The Parade 2009

Russian parade in Moscow

Since the World War 2 was over there has been a tradition in Russia to conduct Russian Army Parades on the Red Square in Moscow. They have selected the best of the best soldiers from all the country to participate, the best armaments to show and it was rehearsed many times starting month or two before.

Then in 1990s, when economic situation was not too good in Russia, there was a number 50th parade at the Red Square, in 1995. After that parade there was officially announced that now, after 50 years has passed since the end of the war, this day would not be celebrated in such the grand manner. That meant no more mighty parades in future, no technics, just some soldiers marching.

Well, I can’t remember, why they changed their mind later, as far as I remember first year they kept the word and the parade was really minimalistic. But now the parades are triumphal again, here are some shots from the rehearsal of the upcoming event.

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Russian Birch Tree Juice

Russian birch tree juice

Birch tree juice drinking and harvesting is an old tradition in Russia. The main season for this fun is spring. Tens thousands of birch trees across the country become the source for this delightful liquid, harvested mainly by kids.

Usually there are two methods of doing this. One is to make a hole in the tree body itself then put some kind of straw or pipe in the hole connected with some bottle. Usually the big wine bottle gets full of the birch tree juice from one tree overnight. Another way is to brake a branch and just insert the branch into the bottle, then tie or tape the bottle to the branch.

Russian expatriates abroad are often ask local groceries for bottled juice and very surprised when can’t get it.

Sometimes, when the spring nights are freezing, one can see his harvest place turned into this state as on those photos. Then he gets a frozen birch juice.

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Comments (80) 7:19 am

Russian Army Test

Russian army test

This was pretty popular in Russian blogs lately, so we post it here.

So what you see is what to be said an entry level test leaked from Russian army. Here is the translation: “Six questions that help to identify any hidden psychological diseases young soldier might. If the soldier can’t see the number in one of the 6 circles on the test picture, the he likely might having:

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At the Nuclear Power Plant

Russian nuclear power plant

One Russian blogger has paid a visit to the modern Russian nuclear plant. Normally it is forbidden to take photos there, but they have made an exception for him. So now we have a rare chance to see what’s inside of the Russian most modern power plant.

This power plant is situated near Smolensk city. Its power generation potential is 3 Megawatt and it was build for 8 years, from 1982 to 1990. There were planned to be four nuclear reactors, but because of the panic after the Chernobyl accident the forth block has not been completed, so there are three of them for now.

Let’s go inside.

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Comments (87) 1:31 pm

Russian Ingenuity 3

We continue publishing some examples of Russian ingenuity. Russians themself think that their ingenuity mainly comes into play when the situation becomes drastically desperate, and when things go normal there is no need for this. Well, this time people got in some kind of close situation. Here is a small story.

To understand it better you need to know how is usually looks like an appartment in just constructed house in Russia. As a rule, Russian constructing companies don’t sell the appartments that you can just furnish and live in. They sell the bare concrete box, just the walls of brick or concrete with no electricity lines, no pipes, no wooden floors – just concrete slabs down and up, and often there are no any separation walls inside one appartment too. Many people like this approach because they can create anything in the give flat space, though they have to put everything there by themselves. This is what happened in this case, construction works at this 18-stored house have just finnished and people have got their new concrete boxes to process further, but the elevators – it’s also a common thing in Russia in freshly built houses – were not functional, this usually happens because the bureaucratic system that gives approvals for use of elevators is a whole different story for the construction itself.

So people had no elevator but had to put all the materials that would be used to make their walls, floors, ceilings etc to 18th floor. Hiring the crane is expensive, buying small crane or hauler is also expensive. So look what they have done with their car and some rope. With it help they managed to deliever all the stuff to their flat and probably helped the neighbours too.

Comments (25) 7:37 am

Grocery Shooting

This story is one of the most discussed these days in Russia. A drunk policeman, not just a regular cop but a chief of one of Moscow area police station, major of police, “promising officer” as he was called by his headman, came to a grocery shop drunk and started shooting and humilating people. “It came out that he was a participant of Nazi group in his younger ages, and haven’t give up those views later, each year he was celebrating Adolf Hitler birthday.”, reports one of Russian online news paper. That’s a video excerpt made by store surveillance cams of the incident, with all most violent places of course cut off.

via life.ru

Comments (33) 6:27 am

Story of One Photo 2

Russian grainery

When person sees this image for the first time he usually just automatically tags it as “photoshopped, not a big deal” and goes browsing further. Well, this time we would stop for a while and see is it really that photoshopped or not.

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Comments (11) 2:49 pm

Is it Her City

People of Moscow seem to be disturbed with a late fashion of Chechen youth to gather in big crowds on the cars ride across the city and shoot in the air. “Am I dreaming? Is it my native city, Moscow?”, says one of the video participant girl.

Comments (49) 1:31 pm

Travel Russia Cars

Travel Russia Cars

When someone goes travel to Russia he needs to be well equiped. I am not talking about the big cities like Moscow or St. Petersburg or some other urbanized areas of the country, no when he goes to Real Russia, he needs Real Russian Camping Cars.

We have here today the most suitable recreation vehicles that Russian people use so that to make their weekend camping nice and easy.

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Comments (22) 1:22 pm

Russian Wooden Gadgets

Russian wooden mouse

These days when people going to be more green such devices gain popularity. Russian author of wooden mice writes: “Wood, as the cover material for everyday appliances is almost not used nowadays. Plastics are cheaper, easier to produce, faster – they suit well for mass production. Real wood is still can be found from exclusive furniture producers (regular furniture is made from plywood or laminated sheets). Saw wood industry is also mainly oriented for the construction works, thus the wooden material is available on market is of worse quality. Technologies of producing beautiful things from wood suffered greatly. They are almost, not almost, just forgotten. Just some time ago people could make from wood the things that look like a miracle for a modern person. For example those Russian wooden clocks of the 19th century:”

Russian wooden mouse 2

Such Russian clocks were produced by the Bronnikov family from Russia. For three generations they mastered their skills on crafting light-weight fully functional wooden pocket clocks. Such gadgets were true hit back then, among their customers there were Russian Tzars and other high society members. They were sending their samples to the international exhibitions of Paris and New York to make foreign people awe. The price of such wooden clocks exceeded of those of gold. Not many of those survived Russian revolution and communist reign. Those who did are a rare guest of antique shops priced at around $20,000 for each.

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Comments (28) 11:01 am


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