Russia

The end of Kalashnikov era

Moscow announced plans this week to modernise the Kalashnikov, giving a new lease of life to the Soviet-era assault rifle that is the mainstay of the Russian army and weapon of choice for paramilitaries and gangsters around the world.

This could be just another con (they call them government grants these days) to get the money without doing much. Or this could indeed be some modernization effort which, no doubt, will ruin the rifle and any other technology involved in the process. Fixing things that work well for so many people in so many different environments never brings anything good…

On the other hand, Kalashnikov being an assault rifle – a weapon designed for very specific purpose of killing people – I don’t necessarily see ruining it as a bad thing.

Old style calendar

Growing up in USSR, since I was a kid, I remember I always had a confusion regarding the calendar. While most dates were normal, a few were referred to as “old style” dates. And even though I’ve asked around and it was explained to me a few times, I never truly understood what it was about. I just new there was some calendar change in the past that created the shift.

Today I tweeted about Russia celebrating the Unity Day. Which I think is a silly replacement holiday for a huge celebration of the October Revolution. For as long as I remember, it was celebrated on November 7th. Then I realized that celebrating an October Revolution in November sounds strange. Then I remembered that the revolution actually took place on October 25th, the “old style”. And November 7th is the same date but the “new style”.

I am not a little boy back in the USSR anymore, I thought. I am a man in the modern age, equipped with powerful tools, such as Google and Wikipedia. No more should I suffer the confusion. And thus I quickly found out the source and history of “old style” and “new style”. Here is the relevant snipped from the Wikipedia page on the migration from Julian to Gregorian calendar. I’ve highlighted the important and interesting bits.

The Julian calendar was in general use in Europe and Northern Africa from the times of the Roman Empire until 1582, when Pope Gregory XIII promulgated the Gregorian calendar. Reform was required because too many leap days are added with respect to the astronomical seasons on the Julian scheme. On average, the astronomical solstices and the equinoxes advance by about 11 minutes per year against the Julian year. As a result, the calculated date of Easter gradually moved out of phase with the March equinox. While Hipparchus and presumably Sosigenes were aware of the discrepancy, although not of its correct value, it was evidently felt to be of little importance at the time of the Julian reform. However, it accumulated significantly over time: the Julian calendar gained a day about every 134 years. By 1582, it was ten days out of alignment from where it supposedly was in 325 during the Council of Nicaea.
The Gregorian calendar was soon adopted by most Catholic countries (e.g. Spain, Portugal, Poland, most of Italy).
Protestant countries followed later, and the countries of Eastern Europe adopted the “new calendar” even later. In the British Empire (including the American colonies), Wednesday 2 September 1752 was followed by Thursday 14 September 1752. For 12 years from 1700 Sweden used a modified Julian calendar, and adopted the Gregorian calendar in 1753, but Russia remained on the Julian calendar until 1918 (1 February became 14 February), after the Russian Revolution (which is thus called the “October Revolution” though it occurred in Gregorian November), while Greece continued to use it until 1924.

Triangular letters of the World War II

Via this Kottke post I was reminded of the triangular letters of the World War II. That was a good historical summary. Nice of them to include the folding instructions as well. With all the advances in electronic communication channels recently, this feels like one of those historical artifacts, sliding away into the darkness of the past…

Average salary for programmer in Togliatti, Russia

Yandex, also known as “Russian Google”, recently introduced a service for salary comparisons across Russia, based on the known job vacancies. This is a handy little tool that provides a lot of insight into how things are in Russia and across. For example, I immediately checked the average salary for a computer programmer in Togliatty – my hometown.

23,000 Russian Rubles approximately equal to 530 Euros. On the same graph, average salaries for Moscow and Saint Petersburg are also indicated – 1,200 EUR and 1,500 EUR accordingly. Unfortunately I don’t have an equal or reliably objective resource for Cyprus, but based on my own knowledge and experience, I’d say at least in Limassol the average salary for a programmer would be somewhere around 2,000 EUR. Moscow’s 1,500 EUR is roughly the minimum, I’d say.

First of all, this graph once again confirms that Moscow and Russia are two different things. Prices, salaries and opportunities are very different. Even Saint Petersburg, which is the second richest city in Russia is obviously behind here. Togliatt’s average salary being almost 3 times less than the one for Moscow clearly indicates the huge difference.

Secondly, this makes me question (not that I haven’t before) all those bright and brilliant mass media reports of how fast the Russian economy is growing and of how well things are improving in the regions. With 500 EUR being an average salary for a qualified professional – economy has a very long way to go.

Thirdly, it is sad to see how stale the IT industry is in my hometown. The city of almost a million in population has only 55 vacancies for a programmer (according to Yandex only, of course). And out of those most are C++ and 1C (popular accounting software package) vacancies. There are a few web developer positions available, but for the city that large these are too few.

Russian heavy bands

A few days ago I was enjoying a company of people who organize events in Cyprus. In particular, they are bringing musicians and singers. Of course, everyone at the table was asked who would they like to see and who they would pay money for. To my shame, I don’t follow the music scene in Russia at all. All the bands that I’ve listened to when I was living there are way too old now. And I have no idea who is doing what nowadays. So, I couldn’t really answer the question. That’s not a big problem anyway, since the kind of music that I listen to is probably not something many people would be interested in in the first place.

I spent some time getting familiar with the current state of the Russian music and I have to say that I am positively surprised. There are plenty of bands that play hard and heavy alternative music that I am a fan off. I’ve created a new YouTube playlist – Russian heavy bands – which I populated with a few tunes that I liked. I will keep this thing around and when and if I come across something worthy, I’ll add it there. So feel free to subscribe, share, and bookmark. Also, if you have any suggestions, please comment. Thanks.

Here is a little preview of what’s going to be in the playlist:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1yW1n8iuoDU]