RussiaBlog, spinning the tales of vodka and women

Thanks for the well-wishes. I'll be sure to have a good time. And no worries, you'll be kept informed, a handful of you (Rosh, Odin, welsh, dunno who else) will get mails from Russia. This thread'll stay on as RussiaBlog, for those people to post my emails in.

Cheers, good luck and see you in 6 months.

Important messages from the board can be relayed thru Odin or welsh
 
here's a little story for ya....

An unprecedented case took place aboard a plane of "Aeroflot" company late Sunday night.

Domestic flight Moscow-Nizhnevartovsk of "Aeroflot" company resulted in an unprecedented case. The flight took place late Sunday night.

Flight attendants who obviously had too much to drink beat up one of the passengers, businessman Artyom Chernopup. The incident occurred after the passenger asked flight attendants for assistance.

"I have never seen anything like this before," said one of the passengers of that airplane. "The crew belonged to the "Aviaenergo" company; if those morons can in fact be called "crew".. Flight attendants disappeared the moment we took off. There was no sign of them during the entire. The moment our airplane was about to descend, four crew members began serving us dinner. I noticed something weird about them. Their coordination was really poor.some served plates right on the passengers' laps.."

According to director of "Aeroflot" press-services Irina Dannenberg, one of the Nizknevartovk airline company representatives called the police.

"Unfortunately, "Aeroflot" does not have enough airplanes and we have to lease airplanes of other companies with their crew team," stated Irina Dannenberg in her interview to "Izvestia." "That night, airplane Tu-154 (flight SU713) belonged to the "Aviaenergo" company. The entire crew including pilots and flight attendants were also employed by that company. During the flight, three male flight attendants, while being intoxicated, insulted and later beat up one of the passengers. The man had simply made a remark concerning their direct responsibilities to serve food. Based on the information I possess, the flight attendants attempted to serve food but were unable to do so due to their condition."

Further medical examination revealed severe state of alcoholic intoxication of the flight attendants.

The victim turned out to be a w very well-respected resident of Nizhnevartovsk. He stepped out of the plane with a huge black eye and was immediately taken to the nearest hospital for checkup.

Chernopup has filed a lawsuit. The flight attendants are facing up to three-month imprisonment.

This case is quite unique indeed. Usually, those are drunken passengers that cause major troubles for the crew. Such passengers are often fined for their misbehaviors. This is the first time in the history of Soviet and Russian aviation that flight attendants were the ones at fault.
 
EyeMaster7's Sig said:
"Opinions are like assh@les - everyone's got 'em and they all stink" old saying attributed to the Chosen One.

I made you read, Dumbass
Click to expand...

What is an asshatle? I doubt I got one.

[/sarcasm]
 
Visitors to Russia's only erotic museum are rubbing their hands over a jar containing Rasputin's penis in the belief it will make them better lovers and more fertile.

Dr Igor Knyazkin, who runs the museum in St. Petersburg, said: "It's our biggest attraction but we still don't know where the idea of rubbing their hands over it came from.

"It's not like we tell people to go and rub Rasputin's jar, and it'll bring you great fertility, or anything like that.

"I suppose it's just that every person needs something to believe in - in order to live more peacefully."

The famous Russian's pickled member is proving such a draw that the museum is planning to move from its current premises - which also doubles up as a prostatology clinic - to bigger premises.

But Dr Knyazkin added that not everyone who comes to the museum was happy to see Rasputin's penis, local media reported.

He said: "Some people have got this idea from the Rasputin exhibit that I am a penis collector of some kind. I get phone calls from people asking how much I would pay them if they cut their own member off for the museum. In one horrific case, a man offered me the dissected penis of his dog.

"Once, a pensioner arrived and tried to smash open the jar with the phallus of Rasputin in it. He was full of rage, shouting that it should be destroyed, burnt, that it was unholy to keep such a thing."
 
Yet another interesting story

Schoolboys played football with WWll grenade

Two schoolboys escaped injury after they were spotted playing football with a WWII grenade.

The two 14-year-olds, named only as Yuri and Igor, found the grenade in woods near Murmansk, in Russia.

They knew what it was but thought it was too old to explode so started kicking it around.

Pavel Kopytov, 22, who was walking through the woods, saw what they were doing and rushed over to stop them, the Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper reported.

He said: "My hair stood on end. I yelled at them, but they didn't stop and I had to just grab it off them.

"I knew how their game of football would end - explosively. They were lucky."

The grenade was turned over to local police and destroyed
Click to expand...
 
Good Luck Kharn

Just thought I'd wish you good luck Kharn. Envious in a way... Wish I would have done something like that when I was younger and more free sprited.

Best of luck

Greg
 
You NMA people aren't very good at posting his e-mails.

Hell if I'm going to do it, though.
 
Monument to Potato Erected in North Russia


A retired person in the north Russian city of Veliky Novgorod has erected a monument to potato.

Nikolai Zaryadov put a big boulder resembling a potato on a 2-meter long metal tube near his house, Russian Information Agency Novosti reported.

He wrote a verse near the monument praising Christopher Columbus who had found potatoes in America and Peter the Great who had introduced this food in Russia. Zaryadov called potato a “czarina of vegetable gardens”.

He said he erected the monument to let the modern generation of Russians to remember that potatoes had saved lives of millions in the starving years.
 
Kharn said:
Well hello everyone,

I'm mailing a bit earlier than I was expecting to be, but hey, it's a lazy
sunday.

Lessee, what to add to the previous stories...

The second group of Kitezh people came back from the Krim, and they're
great, great people. The (mostly temporary volunteers) girls that were
living in the Abitsyl with me and Justus have gone and have been replaced
with a more settled, experienced and active troika; Jenja, Acya and Masha.
They've been tons of fun to live with and have thought up incredibly fun
stuff to do with the children. For example, we did a Egypt-themed week,
where us older kids had to keep dressing up in blankets and the like to
perform as Egyptians, and on one of the final days we did this fantastic
hypnosis ritual with the kids after which we "locked then up" on the second
floor, while we kept chanting and making weird noises downstairs. After
eating some blini...pancakes we let them go and chased them around Kitezh,
making weird sounds.

Another good example is when a few days back me, Ashya, Kyrill (fantastic
guy, really) and Jenja took the kids on a 17-km walk at 7 in the mornin' to
this great lake-park to the north of Kitezh. We had a fun time there doing
weird druid rituals, swimming, singing songs, etc. etc. etc.

But I failed to give you all a proper idea of what Kitezh is, I think, so
here's some bits:

Kitezh is as rural villagey as it gets, on first glance. Wood-log houses,
like the one I helped build in Orion/Kitezh II (I went back there a second
time a week ago, we finished the roof, floor and cieling), are the only
thing you see, some with stone outbuildings. The Pyramid, where I'm typing
this, is the only cement building built by a group of professionals, the
rest was done by the villagers. The logs are pre-cut, but they're put
together locally, and as they're about 30cms/a foot thick and anywhere
between 5 and 8 meters long (uhm...16 and 29 feet? Wha'ever, learn metric),
it's quite a job.

At second glance, it's less rural. Dvd-players and computers are present in
a number of houses, and almost every house has a tv and VCR. Hot showers are
available in most houses, 'cept in Vlad's where I lived at first. He has a
space for a shower, but no shower. Coolest thing ever. I generally shower at
Kolya's, even now as I'm living in the Abitsyl, because Kolya plays great
music loudly in his house, and additionally he is simply way, way too cool
for school. Remind me to tell you his story, he's a former orphan raised in
Kitezh, it's an incredible tale.

"But Thomas, what about the day-to-day stuff?" Ah now, there's a good one,
but I'm afraid it'll all change the 1st of next month anyway, as school is
starting then, something I'm vaguely beginning to look forward too, as I'll
be teaching some easy groups such as the younger adults (the aformentioned
Zhenya, Acya and Masha Pichuganin, all great girls, and Maxime and Masha, a
really funny and energetic couple that came to Kitezh recently) and 12th and
later11th form (the last two classes of high school), which means teaching
the highly talented and nice Valya and the great pair of Lyoshya and Volodia
(Volva in particular has been a lot of fun. Despite being barely able to
communicate with him, we've become best of buddies), tho' they'll be a
challenge, being a bit unruly and knowing little English.

Every day 'cept Sunday has communal meals, at 10, 14 and 19. Breakfast is
porridge, which is a different type every day but always tastes the same
somehow. Lunch, the biggest meal, is a soup and something else (rice, pasta
or sumfin Russian), dinner is another meal of rice or sumfin'. Sunday you
figure out yourself. When I got here, I couldn't finish any meal, which
shouldn't surprise those that know me, and the food, being very greasy
(specially the meat) wasn't always too my taste, but hey...finishing all
meals now, and I'm getting a bit used to the main component of chicken being
fatty grease. Even starting to eat fish. Disgusting, but I have to live with
it, heh

The rest of the day is harder to describe, since it's very variable. In my
month (yeah, it's a month now, it's all going way, way too fast, sniffle)
here I already spent as much as an entire week not in Kitezh (but in Orion
or at Lake Without Bottom, mentioned above), for instance.

On a normal day, you have a slight chance of getting a job offered to you,
but generally I have to go around and ask a bit. The first few weeks Adam,
Justus and me were getting jobs cutting wood or moving heavy stuff all the
time, spending less time on the game with the kids. A week ago, with Adam
gone and the brilliant English bloke Tom tagging on, I've been spending way,
way more time with the kids on the game.

Generally, you can get up around 8 o'clock and do morning exercises with the
kids or adults, which I've not done so far (get up at 8 when I can get up at
9:30, tchyuh right). After breakfast you find some job to do, or two jobs to
do, usually physical labour. For instance, since last writing, I've spent
time between brekky and lunchins smashing plaster off a wall with a crowbar
("Phomka, like your name, Phomas", gotta love those Russians ("Phomas" is
the old-Russian way of saying Thomas)), working in the garden, cutting
branches off huge logs (no accidents this time, heh).

After lunch you take a short nap/rest and then dig right back into it. After
dinner there's no physical labour, tho' I've often been up into late in the
night with the kids going at the game (wargames etc.). But on a good day,
after dinner you just chat with some people and do some relaxing. Yesterday,
like every Saturday, we had the male banya at 9:30. The banya, in addition
to being cleaning (which it really is), is a big social event, and I was
there 'till 23:30 hanging out and drinking peeva (beer) with Sergei, the
community leader, Kolya, who I mentioned above, and Tolya, the ultimate
embodiment of the Russian muzhik (a muzhik, literally peasent, is a true
Russian man. Bearded, rough hands, enough strength in him to knock down a
wall with his bare hands, shaves with an axe and looks like he can cut down
trees with his teeth). On other days, I've spent the night around a campfire
or around the table in the Abitsyl with the girls, volunteers, and great
people like Kolya, Kyrill, Yegor, Dima, Sasha etc

There are very few animals currently in Kitezh. A lot of their farming
program collapsed a year ago when one of the major members had a falling out
with Morozov. There is no potato program, which was making them good money,
anymore, and the only animals left are a horse and a handful of cows
(besides the loads of cats and a dog who wandered in from the forest a few
days ago). Talking of the collapse, Kitezh always strived to be a very open,
"democratic" community, which has and is causing a lot of strife, and some
of the stories you hear are tres encroyable. Good social experience, 'n all
that

Kitezh is not completely isolated, but it's pretty in-the-middle-of-nowhere.
The closest real town is Baryatino where, being slung around everywhere, I
still haven't been too, tho' I got plenty of stuff from there ordered via
others. Me and Tom are going to bike there someday soon, it's only 10kms.
There's another village right around the corner (about 1km), which used to
be a thriving rural town, but got destroyed by WW II and communism.
Currently 1 old woman lives there all the time, and a few more all year
'round. There's a main road and powerlines running right outside the
entrance, and gaspipes will be going into Kitezh soon, with some luck. I
think about 1 car passes by every half an hour or so. Tres dangerous
traffic.

There're two official Kitezh vans, one which is crap to sit and has lots of
loading space, and one that is great to sit in but has no loading space at
all. They generally use the first to go to Baryatino every Friday and
whenever. I went to Orion in the second first, which was great, but sitting
in the other one for 4.5 hours was hell on wheels, heh.

You often kind of draw responsibilities and jobs towards yourself, rather
than getting them handed to you. For instance, I took some business on a
certain project with an organisation out of Marina's hands a few days back
and am expected to manage all the preliminaries for both my classes and the
stage project on New Year myself, which has been going great.

Last week has been very unusual, with days of doing absolutely nothing and
days of a lot of work, what with going to Orion and back and then walking to
lake Bottomless and back. I'm hoping I can slide back into a more normal
rhytm with the coming week 'n game, which is all looking good, tho' I have
to hear out Masha about the details once she returns from Orion (they went
another time this week, without me as I was at the lake and generally busy,
and had a housewarming party for the house we built. Huzzah).

The volunteer situation is so variating it's almost dizzying. Adam has gone
back to England and Lois is currently touring Russia a bit, and I miss them
both immensely, and am looking forward to Lois' return. Kirk also left to go
back to the States after a stay in Moscow. Really didn't get to know him
well, but he was still cool. Two other old-timers, Betty and Tom, arrived,
tho' Tom is currently in Moscow for a two-day stay. Tom is absolutely
brilliant, great bloke, and Betty is a fun girl, tho' her English is a bit
off which makes communicating hard (she's German). Same could be said for
Tom, who is a deep-down Londoner and hard to understand at times, heh. Tom
will be helping me get a teaching program and discussing teaching methods
etc. Justus is currently in Moscow, and will be back soon to stay a short
week more, meh.

I have a number of absolutely brilliant photos, ranging from Masha cooking,
Julya posing, me and the other muzhiki lifting great big logs, Tolya playing
guitar, Kyrill in his farao-get up, me in my samurai suit, etc. About 80
photos already, and 480 more'll fit on this camera, heh. Sadly, tho', I can
not send a single on to you people right now. It would take about half an
hour to download a photo through the internet here, let alone sending it.
You'll see 'em later, tho'

I love how healthy Kitezh is for me. The big carbon and protien diets mean
I'm gaining weight, I think, but little fat. Muscle-memory from back in the
day when I exercised more regularly is pumping me back up way quick and
between the swimming, exercising and labour, this place could almost be a
fitness camp. Browner than brown too, especially now after I walked those
17kms back from the Lake in the glaring sun. The weather here is comparable
to South France in the summer, tho' I already got a taste of Autum when the
weather turned for a short week. These days are the last real sun. Major
sniffle.

Wout, hope the move went well, Daan: cool beans, dude. Very cool stuff.
Parents, thanks for the mails. Atle, Mike, send me some news, dudes, I'm
finding that I'm strangely enjoying getting and reading mails. Go figure.
The things one learns about oneself. Oh, Dutchies, keep sending mails in
Dutch, and Englishies, don't send overly confidential stuff. A tingle in the
back of my spine says they read yer emails on a semi-regular basis here. Oh,
and passing them on can take anywhere between a week, unless I nag for it
m'self, but a handful of you have some emergency contact info 'nyweyz. Use
it in any emergency, seriously, I just had to print out a mail marked URGENT
for Betty that's been lying around for a week,

Greets and love,
Thomas
Click to expand...
 
Still waiting, but I've been wondering when the next one is coming too.

Malky and I are both designated recievers of the RussiaBlog direct from Kharn, so either one of us will post 'em when we get 'em.

Can't blame him for taking a while though, as I know personally that doing that kind of work (camp, communist country... its all the same) can really eat up your time and keep you entertained enough to never want to sit in front of a computer for very long.

Mayhaps the current situations in Russia have hindered his access to internet? That's just my random speculation.
 
Is there some way we could find out if he's okay? I mean, his friends in Holland or something? Does anyone know the group he is working through-perhaps we could contact them?
 
Our lovable missing person said:
Hello everyone,

:

Well now, it's been a while, hasn't it? In fact, I have absolutely no idea
where to start, where to end, what to tell and what not to tell. Oh, the
inevitability of a faith as a cursed as mine, for never to have lived at all
is better than an eternal life of hardship.


That was quite random.


First off, my apologies for the lack of contact with most of you. I could
say it was because I was busy, and it would be true, I am busy from morning
'till evening, but I've had plenty of Sundays and quiet evenings to take a
moment to mail you. Haven't, tho', but here we go nonetheless.


Lessee:School's started at the 1st of October, but I guess most of you are
quite well aware of when and how the Russian school year started. I tried my
hand at teaching, but quite frankly have neither the will nor the
inclination. I taught for a few weeks, before handing in the key to the
teacher's cupboard. In all seriousness, much as I expected teaching is not
much for me, and although I help out and give lessons to adults, I leave
most teaching in the capable hands of the other 3 volunteers. Having this
many volunteers here right now means I can easily afford to do so, leaving
them with a considerable, but not overly big, workload.


So what do I do all day? Quite simply; work. I get up, go to breakfast, go
into the field with Kirill, Sasha, Dima, Kolya or whoever is there and spend
all time from 10 am to 7 pm splitting logs, painting buildings, lighting
cachols, throwing logs about, going into the forrest and cutting down trees
(!) and doing whatever odd job needs doing, There is a rather significant
lack of male labour available in Kitezh and in many ways the contribution I'
m making this way is, while less specifically suited to foreign volunteers,
highly valued. Apart from that, the shape I'm in by now far exceeds any I've
ever been in before and I feel incredibly healthy, being outside all day,
eating 3 regular and large meals each day (not only do I have no problem
anymore tackling the Russian food, I often take second helpings, which
considering my dietary history is quite miraculous) and sleeping with at
least some level of regularity, tho' I often end up spending nights with
Russians or volunteers, talking and drinking 'till late at night.

That'd be just work, tho'. Kitezh is a magical little place, and odd things
happen at odd, unexpected moments. It's all lovely and good. The temperature
is changing heavily, tho'. The South France-esque Summer has swung around
into full-flung Autumn. The day-time temperature hovers between 0 and 5
degrees celcius, and the mornings see frost on the grass. Soon it will be
snowing, from the looks of it. Heh.

The level of appreciation I'm getting quite exceeds any I expected or could
have even vaguely hoped to get. Even though I have so far not been mentioned
at the appreciation part of the Sunday meetings, where any inhabitant of
Kitezh can compliment others on work well done or thank them for special
favours, I've been getting many honest signals of appreciation. Most common
amongst this is people calling me hero or superhero, amongst whom were Maxim
(the head of school), Kirill upon spotting how many logs I had split in the
hour he was gone and many from Jenja as I went about the house doing odd
jobs. To other people, Sasha Lukyanov and Sergei Khlopinov, the head of
physical work and the head of the community respectively, have referred to
me as "one of the guys", which is a big thing in Russia, and Kirill has said
that he could simply not belief how much work I was doing every day.


Topping it off is how much I have to love these people and how much they
appear to like me. I have spent many a night talking idly with Kirill on a
variety of subjects and we've definitely reached a stage of strong
friendship. Good was also when Jenja insisted that I am a great person, and
asked me, for some odd reason, "Why are you so beautiful? You get in trouble
for being so beautiful, and people never leave you alone." Masha insisting
that I'm her brother and treating me as such is another treat.


And then there're the kids. Just a few days ago, I gave Vadim a hug and he
called me "papa", at which point you could've simply swept me up with a
broom. Nelly's warm affectionate hugs and smiles also are enough to bring
one close to tears. Sasha Sinko's honest thanks for helping him plant trees,
and his looking up to me practically as a big brother is all good. For a
while one of the kids, Sergei, lived with me in my room, which was a good
time for the both of us, and he insisted I'm a great man, and also looked up
to me as a big brother.


At the same time sections of my experiences here are harshly humbling. The
amount of talent thrown about here in Kitezh can make one quite
self-reflective about what exactly one has spent one's life on (wow, nice
sentence). The dual ease and effort other volunteers put into this place
also puts one in one's place. Apart from that, my inabilities on one hand to
teach properly and on the other hand my abysmal progress in Russian are a
bit knock-in-the-face-esque.


So far, all is good. About a month ago I could only imagine the nightmarish
experience of having to leave this place, but luckily this feeling is
already settling back, and I think I can safely look forward to a parting
that will leave me sad, but not feeling unsatisfied. I have had a couple of
pretty bad days of it already, but they have come and gone.


Anecdotic time:


Ok, so my tooth got knocked out. By a 10-year old. Yeah, that sure puts a
proud little notch on my blade.


Most of you will hopefully be aware that one of my teeth is false. It got
knocked out years ago and sadly rotted out at the tooth. It is held in place
by a bridge to the two adjoining teeth. During one of the last wargames, as
we younger adults were hunting about for the kids, I got leapt upon by three
kids and one of them, being a little overzealous, ended up with an elbow in
my face, knocking my tooth straight out. After some desperate searching, we
actually managed to find the little bugger (in the dark, in the middle of
the woods), which was quite a blessing.


A week later I went down to Kaluga with my honorary sister Masha and the
leader of the community Sergei. I got my tooth placed back by a dentist who,
while working with somewhat primitive tools by Western standards, was quite
an expert at this work and managed to place my tooth back both firmer and
straighter than it was before. Additionally, both me and Masha were not
charged anything because of the work we do with orphans in Kitezh. The rest
of the day was an interesting and fulfilling tour of Kaluga.


To explain the Kitezh for free bit, it has to be understood that one of
Putin's highest priorities is children. He has dedicated a lot of time and
money into schooling, orphanages and other forms of childrearing. Because of
the excellent results and standard of living in Kitezh, the Kaluga governor
keeps close contacts with Kitezh and has always held it up as a pearl for
the government to inspect. The vice-president herself came down at one
point. This liking is incredibly well spread, for instance to this dentist,
but at one point when driving from Tula to Kitezh, we got flagged down by a
police officer who, rather than expecting everyone's papers and the contents
of the car, simply asked the driver, Dima, "orphanage?" and then flagged us
on. The whole existence of Orion (Kitezh II, a project in the making) is
thanks to the governor, who sold Dima Morozov a plot of land quite below the
normal going rate.


This is all justifiable in the results Kitezh brings, tho'. If you look at
one of the kids and try to imagine his or her history, you often find
yourself incapable of grasping that someone that is so happy and such a
wonderful person could be dragged out of a past so miserable. As a random
example of schooling, the previous school year the two Kitezh graduates,
Dima and Jenja, were the only ones in the entire region to pass their
English exams. That's all thanks to the good work of Tom. Well done, Tom!


Orion/Kitezh II is all good too. I went down again just a few days ago. The
second building is progressing and looking quite huge, a road is built
leading up to it, and the first building which I helped construct is now
actually livable in, with a working pietchka to provide heating. It's quite
a good feeling pointing out a building from a car window to an important
financer of Kitezh and going "I helped build that."


Ah, yes, pietchka. Classical Russian heating. All buildings are heated
through a normal-looking system of pipes and radiators, which are all hooked
up to a big stove/boiler, called a cachol (the stone version of which is a
pietchka). I spend a significant part of my day in capchorkas (cachol rooms)
helping Kirill and Sasha as we go around Kitezh making sure that nobody
freezes to death by lighting the cachols, which was an arduous job at first,
but I can do one from lighting kindling to throwing coal on to reach optimum
temperature in 20 minutes flat now, partially thanks to the practice I got
thanks to the Prince's Trust people.


Indeedlydoodly, the Prince's Trust people. This was a group of former drug
addicts, criminals or other people in rehabilitation that came down here
quite a while ago. A group of about 10 people who stayed for about two weeks
with the intention to help out in work and do some projects (painting the
pyramid and building a stage) kept Dena and us volunteers very busy, but it
was very rewarding in the end, despite the hard work that it was at times.
't was certainly an odd experience burning their trash (they burn all trash
here, da). Even after such a short while here, Western habits of throwing
useful stuff away immediately strikes me as incredibly wasteful. The amount
of edible food those people would toss out...


How now, so how isolated is Kitezh, you wonder? Well, to put it simply, I
had heard not a single word about all the events in Beslan until my parents
mentioned it in emails they were sending me. No clue whatsoever that this
had even happened. No tv, no radio, no newspaper. It seems most Kitezhians
were aware it happenened, they were just not making any concious big deal
out of it. Wowsers is all I can say after my parents sent me some papers
with the full story.


Volunteers haven't stopped switching about. Most of the old guard is gone by
now, with Kirstie being the only person now here who has been here longer
than me, and she's doing an absolutely fantastic job in teaching and helping
out Tamara in her large 7-kids house. The other two volunteers are Alex, a
student of Russian and German who can communicate very well with the
Russians, and Natasha, a very young (17) girl who is here to learn Russian.
The three of them make an excellent teacher team, and Alex and Kirstie are
great teachers, biting through some tough classes.


Hassahum


Seems about it

Thomas
Click to expand...
Fresh out of my Inbox. Haven't read it yet.
 
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