Runaway Bus in Russia: The Rest of the Story

Just in case you missed this, recently a passenger bus in Perm, Russia had brake failure and crashed into 20 vehicles before coming to a stop two kilometers down the road. The drama peaked when the bus plowed through a pedestrian walkway and a man escaped certain death by millimeters. His peripheral vision must be amazing. Watch the video.

Doesn't that just make your heart pound? Good lesson for when crossing the street. I'm going keep my eyes on those drivers. Listen, I just found an update on the story: Here's an interview with the surviver, Vitaly, 23, a medical student who tells about being late for a date. Gotta love this!

Here's the near-miss in slow motion from YouTube:

And that's not all! This is the near-miss from four cameras, as reported on the all-news station out of Moscow.




I can imagine that our hero, Vitaly, bought his girlfriend flowers. Better yet, maybe she bought him some! How about you, dear blog reader? Any near misses? Ever beyond thankful for a *guardian angel?*

You Would Slow for *Brad Pitt* -- Wooden You?

On a recent excursion, friends and I crested a hill just west of Rostov and happened upon this police car. (Click on photos to enlarge.)

What would you do - Hit the brakes? Seen from a distance does this make your heart quicken?


Let's take a closer look. Could be a genuine police car. Wooden you think so?


Reminded me of rumors that a Brad Pitt-of-sorts works in Siberia as a police officer.

There in the city of Omsk, Mr Pitt goes by the name of Ivan.


So then, here's Brad Ivan Pitt working the traffic in Omsk, Siberia. An Oscar-worthy performance.


Back to southwest Russia and our beloved Rostov-on-Don. . .

. . . and the decoy along the highway.


Here's the scenery as we approach the police car. Fields of sunflowers. By the way, did you happen to know that the Rostov region is a prime grower of sunflowers?


A little further west are fields of wheat being harvested. Beautiful. Again, let us not get distracted and be tempted to drive too fast.


Because suddenly just ahead up pops a two-dimensional police car.

Say, dear blog reader, have you had any experience with a decoy? Police car, Hollywood actor or other?

Train South to Simferopol, Crimea

Tuesday evening I caught the overnight train direct from Rostov, southwest to Simferopol, Crimea. Please see map below.

Simferopol is the capital of Crimea, an independant republic of Ukraine, as I understand it. Off-season, 350,000 residents. The city mushrooms each summer to one million. Needless to say, this is quite the resort area. Or rather, Simferopol is the connection point for travel to points south and resort area along the Black Sea.

In our train car was a group of guys was traveling together. They were a swim team and I considered them good security. Not that safety has even seemed much of an issue. Then again, I feel constantly surrounded by a flock of guardian angels.

They are from Astrakhan, a city near the Caspian Sea. Nice guys and well-mannered. Two were in my compartment and more about that later. . .

Just after midnight we were at the Russian border for an hour, as per routine. And then 30 minutes later, at the Ukrainian border for half-an-hour. This chops up the sleep, waking up to answer questions, open luggage if requested and such. Always nice to get through that and eventually get lulled to sleep as the train lurches along.

Wednesday morning, fields of harvested sunflowers on the north side of the tracks.


On the south, fields with hills in the distance. The Sea of Azov-Black Sea would be not far beyond.


You know athletes, they do need their sleep. So here it is 10:00 a.m. and they're catching up. But here's a view of a train compartment.


Sleeping swimmer on top berth and my spot was below.



Train stopped at Djonkoi for 18 minutes or so. Our train, right was next to another train, direct from Moscow to Simferopol.


Sign on our train: Simferopol (Crimea, Ukraine) to Kislovodsk (Russia), which would be in the Caucaus Mountains, a resort area in southern Russia.

Care for some fish? Here's something yummy for sale. This fellow was hawking his fish along the train car.


Some caviar on the side? Following the fish man was the caviar guy. Question: Is the caviar guy also a cavalier guy? One can only assume.


Our compartment ended up be the gathering place for games. Here a couple swimmers play nardi. It seemed to be quite entertaining and attracted an audience.


But UNO is my favorite. I usually travel with a set and then have a bit of a dilemma when folks fall in love with the game: to give away my own cards? Or to mail a set to them? In the past, I've done both. Now I don't even think about it. Anyway, UNO was quite a hit with this bunch. They caught on quick and put a quick end to my winning streak.


UNO, continued. I bought these cards in Rostov, believe it or not. So this version is multi-lingual, I guess you could say. The cards have no words on them, only symbols. And the directions are in Russian, Polish, Czech.

So that's a quick tour of the train trip from Rostov-on-Don to Simferopol, Crimea. Thanks for coming along!

Across Ukraine: Through the Window of a Train

Train north from Ivano-Frankovsk to L'viv, western Ukraine.

View from my lower berth, across walk-way looking east.


On the curtain, Pre-Carpathian (Railway), the line at the foothills to the Carpathian Mts in southwestern Ukraine and into Hungary.


View into the next along the walk-way.


Out the window. Where are we - southern Ohio? Kentucky? Nope right here in Ukraine.


Ah, yes. An Orthodox church, looks like at this distance.



Could be. . . east Texas.

Well, arrived in L'viv for a very nice day of sightseeing with new friend Larisa.


And while there I took so many photos, so many rainy-day photos with dear Larisa holding the umbrella over me and the camera. . .


. . . that I put my camera away for a while. And which is why as the L'viv - Adler train was chugging across Ukraine from northwest to southeast, I needed a break from dear Olympus 4040Z. Even good friends need some time apart, don't ya know.


. . . which is why rather than capturing for you the Dneiper-Petrovsk area and our passage over beautiful sparkling rivers and such, I managed to haul the camera back out later only in time to catch coal mining area of southeastern Ukraine, the Donetsk area.



In the southeast, we passed field after field full of spent sunflowers. From a distance the colors were pretty. But here is what I managed to capture for you. See, I had a few really important things to think about at the time, such as my high-stakes UNO games going on with neighbors. Just kidding about the stakes part. . . they weren't high at all. ;)

How about you, dear blog readers, what have you done to pass the time on long-distance trains?

The Air Is Yours: At the Station, Part 2

T-shirts with English expressions are quite popular and I often wonder if folks have any clue what they’re saying as they parade around town. Sometimes I’ll offer to translate.

This nice lady and I both were waiting to board the train from Donetsk to Kiev when I noticed this shirt of hers and thought of you dear blog readers - that's you and you. . . and you and YOU too. And I knew you would Insist on seeing this shirt. If only you knew.



So I offered to translate. It was the least I could do, really, and we enjoyed visiting. And suddenly, it was All Aboard! And there was hardly time for a photo. . .but we snapped real quick like. (Tell you the truth, I was surprised she said allowed me to shoot.)


The air is yours. . . (Am I the last to know this?)




FOREVER YOUNG
THE SO EFFECT
OCTOBER PARADISE
BEACH OUTHPAR (Could this beach have started out as SouthparK?)
CAR RAN KENNY

Quite inspiration, don't ya think? I mean, just to think that the air belongs to you. That you're forever young. It's effective and all that. Thank goodness the last line is not CAR RAN *OVER* KENNY. That would be a Not SO EFFECT.

Dear blog readers, what t-shirts have you seen with amazingly convoluted English? Did you translate into, like Mongolian or Spanish or whatever? We wanna hear your stories. Remember, the air is yours.

All Aboard: Overnight Train from Donetsk to Kiev, Ukraine

Train travel has its own special charms. But one of the challenges is managing the baggage. Lugging suitcases up or down long flights of steps that go up over trains on the tracks takes muscles. Muscles I can barely pronounce let alone find anywhere on my own arms. Escalators are sometimes there, sometimes working.

But thank goodness for friends such as Volodya who offer to help. Volodya is a student at Ukrainian Bible Institute in Donetsk. But you can't fool me, I told him. You're obviously a weight-lifter. So here we are, luggage already on board, filling time until train departs.

This is an overnight train, one of the longest trains I've seen, with 19-some carriages. It runs daily between Donetsk and Kiev, the capital of Ukraine. Thinking 40-60 passengers per carriage, depending on type. So it does end up being lots of people. That means making new friends.

Welcome aboard. Here's our flight attendant on the left and your friendly guide on the right. ;) But may we direct your attention to the steps. They're steep and narrow. And when it comes to navigating the steps with luggage, it's sure is nice to have a muscle-bound friend in tow. (Or maybe that would be vice versa - to be in tow behind a muscle-bound friend.)

How about you dear blog reader. Have you had the pleasure of riding long distance trains in Eastern Europe? Please share your adventure with us!

High Tech Tram Chugs through Rostov-on-Don

Where am I -- Prague? Vienna? I asked myself on the tram yesterday. It wasn't the first time I'd managed to snag one of the snazzy newer trams on Gorky Street.

But it was the first time I noticed the digitial display for upcoming stops. I wondered, Am I really here in Rostov? The mega-cities have long had such high tech trappings with their public transport. But when technology reaches the us, the masses here in in the hinterlands of Rostov-on-Don, you gotta love it.

How about you ~ Do you regularly use public transportation? Or do you have special memories of a time when you did?

Tram Troubles

Tram troubles this evening. Lucky for me, I was getting off at that stop but there was a bit of a tram jam this evening around 5:30, Moscow Time (as this time zone is called), which is 9:30 a.m. Central Time. (What were you doing at that time?)


One of the nice new trams in Rostov. Several of these the last year or so. Lovely. Off come the fur coat ladies and the driver. Just happened to have my camera along. Nice that nobody squawked about my snapping a few photos.


Driver heading up ahead to check on things. Pretty sunset. How nice the days are longer, eh? Like an hour longer than the 4:30 pm sunsets of December.


Ah hah. It's one of these old clunker trams that's backing things up. Fixed and about 15 minutes later, no lines and no waiting on the tram line. The joys of public transportation. Pay 7 rubles (24.5 rubles to the dollar so, nearly 30 cents) and enjoy the electric snail. Actually public transport has its own special charm.

Kids Sledding along the Street

Kids enjoying a ride up Pyshkinskaya Boulevard on a quiet Sunday afternoon. And how about you? Remember the last time you were on a sled - either for transportation for just for the fun of it?