MARINA SOKOLOVA

Interesting video about extreme women-hating, paedophilic, and child abuse practices.

It is can be shocking if you never seen or heard anything like that before. Makes you feel very privileged doesn’t it?

 

Interesting poster.

 

This is a poster designed for Ukrainian army by Elena Franchuk, the daughter of the second Ukrainian president Leonid Kuchma. It states in Ukrainian: “Protecting Ukraine, protect yourself”.

Timeless russian lovesong.

Improvised cooking on the road.

Simon's Cat 'Fly Guy'

Holiday.

Well I am going a way on holiday for 10 days. And when I come back I will tell you all about it. I have scheduled a few posts that will publish themselves automatically while I am away to keep you, the readers of this blog, entertained.

 

Trying freestyle machine embroidery.

Jim’s mother has given to me an old Husqvarna sewing machine. It has few types of stitches and its feed dog goes down for freestyle embroidery.  I always wanted to try that one. So I came home, unpacked the machine, and went at it. Well, what can I say. I have still some way to go to reach the level of Alison Holt lol. But they say it gets easier over time. I guess I need more practice. May be I will take a class if I find the time, I think there is one at the local college.

Paper magazines.

Since about a couple of years, when I walk in WH Smith or the magazines department of Borders I browse and think: “Water water everywhere and not a drop to drink”. I haven’t bought a newspaper or magazine in a long time. And I used to spend a little fortune on them when I was much younger. I am addicted to reading, but lately it is very hard for me to find anything interesting to read in paper magazines. Often it feels like I have read it all and there is nothing new exists. Usually in a given month I would find up to 1-2 headlines on covers that catch my attention. It takes me about half a minute to read the articles they advertise (I read very fast).

 

For me to buy a magazine it should not only get my attention, but also be slightly overwhelming, so I cant consume it on the spot and need to take it home. However if the magazine is too overwhelming like, for example, a crafts magazine packed with projects, I might not buy it, because I know that with all the projects I have going on I will never find the time to try what they offer. It is like big bag of potatoes: it will keep you going for a long time, but you have to work to consume this product. When I look for entertainment I prefer fast food for mind. But not too fast and of some interest to me. Lately I have been saved by blogs and forums. This year before holiday I ordered few books that I liked on amazon from the local library, because I know almost for sure that I will not find anything interesting at the airport’s WH Smith.

Work.

I am currently working on series of articles for one British business magazine. It involves interviewing directors or representatives of some of the biggest companies in Russia and other FSU countries. I conduct these interviews on the phone from home obviously. After interviewing about a couple of dozen companies so far, I noticed that recent economic crisis has seemed to do them more good than bad, especially for the big companies in Russia. Everyone says the same thing. The fact that at first sales did decline a little, but then they noticed an increase in demand for many Russian products both from Russian consumers and from the west. It seems that the price of the rouble in relation to other more expensive currencies made it cheaper to buy many types of supplies in Russia. Most of the companies I have talked to so far are actively working on projects to conquer new markets. Many recently signed new big contracts to export their products. And producers of helicopters, for example, even said that they are as overwhelmed with orders as they always have been and have built up an about 2 year waiting list.

 

Raw materials, like coal for example, are seemed to be bought by China a lot. And more complicated products such as processed egg products or fluoropolymers are going more often to Europe. The Middle East seems to buy from them through Europe. But few companies are starting to recognise it as a separate market with a potential and have made plans to sell to Middle Eastern consumers directly. Some of the companies that I talked to are so huge, they are either already world’s leaders or have less than few competitors in other counties. Some of them said that they even actively participate in forming the legislation that would benefit them as producers. Which I guess it is a quite normal thing to do for big companies, but for me it is all very new and I find it very interesting.

 

I never wrote on business topics for money before, especially not on so many different types of industries, so I learned a lot of new things recently. For example: did you know that mayonnaise and crabmeat sticks are made of processed eggs? I didn’t.