Family, Love and Fidelity Day

It has been a quiet week in Lake Wobeggon as well as in Moscow. Midsummer is behind us, moving towards fall, and some of us long for the start of the "rakfisk" and "lutefisk" season. Some look forward to the hunting season to secure traditional meals based on patience and sweat. While we wait, we'll have to endure vacation and summer.

Summer can be hectic at a hotel like ours. It's not only this year's guests, contracts and preparations for next year need to be in place before we can be pining for the fiords.

Our Silly Walks Department, our Parking Department and the Division responsible for sending out insane messages are all closed for the summer. This is a problem for the blog editor since their work has been the basis for this blog. However, the blog must go on and fortunately there are substitutes.

Rumours say that the FSB (KGB) has increased their honey trap activities. Be warned! Recently a video with this unfortunate UK diplomat and two girls was posted on the internet under the title "The adventures of Mr. Hudson in Russia". The diplomat resigned and the FSB pretends to be upset by accusations that it's their footage. He's divorced and this story has no implications on his civil status.

The main event last week was the Obama visit and not the adventures of Mr. Hudson. On the other side of the river, the nabour had a party for the Obama's.



Last year the First Lady, Svetlana Medvedeva, snapped her be-ringed and manicured fingers and decided that July 8th should be celebrated as the "Day of Family, Love and Fidelity" symbolized by cheesy pop concerts and daisies. You should have taught that most people would have forgotten, but this week daisy banners was rigged up on Tverskaya and elsewhere.



They could have been for the Obama's visiting, but the Obama's left for Italy together with Dmitry. The daysies was to remind of the "Day of Family, Love and Fidelity". Was it irony when she spoke of family values? I've heard it before - have you? Isn't the family value thing © of rightwing Republicans and KrF. In Italy her hubby Dmitry was posing with his pal Silvio currently struggling hard to be a family man. The First Lady is indeed very modest with limited income and wearing expensive jewellery and the latest fashion as well as long nails with a pearly manicure and carefully done hair almost as she had been to a "Hair and Nails" shop in Houston or L.A.



Unfortunately her new day is not the kind of holiday qualifying for a day off from work.

This weekend the nabour on the other side of the river was not home.



This morning I woke up to the bells of my closest nabour, Tserkov Svyatovo Klimenta or Church of St Clement. St Clement is a splendid baroque church by the Italian architect Pietro Antonio Trezzini dating back to 1720 with a rectory and belfry from the 1750's. The red and white church has four blue domes with golden stars and a fifth golden cupola in the middle. Last October it was wrapped in and isolated. Work has continued through the winter and now it's being unwrapped.

My 2007 guidebook says; "Unfortunately, the church has been unsafe to enter for some years and it is unlikely that it will reopen in the near future". Now, it's open! The church has a small shop selling traditional decorated bread and honey.



A few hundred meters to the West I see Tserkov Bogomateri Vsekh Skorbyshchikh Radost or "Church of the Consolation of All Sorrows". This church was built after the great fire in 1812. Further to the West is Tserkov Voskreseniya v Kadashakh or "Church of the Resurrection in Kadashi" from 1687 with its golden cupolas.

I long for having and driving a car. It doesn't need to be a big car. Two seats will do for me. All kind of people drive cars, even those women whose husbands bought their driving licenses and cars as a birthday presents. A car with a driver is not a real option. This car issue is about risk and reward. As always in life there is a relation between the risk you take and the reward you get. If you stay away from risks your rewards will be minimal unless your name is Gladstone Gander.

If I had a car, and if I had a girlfriend, (and YES I have a very good one), I would ask her; "My girl, would you like to go to Yasnaya Polyana this weekend". She would say; "Yes, I will - haven't been there for years." Maybe Mr. Levin or Leo himself is home?

If it was a convertible, her hair was blowing in the wind as we were driving South towards Tula.

As we drive cornfields and herds of grassing cows fills us with joy. We are free - free to roam. Then I realize the hotel is waiting and it's up early tomorrow morning. The dream is over and fortunately the Metro will be running.

Travels, bloody travels!

How to significantly reduce travel costs without investing in costly video conference rooms could be today's subtitle.

The answer is simple and clear; by making travel preparations, execution and reporting as painful as possible.



The basic principle is old fashioned Soviet-communist suspicion. Controlling and observing was once decent professions. I once saw a CV where the role "Chief Observer" was an important past experience. Did you say adding value? No, that was not part of the plan. So, what do we do? We fill out forms - not one form, but forms.
The principle is simple; If I shall travel to Paris or somewhere else, I have to fill out a form requesting our CEO(!) to send me on a mission to where ever. This has to be filled out in English and Russian. The translation normally takes from one to two days. The Russian translation is important since none in our international, modern hotel development's HR department speaks or read English. The hotel should have hired more old fashioned spys with experience from London, Paris, New York or Longyearbyen and not these local informers. So I get an order to travel on a special mission to somewhere. Our travel department issues hotel vouchers and airline tickets. Business class hopefully!

Then I can dream of taking off.



Friction lock - set
Mixture - rich
Propellers - fully forward
Flaps - set - 10 degrees
Engine gauges and suction - check

Mixture set to maximum percent - recheck
Flight instruments...
Altimeters - check both
Navigation lights - on
Strobes - on

Ice is forming on the tips of my wings,
Unheeded warnings, I thought I thought of everything,
No navigator to guide my way home,
A soul in tension that's learning to fly.

You confirm - Alpha Victory ready for departure - and wake up. It's time to make porridge for breakfast and off to yet another day at work.

A dream unthreatened by the morning light,
Could blow this soul right through the roof of the night.



You get used to it. If you put a frog into a big pot, he will swim around. If you light a fire under the big pot, the frog will still swim around feeling comfortable. The water gets warmer, he's still happy and sort of indifferent. As the water gets warmer and warmer, the frog gets more and more indifferent or careless and finally the water boils. The lady at the local market calls out; "Frogs! Frogs! Freshly cooked frogs!".

If my mission is to Paris the two most important things are to keep the boarding pass from the flights and to get a stamped and signed note from the company visited stating that I actually visited and not frequented bars, cabarets and casinos.

Russians are experts on rubber stamps. The most important is the round stamp - you have to have special permission from the ministry to acquire a round stamp. Only seals are superior to round stamps. One of the Ivan's used seal lacquer with eagle feathers for the most important documents. The phrase - By my seal and feathers - is widely used today and originates from those days. The next in line is the triangular stamp. If you run a business, you have to apply to local authorities to have a triangular stamp. Square stamps like "Rett kopi bevitnes" can be ordered through the local rubber stamp shops. Even a small town with a few thousand inhabitants will have at least one rubber stamp shop.

Rubber stamps should only be given to responsible adults. As a kid I stamped my mothers anatomy and physiology text books with red and blue pig and sheep stamps. She laughed for weeks.
SH should buy fancy rubber stamps to be used in case of visits from the Hotel Development. A pink pig or pony rubber stamp or maybe a moose and a note - "This is the only stamp we have" - would have been great way of confirming a meeting.



Or - Why not get the seal of the former CCCP? One internet dealer says;

Our Seal Of The Soviet Union rubber stamps are durable and ready to provide years of trouble free use. With an easy grip handle, the rubber used holds just the right amount of ink to brand your documents. Priced at a very affordable cost, these official rubber stamps are a must have. With an image measurement of 2 1/8-inches x 1 7/8-inch, this stamp is sure to be noticed. Don’t let your pages go bare any longer. Order your very own Seal Of The Soviet Union Rubber Stamp today!



That won't work today. Get yourself a self inking stamp from the famous GRM stamp factory sold through Alibaba.com. In a country full of Alibaba's someone actually called their company Alibaba. Amazing! Here you can get the most complicated designs. Not like the moose from a hobby shop in Norway.



By the way - I've sent in my application for vacation. Three forms was all. It's only three weeks this time. Wonder how I can get the remaining 25 days? Resigning, and moving, maybe.