Year: 2006

We’ve just had our power back. Somehow, while we were in Russia, our electricity bill wasn’t payed because of an insufficient funds at that bank account. The bill wasn’t forwarded properly and there were no notices either from the bank, or from the electricity company.

Yesterday the power was cut around 11:00am. We thought that it was only a temporary thing. Around 1:30pm I called the Electricity Authority of Cyprus (EAC) and asked them to troubleshoot the problem. It was then I was told that the bill wasn’t payed and that the offices are closing in about twenty minutes.

Today morning I payed the bill and 23 CYP of reconnection charges and the power was switched back on in less then an hour. We are back to normal with appologies to everyone who sufferred.

During the last 24 hours or so I came to realize how deeply we are dependant on electricity. So many things that I’ve missed so much… First of all, no Internet. Either incoming or outgoing. Not only was I cut off from the universe, but the universe was cut off from me too. Extra pain. Secondly – computers. While my laptop’s battery provided for some digital entertainment, it didn’t last for long. No picture editing, no word processing, no reading, no gaming. Boring. Air conditioning was off. With 35C in shadow it wasn’t much fun. Hot. And even the fan was off. Very hot. Fridge stopped freezing things, although it maintained those items inside somewhat cool. But our consumption of cold drinks raised and we were off limits. Food – cooker wasn’t working. Coffee – pot wasn’t working. TV and lights were off which cut off our analog entertainment (even reading).

I hope I won’t have to go through another day like this ever again in my life. Cut it one day short, if need be. Just kidding.

I’ve finally finished post-processing pictures from my trip. Overall, I’ve left about 200 images. You can see and comment them at Russia 2006 Flickr set.

On one hand, I wish I could have taken more photos. I wish that weather was better on many occasions (grey skies, rainy weather aren’t that photogenic). But on the other hand, I’m glad that I didn’t take more pictures as it would have taken me years to edit and upload.

Enjoy what’s there…

The biggest shock and stress that I’ve experienced during my trip was on my first day, in Moscow. Yes, that’s right – rats.

I’ve read a few times that there is a problem with rats and mice in both Moscow and St.Petersburg, but those weren’t large stories in important papers, so I didn’t pay much attention. Imagine my shock when I saw rats running on the streets.

My mother and I went for a little walk around the block in the evening. As we were walking along the main road I noticed some movement in the grass near the pavement. Next thing I know – a huge rat walks out of the grass and crosses the road. Then I saw another one. Then another one. Then another.

At a few moments I could see as much as five rats simultaneously. They are not afraid of humans. They don’t run or rush. They just walk around. Humans seem to pay no attention too.

I am afraid of rats. They can jump high and walk the walls. They bite. They can be very organized. They carry a lot of dangerous deseases. When they are all around me, I, to say the least, don’t feel very comfortable.

Nothing shocked or stressed me as much as those beasts. But almost when I calmed myself, I was told that rats can be seen in the center of Moscow too. And in the bright daylight.

For that, here is my official statement: I am not going back to Moscow until they fix this problem. Thanks, but no thanks.

My card reader is officially Missing In Action. I can’t find it. I remember taking it with me to Russia, but I never used it there, or even took it out of the bag. It’s not in the bag. I’ve checked all my bags, and I can’t find it. I looked for it all over the place, and it’s not there either.

I asked my hardware supplier brother to find me a new one. He brought a brand new universal USB card reader today, and I am dumping pictures as we speak. Thanks bro!

It looks like there’s only about 300 images from my trip, half of which or so will be censored and deleted. The rest of them will take me some time to postprocess. At least, I managed to download them to my laptop.

There’s a lot of building going on in Russia. As I’ve been told, people are afraid to lose their money in yet another economic crisis, so they invest in real estate. Real estate prices are already crazy, and still growing.

Moscow seems to have more building activity than any other city that I’ve seen on my trip. It’s a 24×7 process. Especially in the center of the city, where the land is extremely expensive. I was also surprised by how clean the process is. Before the old building is demolished it is wrapped around with the green construction net, and there’s no rubbish or dust coming out. When the green net goes down, a new building is revealed to the public eye.

In Togliatti there’s plenty of construction too. Half of the buildings look very fresh, like they were finished only yesterday, and the other half looks like they are almost ready, and will be operational tomorrow. Most of the new buildings, at least in Togliatti, are constructed with red brick, and not concrete or any other technology. Probably the bricks are cheaper there.

Another interesting thing about construction is the way the new buildings are connected with the old ones to save some money on communications. As I said before, there is usually a lot of spaces between buildings, especially those that were built during the Soviet era. What they do now is insert another building between the old two, connecting it all from wall to wall. And if the old buildings were 9 stores high, the new block is usually higher – 14 or 16 stores or so. It also goes inside too, instead of being flat, along the street. I understand the economic reason of building so, but it still looks pretty odd to me.

With all these building and construction, it’s surprising to see the lack of parking space. Soviet city planning calculated for about one automobile per one thousand people. That’s by far off today, but it seems that no changes were done to this characteristic. Huge buildings with hundreds of flats and thousands of inhibitants have less than ten parking places. And there is all these space covered with grass and gravel around the building. That’s just ridiculous!