My trip to Siberia

My story starts with being introduced to a girl from Siberia. She is such a beauty with her fair blond hair and amazing grey eyes. We began chatting online for months and I began planning my trip to Russia. Around this time I found out about Vadim and SiberiaVIP. I began asking him questions about pretty much every single aspect of my trip, from gifts to bring to the best hotel to stay at to an apartment for me, along with a lot of other things. A lot of these details I would not have even thought of myself. Two months later I’m on a flight to Moscow, then to Siberia.

I landed in Moscow and was completely lost, I eventually made my way out of the terminal to another friendly face that had been there waiting for me. Vadim had arranged for a friend in Moscow to take me between the Sheremetyevo terminals for a comparatively small fee. One I was glad to depart with from all of the horror stories I’ve heard of unprepared guys shelling out upwards of $100-$150 for just one 15 minute trip between the terminals. He was also there to make sure I safely made my way back when I was coming home. It really made the difference for me to have someone I had chatted with before help me out there.

I ended up on a special plane from Moscow to Siberia, when we arrived there was a very large crowd, along with TV cameras and a huge crowd, I was on the same airplane as one of the gold medalists from the recent Olympics! Even with this crowd Vadim picked me right up and introduced himself, at this point I knew my friend and instantly felt better. From then on we gathered my luggage and we headed to the hotel for some much needed rest.

Hotels in Siberia are still pretty expensive. Their worth comes into play due to the paperwork needed to register your visa and process your arrival paperwork. This takes them a few hours to do and then you are good and processed, so it is good to stay at a hotel for one night or two to get this all taken care of. Beyond that is why you have SiberiaVIP working for you, they are able to find you an apartment somewhere in a good, downtown location, for a price that is much less than a hotel, so much less that it offsets much of the cost of the SiberiaVIP service. This was true from my experience at least.

After I had rested we began our scouting for good cafes and restaurants to take my girl that I was determined to impress. This continued throughout my trip there and I can still remember the ambiance of most of the places. It makes it so much easier to take a girl somewhere that you have already been to and are a little familiar with, every little bit helps.

I was lucky in that the girl I was seeing at the time spoke English, however we mingled with other girls and it was so much easier with a translator than having to try and figure out common words that a girl could understand. A lot of the younger girls know some basic English but the conversation will be very simple, with a translator a lot of more detailed information can be exchanged much more clearly and quickly then trying to use any kind of English-Russian dictionary or device. Add along that you are able to have and hire a translator with you which makes you all the more impressive.

I had a girl at the time but it didn’t work out. Unfortunately things just don’t sometimes. I actually wish I had not met any girls before going. I met soo many wonderful amazing girls while I was there. There are girls from the wild party girls to have a fun trip with to the hold onto forever loving wives and mothers. Most you will not meet online anywhere but simply run into in a café, restaurant, or any of the other events happening in any large city. There really are a lot of them there too. I mean the first waitress at the first meal I ate at the hotel café was simply gorgeous. Blue eyes, long brown hair, beautiful body, if I would have gone to meet girls there she would have been A1 on my list, and this was my first day there!

I quickly noticed girls are different in Russia! They share many commonalities with the women here with one major exception, they love to be feminine. High heels, dresses, walks that could kill, coy, graceful, everything you wish American women were but aren’t. It is a real experience to wrap your head around at the beginning but you very quickly began to realize what you were missing in the states or other westernized society. The girls there are simply girls. They don’t want to compete with you being a man. They want to fill the woman’s role in a relationship and will be perfectly happy doing that. American women compete, Russian women support and love. It is like they are all that you dream about put here on this earth. I am still hooked and blown away to think about what I experience in Siberia.

It is a real different reality there. Women actually enjoy being approached and flirted with. If you think a girl is hot you say it, and she will love it! We have been so conditioned here to be cautious that it takes awhile, but eventually you will realize that as long as you are respectful you can interact with any girl you see, they will simply adore any attention you give to them. I gained a whole new perspective on how things should be, where if you are a decent man women will treat you as such, you’re not assumed to be untrustworthy right from the start.

The club experience was surreal, imagine a large group of beautiful girls showing it off on the dance floor, and now imagine all the guys back at the tables drinking. Well that’s a Russian club scene.  So gather up your courage and jump into the middle of this dance floor, even with no rhythm you are surrounded by incredible girls who want to interact with you simply because you are out there. It is pure bliss. I couldn’t resist it was incredible.

Food is wonderful in Siberia. It is all local grown in Daschas naturally and is some of the best you will ever eat. I miss being able to eat a tomato as if it were candy. Everything there tastes better. I wish the US would return to organic farming, we are missing a lot. The beer is really good too J

As I have alluded too I am going back. I am currently writing few girls but it will not commit anything to any one until I am there and get to experience being single in Siberia. People there, epically out of Moscow, do not get to see many Americans in their life, so you are instantly interesting and will easily be able to engage in conversation with girls (with your interpreter helping.)

If you really still want to try and meet someone online SiberiaVIP will still definitely be able to help you out. For a small set up fees they can set you up a profile in Russian on the Russian dating sites, forget Match.com where the scams and the sharks are. For the first 2 weeks I had an online profile set up I was getting 3-5 girls a day sending messages to me! I was simply responding and enjoying the attention J From that pool I found the few that I want to keep contact with and continue to talk to right now. It was definitely worth it not avoid the scams and be able to directly reach out to a lot of these girls. The girls try these sites first before trying the internationally large sites, you will among the first to introduce yourself to them.

I was so very sad to go. I missed all the fun nights at clubs with and without my girl J I missed the beautiful girls waiting on me in the cafes, the wonderful food, and simply being able to enjoy being a man while I was there. SiberiaVIP helps you to understand and motivate you to be a real man and go and talk and flirt with these beautiful girls. Having that motivation really made the trip for me and I can’t wait to go back and finish where I left off.

I am more than willing to answer any questions I am able too at sunnyinsd@mail.com Hope to see you on the other side of the world J

Every year I fantasize about what the NFL would be like if they had a bowl system, like college football has. This year it is easy because there are clear cut number ones and number twos in each league. It’s not like that every year. Look at college football, they have a solid 10 teams with championship arguments. However, this article is about NFL BCS games so here we go:

1. The Obvious BCS NFL Championship game featuring the 2 undefeated teams.
Colts vs Saints in Los Angeles, CA
I placed it in L.A. because I find it ironic that both these teams have been linked to being moved to L.A.

The next 3 games are of division leaders who do not belong in the Championship game but belong in BCS bowl games.
2. Cardinals vs Vikings in Chicago
This is the 2 best NFC teams not named the Saints. I placed it in Chicago because the Cardinals once played there and the Vikings have a rival there so it is familiar turf for both franchises.
3. Chargers vs Patriots in Indianapolis
AFC consolation game. In Indy because they have a new stadium and deserve a BCS game.
4. Bengals vs Cowboys in Nashville
Nashville seemed like the logical choice of a place between Cincy and Dallas. Nashville has both Bengals and Cowboys fans. I would actual pay to see this game.

The next round of bowls are the non BCS bowls that will still generate solid ratings because they have good teams playing in them. The first 3 have teams competing for the wild card and the 4 after that are just solid teams.
5. Giants vs Steelers in Cleveland
Another game that I would pay to see. Heck, I don’t know anyone that wouldn’t. Also features the last 2 Super Bowl winners and a great QB match up.
6. Packers vs Jaguars in Hawaii
I wanted to place a good game in Hawaii, they got it.
7. Eagles vs Falcons in DC

8. Bears vs Ravens in Cleveland
Defense, young franchise qbs. Like you expected a different match up with their records.
9. Panthers vs Titans in Miami in the Kerry Collins bowl
2 teams trying to remind people why they were great last year.
10.  Broncos vs Texans in Kansas City
Probably would be a good game between 2 young teams.
11. Dolpins vs Jets in the AFC East showdown in Boston

And finally the Bowl games that no one will even know are on. Because in the Mr. Cameron Rose BCS, no team is in-eligible for a bowl game.
12. Redskins vs Lions in NY in the Redskins want to avenge a bad loss Bowl.
13. Seahawks vs Bills in Calgary in the teams that belong in Canada bowl.
14. 49ers vs Raiders in San Jose, CA in the Bay Area who cares game.
15. Rams vs Browns in the Loser goes to the UFL Bowl game in Siberia.
16. Chiefs vs Buccaneers in the We Will Suck for a while bowl in Mexico

Le nombre de tigres de Sibérie, l’un des plus grands félins au monde, a fortement diminué, selon une étude recensant leur population en Extrême-Orient russe publiée mercredi 25 novembre, et les chercheurs en rendent responsable le braconnage.

(Da Le Monde):

L’observation pratiquée sur un territoire de 23 500 km² a permis de recenser seulement 56 de ces animaux, selon cette étude menée par la Wildlife Conservation Society américaine, le gouvernement russe et des organisations non gouvernementales. Cela représente une baisse de 41 % du nombre d’animaux par rapport à une moyenne de 95 tigres observés sur douze ans dans ce secteur situé au cœur de leur habitat, et qui occupe environ 15 % de leur zone totale de peuplement.

Les chercheurs en ont “déduit qu’il existe un déclin général” du nombre de tigres de Sibérie. Les auteurs du rapport attribuent ce déclin principalement à l’augmentation du braconnage, qui concerne non seulement les tigres eux-mêmes, tués pour leur fourrure et leurs os, utilisés en médecine traditionnelle, mais aussi les animaux qu’ils chassent.

For much of my life, Siberia was this cold, distant land where the Soviet Union sent its dissidents to work in gulags. And I presume Russians, if they thought of Iowa at all, thought of our state as a flat place where we grow lots of corn (Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev visited the Roswell Garst farm in Coon Rapids, Iowa, in 1959.)

While both stereotypes are based in truth (Iowa isn’t really flat, but it is compared to Siberia’s mountains), I know from years living in and around Iowa that the stereotype is shallow and incomplete. I’m sure my stereotype of Siberia is similarly shallow and incomplete. I’m looking forward to learning more about Siberia on a trip that starts Sunday.

In September, I went to the University of Kentucky for an ethics seminar that included some visiting journalists from the Press Development Institute-Siberia. I spent an interesting afternoon and evening with the group, speaking through an interpreter, though at least a couple of them were fluent in English.

When we parted, Victor Yukechev, director of the institute, said, “Next time, Siberia.” I smiled and said I would love to visit Siberia. I have said similar things to many visiting foreign journalists, but I still haven’t visited Uganda, Croatia, Colombia, South Africa or Cambodia. I didn’t expect that I would be visiting Siberia. But Victor did.

In early October, I received an email with an invitation from Victor to lead workshops next Wednesday and Thursday in Barnaul, Siberia, 12 time zones away. On Friday, Dec. 4, I will be a guest speaker at a conference celebrating the 20th anniversary of the independent press in Siberia.

Even in Siberia, journalists are trying to make the transition from a print past to a digital future and hoping to develop a healthy business model along the way. I will be explaining my Complete Community Connection vision for such a business model.

As time and wireless connections allow, I will blog during and after the trip. My wife, Mimi, will be blogging as well, at Rubyeyedfox. Of course, I will see only one city in a region that’s 90 times the area of Iowa (and 12 times the population). Barnaul is about the population of Omaha, relatively near the borders of Mongolia, Kazakhstan and China. The temperature there is 27 degrees Fahrenheit as I write this, not a bad day for an Iowa winter, just 16 degrees colder than Cedar Rapids. Last week, Barnaul temperatures dropped below zero, so we will be dressing warmly.

We’ll fly to Barnaul by way of Chicago, Amsterdam and Moscow. After five days in Barnaul, we will spend two days each in St. Petersburg and Moscow before returning home Dec. 11.

Along the way, I’ll add some depth to my caricature view of Siberia. And I hope to help my Siberian friends learn more about Iowa.

Forse avrei dovuto cominciare da questo punto, forse avrei dovuto presentarmi raccontando della mia lingua? La lingua russa, quella che sa essere bella, fluente ed elegante, ma anche quella che sa decisamente dimostrarsi dall’altro lato – una impressionante fogna di parole… Una lunga storia linguistica, influenzata a suo tempo da ognuna delle lingue come le germaniche, il latino, le ugrofinniche, il greco, il polacco, l’olandese, il tedesco, il francese e infine l’inglese, sta dietro il russo.

L’alfabeto cirillico sembra tanto complicato ma sinceramente credo che sia la parte facile della faccenda. Il sistema alfabetico di base, al momento di formazione dell’alfabeto cirillico, era quello greco, però ha dovuto includere anche vari suoni slavi che non si trovavano né in greco , né in latino, per cui è stato creato il cirillico, un sistema di simboli adeguati alla fonetica slava.

La mia lingua madre, è la lingua che sentivo intorno a me fin da piccola. Sono nata in un freddo dicembre siberiano ed ero cresciuta, topograficamente protetta da varie sfumature linguistiche, sentendo una lingua pulita senza dialettismi e accenti. Sarà questo e un po’ dell’altro che mi hanno aiutato a conservare la lingua russa dopo quasi 20 anni di partenza definitiva dalla mia “foresta tenebrosa”.

Le lingue cambiano veloce. Nel frattempo, mentre faccio un lento giro del mondo, il russo è decisamente cambiato, sono cambiate alcune regole al livello grammaticale, grazie allo stile di vita sono entrate tantissime nuove parole nel linguaggio di massa. Facendo un breve salto in Live Journal, tanto amato dai russi, si vede che nelle pagine del web ormai si usa tutta una lingua sua e propria del produttivissimo net. Probabilmente tali cambiamenti del russo bisogna considerarli più come cosiddetto slang o Russian online culture. Camminando per le vie russe ed essendo stati ospiti da tante persone in varie parti della Russia non ho mai notato questo cambiamento come un evento linguistico significativo.

Riguardando l’argomento dell’acquisizione della lingua russa come L2 ed il bilinguismo coltivato nella nostra piccola famiglia, credo che sia sempre giusto rimanere nei limiti più classici della forma contemporanea della lingua.

Buona notte:)

Foto: http://www.flickr.com/photos/karinga/223800133/

Terror by Quota–State Security from Lenin to Stalin

STALIN THE CZAR OF ALL RUSSIA

Mosley – The Druid (nazi spy who was never caught)(1982)

Dilling – The Red Betrayal of the Churches (communist infiltration of churches)(1938)

Concord – Battle of Stalingrad

Ritieni che la fase di riscaldamento che stiamo vivendo sia:

brevi, chiare e interessanti, con la consueta professionalità di MeteoLive.

L’innevamento in sede siberiana inoltre, risulta importante perchè ci indica lo stato di salute del grande serbatoio gelido del nostro prossimo inverno.

Grazie alla mancata penetrazione delle correnti atlantiche i settori siberiani più occidentali risultano al momento ben corazzati di gelo, significando una buona premessa per la buona riuscita del nostro prossimo inverno.

Fonte:
http://meteolive.leonardo.it/meteolive-zoom-2634-innevamento_emisferico_la_siberia_in_via_di_forte_raffreddamento.html

C’è un documentario francese intitolato “Déchets: le cauchemar du nucléaire” (Rifiuti: l’incubo del nucleare), trasmesso dal canale Arte.tv, e c’è un articolo intitolato “Nos déchets nucléaires se cachent en Siberie” (I nostri rifiuti nucleari si nascondono in Siberia), pubblicato dal quotidiano francese Liberation.

Sono il frutto di un’inchiesta dei giornalisti Eric Guéret e Laure Noualhat, che dopo otto mesi di indagini hanno scoperto come, attraverso un viaggio lungo ottomila chilometri, le scorie radioattive prodotte dalla Francia, arrivano in Siberia e vengono depositate in un sito di stoccaggio all’aria aperta, proprio vicino a una linea ferroviaria.

La zona è interdetta ai giornalisti e a chiunque voglia avvicinarsi, ma Google maps fa miracoli. Le Autorità francesi e russe, di fronte allo scandalo hanno abbozzato una debole e contraddittoria difesa, ammettendo che davvero di rifiuti nucleari francesi si tratta, anche se  nell’ambito di un accordo per la lavorazione e il riprocessamento delle scorie.

La Francia sta lavorando a un deposito definitivo, situato proprio sotto i vigneti dove si produce lo Champagne (ne parleremo), ma intanto, sempre secondo l’inchiesta, il 13% dell’uranio impoverito e di altri materiali radioattivi, viene trasportato nella discarica di Seversk, una cittadina in mezzo alla Siberia.

Pare che ne sia nato un grosso scandalo in territorio francese, dove i giornali e l’opinione pubblica stanno facendo pressioni sul Governo e su EdF, il gigante elettrico che gestisce la rete elettrica e gli impianti nucleari.

In Italia , per il momento, la notizia ha avuto pochissimo spazio. Esattamente come tutte le altre notizie di illegalità o danni all’ambiente e richiami internazionali, che negli ultimi mesi stanno interessando il nucleare francese, che costituisce uno dei punti di riferimento del Governo italiano.

Alcuni esempi, che si aggiungono allo scandalo di Seversk: a metà ottobre, le attività di smantellamento della fabbrica di combustibile nucleare di Cadarache, vengono interrotte. L’Autorità per la sicurezza nucleare Asn  e il Centro dell’energia atomica francesi, rendono noto che sono stati rinvenuti una quindicina di chili di plutonio in eccesso rispetto al quantitativo stimato. Dopo qualche giorno, si scoprono anche sei chili di uranio arricchito in eccesso.

In un deposito dove fra il 1969 e il 1994 sono stati stivati più di 500 mila metri cubi di rifiuti nucleari, sono stati scoperti contenitori non a norma e numerose falle all’interno delle falde freatiche del sottosuolo.

Le ricerche per portare a termine il prototipo di reattore di nuova concezione Epr, lo stesso cui fa riferimento il nostro Governo per rilanciare il nucleare, che è già al centro dell’attenzione per il lievitare enorme dei costi e dei tempi di realizzazione, sono state temporaneamente sospese a causa di problemi di sicurezza del reattore stesso.

Ma queste vicende, per  il momento, non smuovono la convinzione del Ministro per le attività produttive Claudio Scajola che ha dichiarato: “Questi rilievi non rallentano il percorso del nucleare italiano”.

link alla presentazione del documentario (in italiano)

Anna Anderson was one of a number of women claiming to be the youngest daughter of the last Czar Nicholas II, Grand Duchess Anastasia Nicolaevna. The Russian Revolution of 1917 saw the Czar removed from power and, ultimately, killed along with his wife, children and some servants. She was one of at least 10 claiming to be the Grand Duchess but, along with fellow claimant Eugenia Smith, she was certainly the best known. She was pulled from a canal in Berlin in 1929, and was at first called Fraulein Unbekannt (Miss Unknown) as she refused to say whom she was. She was admitted to a mental hospital in, then, Zwittau and questioned repeatedly. She at last revealed her identity to be that of the Grand Duchess. So began five decades of speculation as to her identity, divided between those who believed she was and those who believed she wasn’t. Among those who believed she was Anastasia were, Gleb Botkin (Son of the Czar’s doctor and childhood playmate of the Grand Duchess), along with various Russian émigrés. Against her claim was Grand Duke Ernst Louis of Hesse (The Empress Alexandra’s brother and uncle to Anastasia), Pierre Gilliard (The Grand Duchesses personal tutor) and also the Czar’s sister, Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna. Alexandrovna had actually visited Anderson in the hospital and kept a brief correspondence with her before declaring that the young woman was not her niece. Anderson’s claim was also not believed by other Romanov family members. Anderson launched several attempts in court to establish her identity. When the final case concluded, in 1970, it was decided that neither side had conclusively proven who she was. Her believers supported her for many years and she immigrated to the United States in 1968. She married supporter Jack Manahan in December 1968 and they remained married until her death, of pneumonia, on 12 February 1984. The recent (2007) discovery of the remains of Anastasia in the Koptyaki Forest in Siberia, for me, raises more questions. If Anderson was not Anastasia, who was she? This question already seems to have been answered as she was identified as Polish factory worker Franziska Schanzkowska, both by Schanzkowska’s family and relatives of the Romanovs. However, if this is who she was how did she come to know so much about the Russian Imperial Court? Where did she learn to speak three languages? Although personally I do not believe that Anderson was Anastasia I still find the subject very interesting. Thanks for reading.

Photographed by zIe7e

Listvyanka, Russia (Agosto 2009)

Most interesting | Explore | Transmongoliano y La ruta de la amistad

– License

We want everyone to get to know our friends over at Kamchatka Project, an amazing educational/adventurous pursuit to raise awareness about Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula. Read on, and be sure to head over to their educational resource the Schoolhouse where you can learn about conservation issues and score lots of sweet, free gear.

About Kamchatka Project:

Unless you play Risk or daydream about fly fishing, you have probably never heard of eastern Russian’s Kamchatka Peninsula- one of the last truly wild places on Earth. The volcanic, 700 mile long peninsula is a place where 1/3 of Pacific salmon spawn, a place with some of the densest brown dear populations in the world, a place with no dams, no massive extractive resource operations, less than one person per square kilometer, only one major highway, and some of the best unexplored whitewater rivers on the planet. Kamchatka, however, is no protected Eden.

In the summer of 2010, seven whitewater kayakers will embark on an expedition to explore this Siberian mountain landscape in an effort to raise public awareness of the complex relationships between the place, its people, and its fisheries.

Today, oil and gas companies line up to drill wells and build pipelines in Kamchatka, illegal salmon poaching is a billion-dollar-a-year industry, and local people and politicians are desperate for any source of income capable of keeping food on often Spartan tables.

The Kamchatka Project represents a shift within the adventure community from exploration for exploration’s sake to exploration for the aid of conservation. The paddlers who are the Kamchatka Project are dedicated to this change, and have worked for more than a year to build a large network of invested individuals who believe in the ideals of the project.

In early October 2009, the Kamchatka Project launched the Schoolhouse, an online forum where people from diverse backgrounds discuss and learn about salmon and their role in Kamchatka life. Their effort built upon previous outreach work by creating an open-source community focused on learning more about Kamchatka and its complex set of issues.

From October through February, team members used the Schoolhouse to introduce weekly topics related to the region’s diverse ecosystems, economies and societal pressures. Contributions and feedback from participants in the Schoolhouse bolstered the team’s knowledge, and helped to build the foundation of a unique and powerful educational tool that will be converted into a high school curriculum. This curriculum will remain online for future use by educators from around the world.

Once in country, the team will attempt three first descents down largely unmapped waterways. They will work to collect baseline hydrologic and biological data that will be used by scientists currently working in Kamchatka. Additionally, they will document their experience for use in a feature-length film that will be created upon completion of the expedition.

To learn more, get involved, or make a donation, visit Kamchatakproject.org. While there look for a link to the Schoolhouse where there are regular contests and prizes for those who join in the learning and discussion. Also find the team on Facebook and Twitter.