Windows to Russia

That world is Russia…

August is vacation month and I mean vacation month. Yes, Russians have lots of holidays and lots of other vacation times, but August is almost like a mandatory, take a vacation month and many take the whole month. In Russia people get a full month or more of vacation off of work and paid for….some break it up into small vacations and some take it all at once…

This makes August one of the most wonderful months to live in Moscow, everyone is gone. Gone fishing, gone to Turkey, gone to Tunisia, gone to the villages, gone to the dachas, gone drinking, gone anywhere, but mainly gone from Moscow and other big Russian cities…

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School started for the Moscow monkey’s yesterday…

I talked about how everyone was back. Well yesterday, yes a Saturday, school started. Tidbit: school runs basically six days a week, but shorter hours a day…

“Today is September 1. As it happened it’s a day off, Saturday, and in many schools classes will start only on September 3. But we always mark September 1 as the Day of Knowledge as a holiday.” Putin said addressing to the students of the Sirius educational center in Sochi.

Putin also said, “I cordially congratulate you and all students of our huge country on this holiday, on the Day of Knowledge.”

Big day in Russia…

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Moscow is packed, no room to park, kids crawling all over the city and mothers, fathers, grandparents & adults in general trying to catch and corral the free running all summer kids…. 😉 Then get them in school…

I have spent two days in shock. What use to be a leisure walk has become a Indian Jones escapade from the movies…

Could you image having a month vacation, a month that you have to take, a month vacation that is paid for and if you take the whole month (at least two weeks of it) at once, they pay even more money than if you break it up…

Now yesterday, kids carried flowers to their teachers and I mean all kids carry flowers. We have a teacher in our building and her and her husband made ten trips to the car to carry up armload’s of flower bouquets. It is nuts, forget that apple to the teacher, grab the flowers…

All day families walking their kids to school. I mean grandpa, grandma, mom, dad, uncle, aunt, the dog, the cat and the local hedgehog all traipsing around taking pictures and just in general having a party hearty day. School is a big thing in Russia and kids here love school…

What made yesterday even worse? Glad you asked; It was some birthday of the city of Korolyov, the city we live in in the Moscow area. Fireworks all night and yes, party hearty…

Today is my rambling day….I am done!

WtR

Svetochka loves her Sammy the Volga and no other car matters! And that is just right….but…

The largest Russian automobile exhibition, the Moscow International Automobile Salon – MIAS 2018, started on August 29 in the capital’s exhibition complex Crocus Expo. The leaders of the mass segment are returning to the exhibition, promising premieres and novelties, and the highlight of the auto show will be the world premiere of the Russian “luxury” Aurus cars, developed within the framework of the “Cortege” project. The seventh Moscow auto show began its work with press and business days on August 29 a

Source: Luxury and Style: 2018 Moscow International Auto Show

I am a guy and like new shiny, fast, big engines, lots of horsepower, cars!

Would love to go and look around…

WtR

MOSCOW, August 29. /TASS/. Russian President Vladimir Putin said in his televised address on Wednesday the retirement age for women should be 60 rather than 63.”The retirement age for women should not increase more than for men. That’s why I believe it is necessary to reduce the increase in the retirement age for women proposed by the law from 8 to 5 years,” Putin said.The president said the draft bill on the pension reform suggests increasing the retirement age for women by eight years and for men by five years. “That wouldn’t do, certainly. This is wrong,” Putin said.

Source: TASS: Russian Politics & Diplomacy – Putin suggests raising retirement age to 60 for women, 65 for men

We got home safe and sound. Traffic in Moscow really, really, really and did I say Really? Sucks. But we got home. You have to understand, everyone is coming back from the villages and dachas….school time!

Russians: They are back from the Dachas

Last night the playground at our flats was packed to the gills with screaming monkeys. all let loose at once. 😉

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Other than that all is good in Moscow. Life is a bowl of cherries and yes there are pits as in everywhere…

The Tiny Russian Village:

Lets start with Vova….he is in love and actually has found someone that really cares for him. I have mentioned her before (Natasha) and she really does like him. So Vova is getting fat, sassy and happy. Love does that and Natasha can cook very good…

But as with all wonderful news, Vova is still fighting with Nina the other full timer in the village. I suspect that one day I will go to the Tiny Russian Village and find these two at the bottom the well dead, having killed each other as they fight over the well issue. They also fight over anything that is available to fight about and they fight over things that make no sense. Yes I should be there and take care of the well, then they would live longer…

Vova and Nina are just too much alike and that is too many in one place….Nina needs a boyfriend?

Father Pavel with the monastery is a happy camper and since Bishop Matt has left for Rome, Italy, he has had to spread himself very thin, but he is happy and that is what counts….it has slowed down the monastery development though….like it stopped! But they did come up and mow the grounds. The last winter Boza and I were at the village, it got so cold. Remember -50 + wind chill? The bees all died. They have not been able to recover from that, so we have no special Monastery Honey this year. Interesting, I had people call me out for lying about the cold as I lived in the Tiny Russian Village….but it was bitterly cold and Boza and I danced along just fine….I miss Boza… 🙁

City people still come to the village on weekends and party to the point of passing out on the sides of the roads. This at least is a safe place to pass out, due to lack of traffic and such. You also have who’s boots are under who’s bed constantly in the Tiny Russian Village. I watched one married gal who came alone, wonder to several different village homes, several nights for a week and then finally her husband showed up after she made the rounds of the village. Took about a week….then when he showed up they partied two nights almost all night and kept us up….I would rather it was just her and she slinked off every night… 😉

No truck to deliver groceries this year. Not enough people at the village…

We worked on Nicolai’s place, he is the one who died recently and after cutting the grass, fixing some fence issues and placing rat poison against those pesky (полевые мыши) field mice. Nice home and it looks like Sveta and I will do the paper work on transferring the ownership of that property. Nicolai’s widow, has no desire to ever go back and since Nicolai and I were very good friends, we will be basically given it. The only thing we have to do is deal with the year plus paper work and costs of doing it. This is a long process in Russia, bureaucracy is fun here….We brought a painting back this trip for Larissa his widow, that is about all she wants?

We have an elder lady who comes now just for the summer and she is over 90 years old now. 90 plus and still self sufficient. She plants gardens, digs it herself. Cleans and works her yard and bosses around her younger bother, like a good girl should do!

90 plus years old! If only I could make it that long? I am pushing it now with my genetics and background…

Our yard had white lilac trees growing good, a healthy rose plant, a perfect pine baby pine growing, a survivor new chestnut tree and more apples than you could ever want….we have bags of them right now at our Moscow home. Svetochka could not leave them and I kept finding her getting apples and filling plastic sacks. 😉

Russia has a serious apple crop this year. Apple trees grow wild everywhere in our place in the world and this year apples are abundant… Yummy

Speaking of crops:

Soybean fields everywhere. Wheat fields everywhere. Sunflower fields everywhere. New fields being opened up. Agriculture has become a serious business in Russia and from what I see Russia is sending unbelievable amounts of soybeans to China. Oops, do not tell anyone I said that! Don’t want any disillusionment from the west about what they want to believe…

The Tiny Russian Village has garnered a reprieve in life. The families of the elders, long since gone have finally discovered the village again. The homes are being rebuilt, the yards cleaned and even new places are being built and or enlarging homes. I am very glad to see this, we even had a family from St. Petersburg come down and do lots of work on their old place…

That is what the Tiny Russian Village is about. Getting back to your roots…

WtR

“But two years later, the vital Kremlin informants have largely gone silent, leaving the C.I.A. and other spy agencies in the dark”…

WASHINGTON — In 2016, American intelligence agencies delivered urgent and explicit warnings about Russia’s intentions to try to tip the American presidential election — and a detailed assessment of the operation afterward — thanks in large part to informants close to President Vladimir V. Putin and in the Kremlin who provided crucial details. But two years later, the vital Kremlin informants have largely gone silent, leaving the C.I.A. and other spy agencies in the dark about precisely what Mr. Putin’s intentions are for November’s midterm elections, according to American officials familiar with the intelligence.

Really? So our (USA) spies, planted on purpose, in and around the Kremlin are hiding and quiet. So we admit that we have spies in and around the Kremlin! And we admit we intentionally want and need these spies to do the dirty work?

I only ask which Kremlin are they hiding in?

Russia has lots of Kremlins…

Twelve Russian Kremlins. The Moscow Kremlin is easily recognized around the world as a symbol of Russia and the seat of its president. But few people outside Russia have heard about the other Russian fortresses that are also known as kremlins…

  Twelve Russian Kremlins – Russia Beyond

https://www.rbth.com/articles/2010/12/23/twelve_russian_kremlins.html

Yes this is another tidbit of information and sock monkey lovers will not like this info!

WtR

Update: Another way to look at the same article…. by Paul Craig Roberts

When I first read this — https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/24/us/politics/cia-russia-midterm-elections.html — I thought it was a caricature of fake news. Then I realized it was a New York Times article, and being fairly certain that the arrogant presstitute organization was not taking the piss out of itself, as it is one of the main purveyors of fake news, I found the conclusion unavoidable that Julian E. Barnes and Matthew Rosenberg were so tightly bound inside The Matrix that they might

Source: According to the New York Times Putin Rules America – PaulCraigRoberts.org

New noiseless and environment-friendly vehicles will be used in the VDNKh area.

The first 10 electric buses will come into service on 1 September, ahead of the planned deadline. They will serve the routes in the VDNKh area, Deputy Moscow Mayor and Head of the Department of Transport and Road Infrastructure Development Maxim Liksutov said.

“We are planning to launch the buses on 1 September. We will put them on display for everyone to see and explain how they drive and what technical characteristics they have. After that they will take to routes and serve as ordinary public transit vehicles,” he said.

The first electric buses will serve routes 7, 34k, 36, 42, 73, 76, 80 and 83. This is a noiseless and environment-friendly type of transport that makes it possible to reduce harmful atmospheric emissions.

“We understand that this is completely new equipment that has characteristics surpassing those of electric buses used by other cities. But we have studied their experience and their best practices and have devised a technical design specification incorporating the most advanced solutions in terms of quality and technical characteristics,” he stressed.

Under a state contract, the electric buses will be supplied by the GAZ and KamAZ Groups, which will also service them for the next 15 years.

“Each manufacturer, I mean GAZ and KamAZ, two highly reputable groups, is responsible for every electric bus. I am happy that we have contracted Russian manufacturers. This electric bus is a fully Russian product, it’s made and assembled in our country and we are glad that this is so,” he added.

Starting in 2021, Moscow will stop buying diesel buses for its surface municipal transport routes and will only purchase electric buses.

The new type of public transit will make travel more comfortable due to lower noise and vibration levels. The electric buses are low-floor vehicles lacking level difference and equipped with USB chargers, climate control, CCTV and satellite navigation systems.

https://www.mos.ru/en/news/item/44028073/

WtR

A whole bunch of misalignment about the status of the cookie monster law in the EU…

As a black bar pops up near the top of the page, just answer and all is good. If you want don’t answer, cookies blocked and all is still good. So to comply with any possible issues arising. Please accept that WtR uses cookies and WtR Cookies are really not a bad thing…

I think it sets a cookie to tell about cookies. I set it to last three months and then it will ask you again…

Think what a better world it would be if we all, the whole world, had cookies and milk about three o’clock every afternoon and then lay down on our blankets for a nap. – Barbara Jordan

Yup, that sums that up!

WtR

Been very busy and now as with all fun things in life, it has to end…

Beautiful weather we had….will write about everyone in the village when I get home…

WtR

Just Svetochka out and about taking pictures of everything she sees. Can you find the snake in the grass?

I wonder; Is that a boat load of immigrants sneaking into our village? 🙂

WtR

Interesting: Some of the Russian oligarchs, as we all know all too well, took their cash outside Russia to prevent the Russian government from taking back what they scarfed from it et alii…. If the U.S. is currently now stealing the cash from the oligarchs (whom they helped to steal the funds from Russia in the first place,) however, I shall laugh. And I am sure Mister Putin could allow himself a delicate smile upon the news that oligarchs ignoring the warnings have been backed stabbed…. The oligarchs ought to have known and or remembered that thieves mustn’t consort with violent robbers, or they’ll lose all they stole themselves – and find their throats cut with the sticky fingered discount…

ZURICH (Reuters) – One of Switzerland’s largest banks, Credit Suisse, has frozen roughly 5 billion Swiss francs ($5 billion) of money linked to Russia to avoid falling foul of U.S. sanctions, according to its accounts, further increasing pressure on Moscow.

You have to understand: Russia has warned these thieves many times to take care of their stolen money and these thieves listening to the USA and EU, stayed away from Mother Russia (because you know – Russia bad.) Now the thieves have been shanghaied by their mentors and that is just right…

Easy come easy go…

WtR