Home to Winter

Kazakhstan was cold.  It was -20 most of the time I was there.  The morning I left Astana it was -30C with a wind.  It is normal for that part of the world and for its "twin" Saskatchewan on the opposite side of the world, 12 hours difference.

Got home Friday to heavy snow and -15 in Dnipropetrovsk.  My plane was 30 minutes late getting in from Istanbul and Andrei and Tanya were another 30 minutes later getting in from Zhovti Vody to pick me up at the airport.  It was storming pretty bad and the roads were terrible.  The storm died down and the plows were out by the time we set out for home so we had no problems.  Andrei is a good driver.

There is snow everywhere.

It was good to be home.  Tanya and I do not do well without each other and 10 days apart simply reinforced that fact.  She did get Katya to come over to clean the house a couple days before I came home, though Tanya said they spent a lot of time visiting and drinking tea.

The dogs were glad to see me.  I let them out for a run today and they came home when I called them.  Tanya had let them out a few times too and they were quite good about going back into their run when she called them.  One day though, she opened the front door and the dogs were waiting for her.  All proud.  With the elderly sun ripened remains of an elderly sun ripened goat spread all over the front step and embedded in the rubber mat (1mx3m).  Tanya pitched the mat into the yard and will scrub it when it warms up.

Which won't be for a while.  It is -20 right now and Kyiv is forecast to go to -30 tonight.  The army is putting up heated tents for the homeless in a number of cities.

Never a good time to be poor or unemployed but winter is worse.  Ran into this website which chronicles USA unemployment by county from Jan 2oo7 to Nov 2009.  Not pretty.


http://cohort11.americanobserver.net/latoyaegwuekwe/multimediafinal.html

Back on the Blog Again

I am sitting in a hotel in Istanbul and will fly home tomorrow to Dnipro.  This is the first I have been able to access blogger.com since I left.  Media including internet is highly censored in Kazakhstan.  Accessing any websites proved to be a pain as one would have to try several times over several minutes before it would clear the filters and come up on Firefox. Standards like BBC or The Economist were first click.  Sasktel or CBC took many tries as they were new to their filters.
Blogs are considered mass media in Kazakhstan and subject to all the rules, written and unwritten.  Blogger.com is simply blocked permanently. It must be impossible in China where control is really tight.
I do not understand why leaders like Nazarbayev who are popular and doing a relatively good job feel they have to resort to the strong arm stuff.  In an honest and open election he would still get 60% of the votes.  Instead of 99.3%.

In other news, after I got off the plane this morning in Istanbul, I got on the shuttle bus that takes us from the plane to the terminal.  A pretty girl in her 20's smiled at me and got up so I could sit down.  Some days I get too much respect.

Murphy was an Optimist

Left for Dnipropetrovsk this morning at 11:30.  Andrei drove through thickening fog and light rain all the way.  Arrived airport 1:30.  Flight canceled 2:30.  Arrived home 5:30.  Leave for Kyiv on night train from Pyatikhatki at 12:40 am.  Will fly from Kyiv at 11:55 am tomorrow and catch my connecting flight in Istanbul on time, arriving in Astana at 4:00 am Thursday. 

I hope.

So instead of spending the night in a quaint little hotel in old Istanbul, I will spend it on a short bunk in an open sleeping car on a rocking, rolling, thumping, pounding  train to Kyiv.  And instead of a free day to work in my room before my plane leaves Istanbul, I spend four hours in Kyiv airport and three in Istanbul airport.  And arrive in Astana just in time to leave for a 400 km drive on ??? roads in the dead of winter in a country that makes the Regina plains seem hilly.

I must be nuts. I am not 40 anymore. Nor am I actually there yet.

Conspiracy Theories that Proved to be True

I am a firm believer that much of what happens we will never know about, nor the causes, nor the results because there are those who stand to gain in positions to manipulate.  And just in case you think all conspiracy theories are nuts, well, read this and watch the various videos.  May-B sent me the link.

http://www.newworldorderreport.com/Articles/tabid/266/ID/980/33-Conspiracy-Theories-That-Turned-Out-To-Be-True-What-Every-Person-Should-Know.aspx

It is a far more scary world than you thought. 

Behold, I wait at the gate and ring

I have my visa to Kazakhstan.

When we dropped off my application on Dec 29th, the Consulate people assured us they were open January 8th (the day after Orthodox Christmas) and to come and get my passport and visa then.  They are open from 9:00 am to 12:00 noon.

Caught the 12:40 am train from P'yatikhatki.  Had my mattress unrolled onto the berth, bed linen laid out and was asleep by 1:00 am.  They wake us at 6:00 so everyone can use the washrooms, get ready etc for 7:00 am arrival in Kyiv.  People get off the train looking like they just left a hotel room: clothes neat, make-up flawless, hair brushed.  I get off the train looking like I just spent the night on a train.

By 7:30 I was sitting in McDonalds having breakfast, just a 20 minute walk from the Kazakhstan Embassy.  There was snow everywhere, left over from last week.  Packed snow makes for slippery sidewalks, I found when I headed out at 8:40 to walk to the Embassy.  But shoveled sidewalks make for black ice. I was tiptoeing carefully thinking how dangerous it was when my feet went out from under me and I slammed my head on the sidewalk.  My cap took most of the force; a young man helped me to my feet and I trundled on, arriving at the big orange metal Consulate gate of the Embassy at precisely 9:00 am .

It was quiet.  Too quiet. They always attack just before daylight. Sorry, wrong story.  I rang the bell.  Nothing.  Several times.  Nothing.  9:15 - phoned Tanya.  Tanya reached Security who said hang tight, he might be coming in a bit late.  9:45 - nothing.  Call Tanya.  Tanya calls Security, who phones the Consulate Officer, who says he is coming in to work.

I am waiting outside all this time.  Nice day.  0C, no wind.  I am not cold and keep pacing to "relax".  10:15 - phone Tanya.  Tanya phones Consulate, speaks to officer, who tells her they are closed, I should come back Monday. Tanya "opens mouth" which is the direct translation from the Russian.  Threatens to phone President Nazarbayev if she has to because last week, this same guy told her they would open on Friday 8th.

10:30 - Consulate Officer answers my ring, opens gate, takes $50 USD passport fee and gives me my passport c/w visa.  Takes 5 seconds.  11:00 I am back in McDonalds drinking a well deserved cup of coffee. 12:00 noon - am back in Train station lounge, killing 5 hours until train time.  Isn't it fun?

Victor, Victor and "Evita"???

 The Ukrainian Presidential Election will be held January 17 and will likely go to a second round as there are some 18 candiates running so it is unlikely any one will get the majority needed.  The front runners are Victor Yanukovich, the villain of the 2004 Orange Revolution followed at least 10 points behind by Yulia Timoshenko, former ally and now bitter enemy of current president Victor Yushchenko whose support is now single digit.

There is a good article in The New Republic about Yulia Timoshenko, current Prime Minister and would-be President of Ukraine.  The opening attention grabber is that she truly considers herself Eva Peron reincarnated* and goes on the describe her rise from poverty in Dnipropetrovsk to billionaire through gas trading and her unrestrained "lust for power". 

In his book "Casino Moscow: A Tale of Greed and Adventure on Capitalism's Wildest Frontier", Matthew Brzezinski describes how Yulia made her money, with the help of her father-in-law in the early days of Ukraine's independence after the fall of the Soviet Union.  When the system collapsed, factory managers had no idea how to source inputs nor market outputs.  All they knew was how to produce to meet their quotas.  Everything else had been done from Moscow.  

People with connections began to barter with the factories, providing inputs eg gas and electricity and marketing whatever the factory produced.  Always at huge cash advantages to themselves and certainly to the detriment of the factories whose managers could care less, until they found themselves bankrupt and discarded.  


She then followed Lazarenko to Kyiv where she became Minister of Energy in his cabinet under President Kuchma, where she fell out of favour  and spent a month in prison before charges of illegal transfer of a billion dollars, plus bribery of Lazarenko were dropped.  


She switched her loyalties to Yushchenko and her fiery oratory stirred the hearts of the  crowds massed in Independence Square during the Orange Revolution.  Whether Yushchenko was jealous of her popularity or she couldn't stand playing second fiddle, she did not last long as Prime Minister and was replaced by Yanukovich.  Go figure. After the last general election she was able to cobble together enough votes to regain Prime Ministership but will not be satisfied until she is President.


Why anyone would want to be president of Ukraine today is beyond me.  The incoming president will inherit a mess.  European Voice has an excellent article on the subject.  An economy that shrank 15% last year and is in danger of default.  A constitution that virtually guarantees ungovernability.

*I believe in reincarnation too.  In a previous life, I was a horseman of the Siberian Steppes, though Ella used to assure me I was merely part of his horse.

Our Second Christmas Dinner in a Fortnight

Today is Orthodox Christmas Eve. Orthodox Christmas falling on January 7th,  thirteen days after Western Christmas.  The Gregorian calendar was not adopted in Russia until the early 1900's by which time the Julian calendar was 13 days behind..

While the traditional Christmas Eve supper is supposed to be 12 meatless dishes, we were a bit unorthodox and Tanya roasted the goose we purchased sometime back and kept safely in our freezer just for tonight.  Excellent bird, I must say!

Roman and Lena were here for supper.  Roman and I had been to Dnipropetrovsk, leaving at 8:00 and returning by 3:00.  I went to get my air ticket to Kazakhstan (Tanya isn't going as she has a terrible cold) and Roman went to see his Doctor, his appointment having been rescheduled from mid-December for weather reasons.  We got home just in time as it began snowing hard and the roads were getting heavy.

So to all our Russian friends, we say "С Рождеством Христовым!" (Srozhdestvom Khristovym) and to our Ukrainian Friends “З Різдвом Христовим” (Z Rizdvom Khrystovym).