You don't have to go as far as New Zealand to see this beautiful landscape. Just a 4-hour flight from London and you're at the Arctic Circle at the north of Russia. If you're looking for a real adventure on a budget, which feels like an escape to another planet, then this is the place to go.

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Really nice collection of pictures made in Russia by travelling photohrapeher Andrew Moore.
http://www.andrewlmoore.com/view_project.php

2008 celebration stats (Bolshoy Gorod magazine)



79% of Russians ate mandarines while celebrating.
57% of Russians considered the night of December 31st the most important holiday in the year.
42% of Russians started to celebrate at 8 p.m.

17 years have passed since USSR collapsed and the reforms have started in our country.
However latest policy of gaining state control over economy through state controlled corporations brought some results.
In new Russia, state provides job for 48% of the national workforce (in USA the rate is 14%).

I don't really understand how Interbrand measures the brand value. I'm not sure if it is significant tool but this is valuable info for those who are interested in Russian market. Telecom is the only industry which was naturally created in aftersoviet time, without acquiring the state property. It is noticeable, that all three leaders of the industry are in the top 10. And we have only two oil companies there. Cool.

So, top 10 Russian brands in terms of value, 2008 (Interbrand, usd bln.)

1. Beeline, telecom, $7.4
2. MTS, telecom, $6.9
3. Baltika, beer, $2.4
4. LukOil, oil, $1.1
5. Rosneft, oil, $0.8
6. Megafon, telecom, $0.6
7. Sberbank, fiinance, $0.4
8. Alfa bank, finance, $0.38
9. Pyaterochka, retail, $0.35
10. NTV, media, $0.33

Logo of Beeline

Yesterday I walked down the river and noticed that water-level is higher then usual and I remembered that it’s storm-cone today. Storm-cone, it’s something about sailors, seas and Moby-Dicks. I don’t know how it is in real port-cities, but in St Pete you don’t really feel that port near is that ships come and drunken sailors are looking for cheap bordello. But, probably, I have to get to the port or, least, go to the seaside at Primorskaya metro station and watch the Bay, ships and lights of Kronstadt.
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Russian Academy of Science issued interesting stats results comparing present situation in Russia with Soviet Union. During Soviet time only 3% of the population valued wealth as the top personal priority, while 10% choose power. Nowadays 45% of Russians chooses wealth and 23% — power.

I'm living near Vyborgskaya Metro Station and every day I walk by a building of ex-kitcen-factory. I don't know exactly, what is it, it was a kind of plot to make in every block a big factory-style kitchen fot feeding all workers and liberate womens from "home enslavement". sweet dream of сommunism, what can i say else.

In early 20th Vyborgskaya was a suburban, there was only single houses with gardens, demolished all these "bourgaise remanins" and tried to bukd here a "city of future" for workers, whree everything would be make using newest science progress. But they fail. Sad.
And every time when I'm wlking in Vyborgskaya or in the area of Kirovsky factory and watching frayed worker's clubs, commune houses and child-gardens from 20th I'm feeling kind of nostalgy about their dreams and disappointment whar became on them.

Just one hour by train to the North from St Pete and I'm in Karelia. I love this place, this endless pine forests, they start here and end somewhere in Norway or Finland, somewhere at Arctic Ocean, I love this sands ans lakes, I like to jump over trenches that are still here since Winter war.
I'm charmed by Karelia, I'm waiting for elf behind the tree or for Tokugawa warrior because these views remeber me some film about shoguns' Japan. I remember how it aws in the school when we hiked somwhere in Karelia for a day. We was sitting at the fire, playing guitars...
Suddenly I realised, how Russia is big and different, i just went for 50 kilometers and everything has totally changed, another trees, another ground, another faces. And didn't get as far as friend of mine - he went to Petrozavodsk and told me stories about locals who's sitting in the train and chatting whose grandmother was eaten by bear, just like in Deadman of Jim Jarmush. So, if I go not 50 kilometers but 500 it would be just a new contry, and 500 more kilometers a new country and so on to the Vladivostok. Amazing!

Today I met a man who lost $100 mln. in the stocks during current financial crisis. This is significant part of his fortune but he seems to be ok, even positive.

We had so much money in Moscow lately. Due to the high prices for the natural resources, money has flooded in the country and it's heart — the city. Fortunes were spent just to show off and we got really used to it — the money. The city become so expensive to live in with it's fancy cafes where they serve cup of coffee for $8 (and there were no niche for normal cafes with the real estate prices climbing into the sky).
Things has to be changed now, the stock market has lost about 60% of the value, there are cuts is financial and real estates sectors. There is a strong feeling in the city that we are on the edge. People got nervous, many of us has something to loose or should I say to get (cheap coffee for example).