Thanks to Judas

It’s been busy times, a Hell of a lot to do at work. That’s why my blog has been dead recently.

I’ve been working day and night for the last couple of weeks, to finish the stuff we have promised to finish before the end of the first quarter of 2012. That’s the kind of things that managers measure.

Now I’m looking forward to Easter vacation, going skiing as usual.

I’m not very concerned about the religious part of it, but I think the Christians should stop talking shit about Judas. He’s the 2nd most important person in Christianity. What would Jesus been without the acts of Judas? Just imagine Jesus dying in loneliness, from old age in a dark and dusty cabin.

Judas was an important part of the plot, the antagonist who betrayed the hero. Without him the entire story would fall apart; no crucifiction, no suffering, no resurrection. Jesus and Judas had equally important roles in God’s plan, for those who believe in the story.

I think it was just an effective twist of a good fiction writer who knew his craft, almost 2000 years ago.

Anyway, I thank Judas for the annual skiing vacation he gave us, and after Easter, I hope my blog will resurrect.

Happy Easter Holidays >:)

(I got the Easter egg in the picture from my boss today. The egg was on the desk in my office when I came to work this morning. Nice boss, good candy.)

After the election

This morning at 9am, my Russian driver picked me up at the hotel in Murmansk. Mission completed; I was going home. He was taking me to the Russian border, or more precisely, to the nearest airport across the border.

We drove through the winter-white wilderness of north-west Russia. We crossed a scenic mountain pass with two or three war memorials by the road. There were big battles during WW2. The Russians are good at building memorials.

It was a four-hour drive, and we had plenty of time to talk. We duscussed history, fishing, cars and kids. Then we talked about moving to Kaliningrad (not me, of course), and the recent Russian presidential election.

The driver doesn't like Putin. And I expect he didn't vote for Putin, but I didn't ask directly.

"What's wrong with Putin?" I said.

I have my own opinions, but would liked to hear his views.

"The main problem is that he's been in office too long; eight years as president, then four years as prime minister. People want change. Now we fear another eight years with Putin, at least."

Putin is in control of everything; the natural resources and the state-owned compenies, newspapers and television. He even dictates the super-rich oligarks, or jail them if they don't obey. The longer he rules, the more he behaves a Tsar, or a blend of Tsar and KGB officer (which he used to be).

Still people voted for Putin. According to official figures, he got 65% of the votes. Even the dead voted for Putin, thousands of people who had been dead for years. If the false votes are subtracted, he still gets more than 50% (estimated by international observers).

Halfway we stopped in Titovka, a small place in the middle of nowhere, with a cafe that serves instant coffee and something they called pizza. Maybe it was omelette; I'm in doubt.

Then we entered the military zone, where the roads are very wide. They were built for tanks, during the cold war. Built for a Red-Army invasion, that never came, fortunately.

We passed by the medieval town of Pechenga, and the depressive and polluted mining towns Zapolyarny and Nikel, where nothing has changed in decades. Then, some 10 km (6 miles) before the border, there is a check point. A grumpy guy in army uniform looked at our passports and searched the trunk of the car. He nodded , OK, but didn't smile.

Between the check-point and the border is a transit zone. You can drive through, but stopping is prohibited. At the boarder there is double-checking. A Russian officer stamped my passport, and let me through. Then finally, at the last check point, the officer greeted me: "Welcome home".

I was out of Putin's reach, for this time. Back from the USSR.

(Some pictures taken along the road; Pechenga and Nikel.)

Back in the USSR

Not really. I just borrowed the title from that old Beatles song. The USSR is history, split into a number of more or less democratic and independent republics. I'm in the north-west corner of the biggest one; Russia, the land of Putin.

Yesterday morning, I took a plane up to the Paris of the North. It was one of these big jet planes, a Boeing 7-Something. It was windy on the coast. Very windy. The first approach for landing was aborted right before we touched ground, because the pilots struggeled to control the plane in the wind.

In the second approach, the plane tilted again. Out of the window, I looked straight into the white-topped waves of the roaring sea. I don't know how, but in some way, the skilled pilots managed to level the plane right before landing. It was a very unpleasant flight, a real adrenaline booster.

The next flight to Murmansk was on a good old Antonov 24, a small propeller plane, a piece of Soviet technology from the 1960s. It's a robust plane, built for harsh conditions, simple and reliable technology, if they just keep up with the maintainance program. I hope they do.

It's amazing how these small propeller planes fly in bad weather, and it feels quite comfortable. The small planes kind of flow on the air like a little bee, moving with the wind bursts, rather than trying to oppose it.

The Antonov 24 has nylon curtains in the circular windows, and there is full Russian service on board. It means vodka. I don't drink that stuff; it's poison, and a tragedy for the Russian society. Vodka is the main reason why the avergage expected lifetime of Russian men is less than 60 years.

When I arrived in Murmansk, my driver picked me up in the airport and took me to the hotel. The road from the airport to the city makes a detour into the forests. They started out in the wrong direction when it was built.

Moscow is a modern metropol, but Murmansk is very much like it used to be in the Soviet days. Old buses and Red-Army vehicles (and some brand new Lexus'es and BMW's) are driving in the streets. Huge nuclear-powered ice breakers are anchored on the bay.

A few miles out the fjord is the town of Severomorsk, with the big navy base and shipyard. During the cold war, it was the headquarter of the Soviet Northern Fleet. It's still in operation, but the submarines are not as many as they used to be.

Murmansk was bombed to bits and pieces by the Germans during the 2nd World War, and then rebuilt in typical Soviet style architecture. The suburbs on the hills accommodate thousands of people in massive gray concrete blocks.

I'm back in the USSR >:)

(Pictures taken today and yesterday. The first picture shows central Murmansk, with the big cranes on the harbor and the fjord. In the upper right corner is the Alyosha statue, a 35m (110 feet) high concrete statue overlooking the city, a WW2 memorial built in the 1970s. The second picture is a close-up of the Antonov 24, parked on the snow-covered runway of the Murmansk airport last night.)

Great skiing and a good book

We just had a weekend of fantastic sunny weather in the mountains. The skiing was great. For the first time this winter, we could ski in the high zone, above timber line. The wind chill was still like -20 degrees (-5 Fahrenheit) at the top, but in the sun it was quite pleasant.

Little boy and I was mostly skiing in the off-piste area. I've realized that I'm getting older, so I need to be somewhat careful. So, this is what I do: When we take a new route, I first send little boy alone. When he comes down (I hope), he can tell me if the route is recommended for me. Then we ski it together.

I needed something to read in the evenings. So, on the way to the slopes I stopped by a bookstore, and picked a book at random: Siberian Education by Nicolai Lilin, an amazing book. It's an autobiographic novel about a boy of the Urka people, born and raised to become a criminal, in a traditional Siberian society.

(The Urka people was deported from Siberia to Transnistria, on the border between Moldova and Ukraine, in the Stalin era.)

The philosophy of the Urka people reminds me of Jean Genet (Thief's Journal, The Miracle of the Rose), in the sense that everything is turned upside down, compared to the "normal" society. Police and authorities are the enemies. Thieves and robbers, so-called "honest criminals", are heroic role models. Spending half a lifetime in jail is normal.

Nicolai Lilin doesn't quite match Jean Genet, though. But who does?

(I took the picture above this weekend. It's little boy, my main ski buddy, surrounded by the white gold, under the blue sky.)