Red October

Yes, you heard me correctly - the season of parties. What am I implying? I think you know. The Russian New Year is coming. How is this different you ask? Are you kidding? This is like the best party of the whole year.

Since Soviet times when Christmas was banned due to it being a religious holiday, Russians have celebrated the New Year, Christmas style. Yes, now that there is no Soviet Union anymore, Christmas is observed, but not in the same sense. Christmas happens on January 7th every year. You see, January 7th is the same day as December 25th on the old Julian calendar which was in use until 1918 when the Soviets took over Russia. The big holiday is New Year’s. While celebrating the incoming year, it is also their Christmas. As well, many Russians celebrate the ‘Old New Year’ on January 14th. Just like Christmas, the old New Year is 14 days later with the Julian calendar.

Interesting fact - every New Year’s Eve in Russia, the movie Irony of Fate is played on the TV. It’s an old Soviet era movie that is actually fun to watch and easy for us Americans to understand even though we can’t understand…

So, back to the parties. We seem to go to many Russian parties throughout the year, but the big deal to everyone is the New Year’s Eve party. Even if you somehow don’t go to a party, you still celebrate with champagne. Very important. You might even exchange a gift or two on this eve for traditions sake.

But back to the parties. Very important - drink vodka. I said drink vodka. Did I say it clear enough? Drink vodka. And for your own sake, drink the good stuff! You’ll be very very sorry if you don’t drink good vodka. Have you ever worshiped the porcelain god? There’s no doubt you will if you drink cheap vodka. And the headache. Just buy the good stuff. You’ll be thanking me later - I promise. Oh, you are allowed to drink Baltika beer in between the vodka - sparingly. I of course prefer Baltika 9.

What happens at a Russian New Year’s party you ask? Any number of things. But mostly it’s a social event. Last year we threw a party and we ate dinner, drank vodka, played charades, sung karaoke and just had a good time. Of course we drank champagne at midnight. And I can’t vouch for anyone else, but after much beer, vodka and champagne I puked my guts out about 2AM. Yes, I over partied. But what the heck, I only do it once a year Russian style!

No they are not mandatory, but might make your search a little easier, yet costlier, but safer. Am I advocating using an agency - no. If you’ve read my blog you’ll know I didn’t use an agency. But I would say there was a bit of luck involved with my search. You see, I really wasn’t looking for a Russian wife.

What prompted this article? My wife is in the process of reviving/setting up her agency. She used to run an agency in Russia and closed it a few years ago. Now that things are changing for the better, she is in the process of getting it going again. Stay tuned for more information as to when it will open.

But my point is that I have been watching the competition and what they do. You see, it seems like the biggest competition only gets the most beautiful women. Odd, isn’t it? If you are looking, you’ve more than likely been to their web site. Seems all of the women are drop dead gorgeous.

Beautiful Russian Women from other web sites.

How do they do that? I am guessing they are just selective about who they let in. Or maybe they advertise themselves as the best in Russia to the women on the site and it is possible that they charge the women a fee to be on their site. I don’t know. Other large web sites have a variety of women that do come in all shapes, sizes and ages. But this one seems to only have utterly beautiful women. If what you want is a trophy wife, then that’s the place to look. If you want a real wife, then there are many web sites to see. The other thing I don’t care for is the fact that they make the guys buy credits and then charge you a bunch of credits to do/see anything. It’s a ripoff. But, they do have the web site with nothing but beautiful women…

I know what you are thinking. What the heck does a Russian tunnel have to do with Russian wives? Nothing other than they are both in Russia. Came across this and thought it was interesting and thought you might like to take a look, that’s all. I’ll be back to posting regularly pretty soon.

http://www.russiantunnel.com/

I thought this would be fitting since my domain is Red October. Borrowed most of this from Wikipedia.

A little history - On October 25, 1917 (November 7, 1917 GC), Bolsheviks led their forces in the uprising in Saint Petersburg (then known as Petrograd and later as Leningrad), the capital of Russia, against the ineffective Kerensky Provisional Government. For the most part, the revolt in Petrograd was bloodless, with the Red Guards led by Bolsheviks taking over major government facilities with little opposition before finally launching an assault on the Winter Palace on the night of 25/26 October. The assault led by Vladimir Antonov-Ovseenko was launched at 9:45 p.m. signaled by a blank shot from the cruiser Aurora. (The Aurora was placed in Petrograd (modern Saint Petersburg) and still stands there now.) The Winter Palace was guarded by Cossacks, cadets (military students), and a Women’s Battalion. It was taken at about 2 a.m. The earlier date was made the official date of the Revolution, when all offices except the Winter Palace had been taken.

Later official accounts of the revolution from the Soviet Union would depict the events in October as being far more dramatic than they actually had been. This was helped by the historical reenactment, entitled The Storming of the Winter Palace staged in 1920. This reenactment, watched by 100,000 spectators, provided the model for subsequent official films made much later showed a huge storming of the Winter Palace and fierce fighting. In reality the Bolshevik insurgents faced little or no opposition. The insurrection was timed and organized to hand state power to the Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies, which began on 25 October. After a single day of revolution eighteen people had been arrested and two had been killed.

Traveled to Germany last week and stayed with some old friends. They made some plans to see some things while we were there. While it was nice to see them, we really learned a lot about them that I wished I had known before the trip…

On Sunday, we were all talking and they promised to take us to France (2 hour drive) on Monday. We all got up Monday morning and it was cloudy. Ok, so they said Tuesday the weather would be better. No problem as there were no set pans for Tuesday. Was still a bit jetlagged anyway. The women decided to go shopping.

Tuesday came (and almost went). We laid in the bed and never heard them get up. Finally I realized it was 11AM, so I decided to get up. Shortly thereafter, everyone got up. Problem was that while we were showered, dressed and ready to go, they were still not dressed. 1PM came and we decided to eat lunch. They are still not dressed and have not mentioned at all about leaving the house. Just lounged around the house in their pajamas and played with the kid.  Come on, we are on vacation and want to do some sightseeing! We discussed France over lunch. They complain about the drive, they complain that it is already after 1PM and kind of late to go. They complain about this and that. What the hell? So they start getting ready dragging their lazy asses around the house. We decide to tell them to f*** off. Ok, not literally, but my wife tells them that since it is beyond them to get ready in a timely manner that we’ll walk the local town and see some of the buildings and museums there. Meanwhile, they can get ready at their own pace and take us to Stuttgart when we return. We returned about 4PM as agreed and they were almost ready. They take us to Stuttgart and we walk to town square and see some old buildings, take some pictures and all is well. We go to a nice restaurant and have dinner. The day was kind of saved from a total waste.

So, the whole trip seemed to have its issues - always something. We did make it down to see Neuswanstien castle. Beautiful trip, beautiful town. Of course they were interested in this, so they were motivated to get there. Of course, they only thought about themselves while they were there. They ran around looking at stuff and didn’t give a worry at all to us and what we were doing. At one point they left us standing in the street, and got on a horse carriage to one of the castles. Nice. No worries. I am sure they enjoyed the nice smell of the horses farting in their faces. It wasn’t a long walk to the top of the hill anyway. So we did our own thing and had a good time. After that, we headed up to Neuswanstien castle. Was awesome. When we left, they were again nowhere to be seen off doing what they wanted, or so it seemed. We decided to have lunch in the restaurant just below the castle and again enjoyed ourselves. Had the best bratwurst ever. Ran into them at the bottom and they seemed a little irritated with us. They said they had been waiting for us. Waiting for us? That’s funny.

After that we drove to Munich as we wanted to go to Oktoberfest. They had made reservations at a 5 star hotel for us and them. What? A 5 star hotel? It was only 414 euro per night… That’s around $620 per night! What, are we made of money now? There was nowhere else to stay. So we pulled out the AMEX and annied up. I’ll admit that the room was nice, but not that nice. Some friends we have. Guess they have money to burn.

Ok, when we got there Thursday night, we decided we better go to Oktoberfest in case they came up with any excuses to not go on Friday. So again, we walked down to the festival and enjoyed ourselves. Spent a couple hours there and back to the hotel to enjoy our awesome room… Friday morning came and we got up on our own, had a wonderful breakfast (and breakfast was actually included with the room) and went for a walk and explored Munich. Saw a beautiful cathedral and it was just nice to get out and not have to worry about them. Later, we did go back to Oktoberfest. They were driving around and looking for a parking place (and arguing with each other) and they finally dropped us off and left. Agreed to meet us at a designated spot at 3PM. Again, we had a great time without them. Drank some beers, ate some German food, watched all of the drunk Germans and the costumed people. Was a good time.

Drove home after that and I think they were glad to see us go. They had no problem getting up at 5AM to get us to the airport. Dropped us off and said goodbye. No hugs, no chitchat, just goodbye. And we were outa there.