. He ran off to Vitya to complain that we had been given the worst plot.
“Why is it the worst?” Vitya asked.
“There’s a hole in the middle!”
“What about it,” laughed Vitya. “Besides, that’s not a hole, it’s a hoof-print.”
“There’s a tree-stump on it,”grumbled Mishka.
“The other plots have tree-stumps too.”
But Mishka wouldn’t listen.
“It will have to be dug up,” he cried.
“Well, go ahead and dig it up. If you need help the others will lend you a hand.”
“Thanks, we’ll manage ourselves,” said Mishka huffily. “And help the others too.”
“That’s the spirit!” said Vitya.
Everyone started digging, Mishka and I as well. But every few minutes Mishka stopped digging to run and see how much the others had done.
“If you don’t get to work we’ll soon be way behind the others,” I told him.
“That’s all right,” he said. “I’ll catch up.”
He started catching up, but in a little while he was off again.
We didn’t get much done that day because pretty soon the dinner bell went. Mishka and I wanted to rush off to the plot after dinner, but Vitya stopped us.
“That will be enough for one day. We’ll only work in the mornings. After dinner we’ll rest. Otherwise some of you chaps will overdo it the first day and won’t be able to work the rest of the time.”
The next morning Mishka and I went off to our plot before the others and started digging. After a while Mishka asked Vitya for the tape-measure and began measuring to see how much we had dug and how much was left. After that he did a little more digging and then began measuring again. And each time he measured he found we hadn’t done enough.
“Of course we haven’t,” I said. “Because I’m doing the digging. All you do is measure.”
He threw down the tape-measure and started digging again. But he hadn’t done much when his spade struck a root and he stopped digging to pull the root up. He pulled and he pulled but it wouldn’t come up. He turned over the whole plot and part of the next one, trying to get it out.
“Leave it alone!” I said. “What are you bothering with it for?”
“How was I to know it was half a mile long?”
“Well, let it be.”
“But it has to end somewhere, hasn’t it?”
“What difference does it make to you?”
“I’m that kind of a person. If I start something I’ve got to see it through.”
And he grabbed the root again with both hands. I got angry, went over to the root and hacked it loose with my spade. Mishka took the tape-measure and measured it.
“Look at that,” he said. “Six and a half metres! Now if you hadn’t cut it off it might have been twenty metres!”
I said: “If I’d known you were going to dawdle about instead of working I’d never have hitched up with you.”
“Go ahead and work by yourself if you like. I’m not forcing you to work with me.”
“After I’ve dug up most of the plot already? Nothing doing. But we certainly won’t be the first to finish.”
“Who says we won’t? Look at Vanya Lozhkin and Senya Bobrov. They’ve dug even less than we have.”
He went over to Vanya Lozhkin’s [a boy’s name] plot and began jeering at them:
“Some diggers! We’ll have to lend you .a hand pretty soon.”
But they drove him away. “You’d better get to work or we’ll be lending you a hand.”
I said: “You’re a fine one, making fun of others when you’ve done hardly anything yourself! I’m sorry I hitched up with you.”
“Don’t worry,” he said. “I’ve thought up a wonderful idea. Tomorrow we’ll have the banner on our plot, you’ll see.”
“You’re crazy,” I said. “There’s a good two days’ work to be done on this plot, and it’ll be four days if you carry on like this.”
“You’ll see. I’ll tell you my plan later on.”
“All right, but do get to work now. The ground won’t dig itself.”
He picked up his spade to start digging, but just then Vitya said it was time for dinner, so he threw his spade over his shoulder and led the way to the dining-room.
After dinner we all helped Vitya make the banner. We found a piece of wood for the staff, cut and sewed the cloth and painted the staff in gilt paint. Vitya wrote the inscription “Best Gardener” in silver letters on the banner. It looked very handsome.
“Let’s make a scarecrow as well,” said Mishka. “To keep the crows off our garden.”
Everyone liked the idea enormously. We got ,a pole, tied a stick across it for arms, got an old sack for a shirt, and stuck an earthenware pot on top for a head. Mishka drew eyes, a nose and a mouth on the pot with charcoal and our scarecrow was ready. It did look a fright! We stood it in the middle of the garden and had a good laugh at it.
Mishka took me aside and whispered in my ear: “Here’s my plan. Tonight when everyone is asleep we’ll go and dig up our whole plot, all except a little bit which we can easily finish tomorrow. We’re sure to win the banner then.”
“If you would only work,” I said. “But you keep fussing with all sorts of silly nonsense.”
“This time I’ll work like blazes, you’ll see.”
“All right. But if you don’t, I won’t either.”
That night Mishka and I went to bed with the others. But we only pretended to go to sleep. When everything was quiet Mishka gave me a dig in the ribs. I had just dozed off. “Wake up,” he said in a loud whisper. “We’d better get started or we’ll have to kiss that banner good-bye.”
We crept out of the dormitory, got our spades and hurried off to the plot. It was a bright moonlight night and everything stood out clearly and distinctly.
In a few minutes we had reached the plot.
“Here we are,” said Mishka. “This is our plot. I can tell by the stump sticking up in the middle.”
We set to work. This time Mishka really did work and before long we had dug all the way up to the stump. We decided to pull it up. We loosened the earth all around it and pulled at it as hard as we could, but it wouldn’t budge. We had to hack away the roots with our spades. It was hard work, but finally we got it out. Then we evened out the ground and Mishka tossed the stump over to the next plot.
“That’s not a nice thing to do,” I said.
“Where are we going to put it?”
“Not on our neighbour’s plot anyway.”
“All right, let’s throw it into the river.”
We picked it up and hauled it down to the river. It was very heavy and we had a nasty time with it. But finally we got it down to the bank and dropped it plonk into the water. It floated down the river looking like an octopus with the roots sticking out all over it. We watched until it was out of sight and then went home. We were too tired to do any more digging that night. Besides, we had only a little bit left to dig now.
![](http://i201.photobucket.com/albums/aa306/kylekeeton/RussianVideo/Gardner2.gif")
To continue read the story please click here.
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Previous stories:
![](http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_THosNXNQORw/SGuYoDqqldI/AAAAAAAADJM/rH5lZwIjGAE/s400/porridge1.jpeg")
Mishka’s Porridge
![](http://i201.photobucket.com/albums/aa306/kylekeeton/Pistol2.gif")
The Pistol
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Best wishes,
Svet
comments always welcome
Abkhazia railway almost done….
They say that the railway will be a huge help to Abkhazia!
Kyle & Svet
Hello,
I have tried to present how Russia feels about the USA meddling in this side of the world…
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“Everything is fine until we’re told how we are meant to behave, who to sleep with and who to push out the door,” the diplomat was quoted as saying.
“After all, they are not godfathers of our children, and there are a lot of others to communicate with,” the source said. (Link)
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I keep saying America needs to get her own house in order before they tell others what to do….
Kyle & Svet
comments always welcome.
Hello,
I was drinking my morning cup of coffee and thinking about the German documents given to Russia on the Litvinenko case….
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Documents submitted by the German police last week do not give grounds to allege a ‘Russian trail’ in the murder of former Russian security officer Aleksandr Litvinenko. That’s according to Russia’s Prosecutor General Yury Chaika.
Chaika says Russia’s position remains the same as a comprehensive investigation by the Prosecutor General’s Office into the murder found no evidence to link Russia to the case.
German police became involved when Russian businessman Dmitry Kovtun, who lives in Germany, was named as a key witness.
Litvinenko was poisoned in London in November 2006 with Polonium 210, a rare radioactive isotope.
The UK accuses the former Russian security officer, Andrey Lugovoi, of the murder, and wants him extradited to face arrest. Moscow has refused Britain’s request to hand over Lugovoi, because it contradicts the Russian constitution. (Link)
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Looks like I will just have to keep following this case……
http://kylekeeton.com/2008/07/russia-more-on-litvinenko-case.html
http://kylekeeton.com/2008/07/russia-moscow-has-requested-response-to.html
http://kylekeeton.com/2008/06/russia-was-polonium-210-used-as-weapon.html
http://kylekeeton.com/2008/05/russia-says-lets-work-together-on.html
http://kylekeeton.com/2008/01/no-one-knows-who-killed-alexander.html
Everyone keeps pointing fingers at Russia…..
Kyle & Svet
comments always welcome.
Hello,
Last week I had a reader comment about the British side of the Zimbabwe situation. The British have a strong interest in the country due to past history. So I was thinking about how the press inputs information to the world.
Look at the titles on these articles about Zimbabwe……
As dispute persists in wake of presidential election, the country seems poised between negotiated settlement and outright civil war.
Zimbabwe’s misguided talks – International Herald Tribune
![](http://img.timeinc.net/time/daily/2008/0807/mugabe_tsvangirai_0729.jpg")
Global pressure may have forced Mugabe’s government to the bargaining table, but it’s not ready to offer an acceptable deal to the opposition
Zimbabwe talks ‘adjourned’, not broken off – Mail & Guardian …29 Jul 2008 … Claims that talks between Zimbabwe’s opposition and negotiators for President Robert Mugabe had broken off were called into question on …
PRETORIA (Reuters) – South African President Thabo Mbeki denied on Tuesday that talks between Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe’s ruling ZANU-PF and the opposition MDC had hit deadlock and said they were “doing very well”.
PRETORIA (Reuters) – South African President Thabo Mbeki on Tuesday denied that talks between Zimbabwe’s ruling ZANU-PF and the opposition MDC had reached deadlock and said they were “doing very well”.
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Zimbabwe: SADC Talks ‘Dead And Buried’ Says Opposition MDC … the briefing that contrary to what people are being told, the ‘talks are dead and buried’. …
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All in a matter of a few days (depending on what side of the world you want to read your news) we tell the world that Zimbabwe talks are still going on, doing very well, alive, failure, last effort, broken, not broken and last but not least: Dead And Buried!
By the way the British press seems to have the most level press coverage on the situation….
See, it just says talks adjourned will resume in a few days! I think that I will believe BBC.
Kyle & Svet
comments always welcome.
![](http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_THosNXNQORw/SEvefCRXcBI/AAAAAAAAC70/xg48kNzLKG4/s400/car.jpg")
ZIS![](http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_THosNXNQORw/SFAEC5Tn9lI/AAAAAAAAC_A/ne1Ie3nnU0o/s400/Cucumbers.jpg")
![](http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_THosNXNQORw/SFlFthSPqQI/AAAAAAAADCU/UbS55wlVPwk/s400/carp1.jpg")