I didn’t really want to write about this topic on this blog, but reading through US online media all day long and reading through people’s reactions in the comments, it continues to amaze me how single-sidedly the story is delivered, and how quickly people are buying it. CNN, for example, been only quoting Georgian media, and running Saakashvili’s press conferences clips — smiling, he tells the World of Russian aggression. Lets get things straight, asshole — you’ve started the attack on Ossetia, which has been independent from you for over 15 years, successfully running it’s own affairs and living peaceful life only disturbed by Georgia’s sporadic gun firings. You came in, destroyed most of the capital, killed hundreds of people, thousands more lost their homes and are seeking refuge in Russia, and yet more are still left without food and water.

Anyways, Russian troops moved in to stop the killing. Things are far from over, and I really want to see Russian gov’t get bigger balls, and make sure Georgian troops won’t be able to use force on South Ossetia’s civilians, or any other for that matter.

There are two phone hot-lines opened in Russia for anyone looking for information on killed or injured Ossetian civilians and Russian peacekeepers. The numbers are: 7 (8672) 25-03-43 and 7 (8672) 25-03-40

There also are a couple of funds opened collecting money for Ossetians. Unfortunately both are only for Russian currency, so I’ll just post links for the websites where details for wire transfers can be found.

First one is opened by the government of North Ossetia. The wire transfer details are here, here, and here. Websites are major media sites and are in Russian.

Second is opened by the Russian Childern Fund (official site).

The Times article from 1960’s, the copy of which I posted couple of days ago, brought some nostalgic memories :) and desire to elaborate on it and compare to present day. The article is rather good, so, these are not the notes of critique. To follow the read below you’d probably want to read the original article first.

I was born in Sochi in late seventies, and growing up there in eighties I have to note, that not much was changed since the times described by the Times’ correspondent to my childhood days. There were still putevkas, trip vouchers of a sort, and savages, the people who traveled to the Black sea resorts on their own. “Savages” (dikari in Russian), because their lodging was not civilized — or rather not luxurious, by Soviet standards, as stay of people settled in Sochi spas.

The source of the problem

The city of Sochi was established Read the rest of this entry »

As you may have heard, UK’s Times newspaper has opened free access to its complete archive — all papers since 1785! I’ve searched articles on Sochi, and found a few that mentioned the city — confrontation of Reds and Whites in the beginning of the century, bombings by Nazis in 40x, travel ads in 50’s, 60’s, and 70’s — but found only one article all about Sochi. It is “Contrasts on Black Sea Riviera” published on November 28, 1961.

Even though I wasn’t around in 1961, I was growing up in Sochi during 80’s, and have to say it was mostly the same as described in this article. The article is rather long, so I’ll post only the copy of the article itself here for now, and my comments on it will come later in a separate post, along with some old postcards scans, so you can get a feel of what Sochi was like three-four decades back.

So, follwing is the “Contrasts on Black Sea Riviera” Times article about Sochi from 1961: Read the rest of this entry »

By far the most common way (the only way?) to enter Abkhazia from Russia is through Sochi. For a while foreigners (except Russian citizens and members of UN) were not able to enter Abkhazia. I don’t know when it has changed, but it is not a problem now — just make sure you have multiple entry Russian visa. The only way out of Abkhazia is back to Russia, as transit to Georgia is not permitted by Abkhazian government. Actually, I’ve heard of charter boats between Abkhazia and Turkey, but I don’t know what’s the deal there.

This good information shared Sergei Bagapsh, the President of Abkhazia during an interview to the Russia’s biggest online news source Lenta.ru

Sergei Bagapsh: Citizens of third countries can enter Abkhazia with out any problems. If a tourist has multiple entry Russian visa, he can come to Abkhazia with it as well. Many foreigners visit Abkhazia these days.

Link on topic: Official website of the President of Abkhazia.

This is sort of vulgar entertainment story, if you want to skip it it’s just fine :)

While Bush’s visit to Sochi was pretty boring (Sochi’s all about pleasure, not business, you should know it by now :)), Life.ru brings us a wonderful story – with video – from the roof of Sochi’s airport. Literally.

American presidential security boys have arrived a day early and settled in around Sochi’s airport to ensure safe landing of their president. When the time came, while Air Force One was on its way down, one US sniper, located on the airport’s roof, “took it out” and emptied his bladder. Here’s a photo, and you can watch the video on this life.ru page.

Here’s how to write «Sochi» in various languages!

Сочи

Russian, Bulgarian, Serbian

Сочі

Ukrainian

Sochi

English, Spanish, Italian

Sóchi

Portuguese

Sotchi

French

Sotschi

German

Sotsji

Dutch, Norsk (Bokmål), Afrikaans

Sotji

Swedish, Danish

Soči

Slovak, Czech, Latvian

Sočis

Lithuanian

Sotši

Finnish (Suomi), Estonian

Soci

Romanian

Soçi

Turkish

Soczi

Polish

Szocsi

Hungarian

Σότσι

Greek

სოჭი

Georgian

索契

Chinese

ソチ

Japanese

소치

Korean

*Data taken from Wikipedia.

This is the list of Sochi.* domains that are still available for registration.

I made this list back when news were hit by someone trying to sell sochi.info for 3,000,000€ – see my July post on Sochi domains (btw, the new price is $630,000 :)). I didn’t publish this post back then ’cause while I was making I thought it’d be a good idea to register a couple for myself first - I did so, I registered two… and ran out of money - one probably will become available next year :) . Anyways, today Russian media was hit by news that olimpic-sochi.ru was sold for 1.8 million dollars, and sochi.pro for $300,000 – both “news”, in my opinion, are total bull… I don’t know how this even makes it to the news sites.

So, below is the list I compiled – it’s current as of October 29, 2007. Some domains are no longer available sine I made the original list, those are marked by an asterix(*). But there still are a few interesting ones available. I can see people want to use .bi, .bj (adult), .cd (music), .pr (public relations).

This is NOT a complete ccTLD list, as many countries require local residency or business registration in the country to register a domain in their zone. However, for some of those you may be able to find agencies that will register it for you through their partners in those countries (for higher price, of course). The list below includes a few of those, but most domains on the list can be registered by any individual or company. Also, a couple of ccTLDs I threw out as I couldn’t find registrars for them, and there could be some that I don’t know about (the original list was taken from Wikipedia).

So, here is the list of “sochi” domains as of October 27, 2007: Read the rest of this entry »

Recently a new free online audio language learning service was launched. It has yummy name and provides lessons for several popular languages, including Russian.  There are many websites online that teach Russian language, this one by far the best one I’ve seen. In fact I’m writing about it only because I was impressed with it so much! It’s simple, has clean and intuitive interface, the quality of learning material and quality of audio is great, there’s a lot of the materials, and it’s free!

The course is for the beginners, and if you ever flirted with the idea of learning some Russian head on to the TryMango.com and give it a shot. The sign up process is painless, it doesn’t require activation via email, and you don’t even need a password!

There are 100 lessons available, and all audio material is done by native speakers. The Russian course is Read the rest of this entry »

This is old news, but I didn’t even know, that google.ru had logo to honour Sochi’s Olympic bid win… cool! : )

«Real Estate Krasnodar» blog has a couple of new good articles on real estate in Sochi.
Visit it to read professional analysis and forecast of real estate market in Sochi, and find out new-built property prices.

• Average prices for residential premises under construction in districts of Sochi
• SOCHI Real Estate Market Development Forecasts

You probably have noticed I’ve added a couple more banners to the site. These are affiliate programs I’m trying out to see if they can make me rich :) So far they’ve been proven useless, but I’ll give it a few weeks try. Another way people make money on things like this (like new Olympics host city becomes known) is cybersquatting. I’ll admit, I bought a few domain names with Sochi in it, but don’t really like any of ‘em and don’t know what to do with them yet. I’ve never done anything like this before. Most likely I’ll release many of them next year.

Anyways, the reason I started talking about this is there are two domains are being sold on molotok.ru auction site: Sochi.pro, with minimum bid of €2500 (and there’s one person bidding already), and Sochi.info, with minimum bid of …  €3 000 000. It’s very unlikely he’ll be able to sell it for anywhere close to this price, though.

Download blank buttons for phpBB2 NoseBleed skin »

This is a set of blank buttons for phpBB2 NoseBleed skin I re-created from existing English buttons . Now you can use these blanks to create buttons for this theme in the language you need. Enjoy!

These are transparent GIFs, no PSDs, sorry.

The ccna certification is an important exam when talking in the context of Cisco products. The mcse has 104 products but is less in use. Likewise the examination of mcdst is also not so much popular. The ccda is a bit more famous comparatively. To start a high post job, one needs to have some of these microsoft certification especially mcp training. However the training which is needed the most and require a lot of practice is it training.

Association members meet regularly with people who share a strong interest in learning about Russian Federation, our Sister City Sochi, and in promoting better ties between the two great cities and nations on a social, cultural and business level.

Members gain access to the Association’s established links to Sochi and elsewhere, thus accelerating their prospects in Russian Federation and Long Beach on a social, cultural, educational and business level.

Everyone is invited to participate in a variety of business, cultural, educational and social programs, all of which contribute towards fulfilling individual and Associate goals. Members also have opportunities to meet with delegations of Russian officials who visit Long Beach and other California locations.

Members receive discounted fares on occasional, Association-sponsored group trips and trade visits to Sochi and other Russian Federation locations.

JOIN TOADY!

If you’re looking for investment opportunities in Russia and in Sochi, you maybe interested in reading the web log of Denis Andreev who is involved in Real Estate business in Krasnodar Krai region (where Sochi is located).

Here are a couple of links to his English language posts:

• Russian Real Estate Market in Q3 2006
• Attractiveness of Russia

Ok, I previously quoted gazeta.ru article about Russian businessman Dmitry Shumkov acquiring 50% of French prestige skis manufacturer Skis Lacroix. Well, apparently that not true, recent Skis Lacroix’s press release denied that this information was true.