Saiga's Notes

For some years I have been living in Balakhna, a small town 30 km from Nizhny Novgorod. We moved here in the good 2012 year. So, now Russia is in crisis, and here you can read how it goes here: no statistical figures, just real-life observations. If we turn away from unemployment rates and listen to street talk, we might learn that there are two economic mainstays in the town, and one of them is on the edge of bankruptcy — I mean the Balakhna paper mill (JSC Volga), one of Russia's largest newsprint producers. Current owners found an investor who said that the deal would be made if the stuff didn't exceed 200 persons. So 850 people were fired. It happened quietly, with no signs of panic or buzz in the media. I don't know if the rumor was true. There's a news saying nothing about the acquisition of the factory and promising that people would be hired back later. The other company is a military plant. A year ago it got a significant increase in orders (it happened afte...

Last Saturday, I crossed the Volga and started jogging down the stream. Twice in two hours I had to pass tributaries swimming and towing my backpack as a raft (it is equipped with a waterproof covering). Then I turned back, reaching the limit of my endurance. The bank, nevertheless, was good to run much farther. The Volga banks in many territories are good for adventure races of the offroad-run-and-swim formula. Take the left shore (standing face down the stream) between from  Gorodets  to  Nizhny Novgorod , for instance: it spreads about 40 kilometres unobstacled with hedges, boat yards, settlements or private properties. Down the stream from the backwater Memory of the Paris Commune  there's even longer empty bank. May be one day I will be ready to initiate some adventure race here. I cross my fingers for saving of the virgin state of these places.

 13.04.11 Decadence Geometry How long do our footprints on Earth outlast us? To find the answer, I undertook a journey to the bogs of the Middle Volga, where a huge energy project started 90 years ago and disappeared 60 years later. In every planet's region, tourists are presented with some archeological findings, the miraculously survived witnesses of old ages. In opposition to it, ecotourists love the sight of how the omnivorous nature swallows products of human being, brakes them down, adopts the most resistant and fits them into a landscape in its own elegant manner. Middle Volga is one of the most developed and heavily populated areas in Russia. A ground traveler would remember it as a country of ubiquitous human presence - big and small towns, villages and processed fields. Seems that there's no place for mystery here, but this is a deceptive impression. The roads carefully avoid large pieces of practically impassable marshland. Crusade For Energy O...