Russian Ingenuity – no, really!

The Russians do a lot of jury-rigged things to get things done or make things work. While this is impressive in a certain sense, mostly the examples I’ve seen or made note of make me cringe at the sloppy way something is done, or unsafe, or whatever. Yes, it works, but how long before it [...]

Leningradsky Prospekt and Parking Violations, Part II

Happy New Year!
I just returned from holidays and when I drove to OBI yesterday, I noticed that part of the new section on Leningradsky Prospekt is open. It seems to be only on the outbound side, starting not too far after Dinamo Stadium. Felt nice, skirting I think two or three intersections and stoplights. I [...]

Push starting a car – use second gear

For whatever reason, I’ve had my share of experience with a car not starting in the winter. Sometimes because I left the lights on (why don’t all cars switch off the lights when the key is out? Is that so hard? Sheesh!), sometimes because it’s too cold. But, because of this, I have had experience [...]

Two Strikes and a Hit

Yesterday, I decided I would do something different: go out and see a museum or something like that. While browsing, I found MoscowOut.ru and from that I learned about the Moscow House of Photography. The website is well done, there are several exhibitions listed, most prominently, Alexandr Slusarev’s “The City I Live In” and “Russian [...]

60 degree swing in under two weeks

Yesterday, my wife asked me to pick her up in the car as we went to view another apartment. We planned to meet at 18.30. At 17.30, I innocently approached the car, cleaned off all the snow and then tried to start it. But, it wouldn’t start.
Granted, the dashboard display indicated -24.5 Celsius. And it [...]