I was chatting with a friend yesterday who lives in what originally was a one up, one down (rooms) cottage. The toilet out in the yard, where they now keep coal for the stove. It was extended before she bought it and now includes kitchen downstairs, bathroom and further bedroom upstairs. I would imagine it had a single cold water tap and sink. I agree that water on tap would be my choice over electricity. I wonder how far mains water is from the village? Whilst on my tour of Kaliningrad Oblast, I did see a stand pipe in a village with modern houses. The well dressed villagers were there getting water, gallons, and placing in their big 4x4s. Just read that Russia spreads across 11 time zones. That's a lot of pipes!
I have a friend in Vermont who also has no plumbing. She collects rainwater in big barrels, and heats water on the wood stove for bathing. She also has a bathtub outside, fed by rainwater. It is set up on bricks so that she can light a fire underneath and get the water nice and warm.
Her cabin doesn't have electricity or a phone line, but there are a couple of small solar panels with a big battery, so she can charge portable devices. And of course, there is an outhouse, which is fun to use in the middle of winter when it's snowing; at least there are no mosquitoes or ticks then.
I've stayed at her place many times, and enjoyed those visits, so I'd probably fit in well in your village.
P.S. I wasn't familiar with the Onegin ballet, but as soon as I heard the opening bars I knew it was Tchaikovsky. He's not my favorite Russian composer, but I do like his ballet music.
Was it difficult for you to adapt to the lack of plumbing after living in the city? I know it's no big deal for the village people, but I can't imagine my life without plumbing. I think I'd rather live without elecricity.
Hi Natalie! It was obviously a big change. Now I prefer no-plumbing life. It's actually a wonderful feeling to truly value the simple essentials--like water. And when you haul your drinking water from a well (sometimes in freezing temperatures), every glass of H20 tastes like champagne :)
I don't want to romanticize it, though. It's a lot of work.
You are a genuine Hobbit. For never would one of these noble creatures would ever dare welcoming people in an Open Thread without having clean himself first. This is appreciated.
Amitié
Lionel
Amitié, amour are interesting word in French since there root is âme/Soul. Many Russians used to share this community of soul with France... Praying for this "amitié/amour" to remain in the midst of that utter dementia.
Yes and it still is. Tolstoy, heading the Duma has an almost perfect French. Even Dugin speaks a very good French and Daria was proficient. Have you ever heard about the French café called bistrot? It comes from the Cossak asking for more drink while in Paris.
Yes, our history has strong links with Russia. It is a crying shame that the City of London , Fabians and co are destroying these links.
But millions of people don't buy into the ridiculous, childish propaganda we are fed with in order to steal our remaining money as people because the Bank of England (and thus bank of France) has defaulted already.
Also glad to hear you are taking sauna, it's a great and rejuvinating tradition that we here in the Scandinavian peninsula share with our Slavic siblings, I do one twice a week, never felt better!
Besides plumbing, there is heating. Here in the pampered West, my thermostat runs on a programmed timer. It's pretty set-and-forget, except for a monthly ritual: open the gas bill, cry, lower all the programmed temperatures a couple degrees.
I can see from those big piles of wood that heating in the village takes a lot of work on a month to month basis. What about on a daily basis? What's the routine?
Hi Michael. Good question. I keep around a month's supply of wood on my veranda so that I can avoid the daily trek to the woodshed. Depending on the temperature when I wake up around 6am, I will light one or both of the stoves (we have a stove in the living room and a much larger stove in the kitchen that we also use for cooking). I collect various kinds of kindling year-round and keep them in barrels and boxes behind the kitchen stove, so stove preparation usually doesn't take more than a minute or two. The daily routine is not really labor intensive--but there is certainly a huge amount of work that goes into making sure there is enough wood/cob-400s to make it through winter.
It's springtime soon, and you should try to make this https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/83349/farikal/ except this recipe is lame you also have to put potatoes in, you layer the potatoes,mutton and cabbage with sprinkles of flour and peppercorn in the middle, also needs ample salt, I'm sure this dish would be very popular in the village, also it's time aquire some "seed" potatoes soon Riley, I sure hope you have some saved from last year and haven't just been chopping birch wood, although why not try to make birch beer?
Two of my favorite things - that my dreams are made of! The countryside (and that log rotunda) with creatures, and ballroom dance. I do believe I shall waltz (although that wasn’t a waltz) through my day. My walls shall hear Strauss.
In light of all the darkness in the world these days, I have begun to follow the theme - Bring Back Beauty. You covered them both, enhanced by the specter of a weekly body cleaning. Delightful! I don’t care for beer myself, but someone suggested birch beer, and that does sound pretty good.
Hi Andrea. There's no music at the closest grocery store (about 30km away). There's a truck that sells various food items that drives through the village 4 times a week--also no music. I suppose this is small but intriguing difference between Russia and the "elevator music" West!
"One of the great mysteries of the 21st century is why western alt media coverage of Russia bears little resemblance to Russian alt media coverage of Russia."
A popular western "progressive party" recently published some "facts" from Russian MSM!
I was rather shocked!
Sadly they have not had the benefit of an ES education!
The alt media appears to have divergent and even opposing views on many things!
This is a matter of great concern.
The Edward Institute is equipping people with basic fact finding tools.
Along with basic independent living survival skills!
Yikes, no indoor plumbing sounds like it could be a problem for someone with sensitive skin. 😁
Btw, the interview concerning "All Sorts of Things Russian" with Maryann Gebauer is insightful, as it sort of explains why there's two different narratives being advanced on social media platforms in Russia and the US about the Ukraine mess as well as the scamdemic. To put it simply, an attempt is being made to disseminate appealing narratives that'll ultimately shepherd two opposing groups into the "same" totalitarian technocracy.🤨
A recent article titled "The Dark MAGA Gov-Corp Technate" describes in detail the ultimate goal of billionaire oligarchs in the West and East and how we're quickly headed into a totalitarian technocracy.
Thank you for bringing that "Dark MAGA" stuff. I hope many will have time to read the article. The "good news", if there is any nowadays unless a sunny day or a smiling human, is that Steve Bannon is just against it as well as his cohort of respectable but conned of real popular MAGA people.
Rockettes, eat your hearts out. You ain't got nothing on the Bolshoi Ballet. I have no clue about ballets, but can anyone identify all those various uniforms the guys are wearing? And the women in white...my oh my.
If I may, I'd like to suggest you call ex-Susan Oskar because she/he didn't win any. Besides that, I wish the snow melted as fast over here. And that weekly cleansing ritual of yours is commendable. We all need cleansing!
You know, pretty soon the guy's gonna F... around whatever his human servant call it. I brought the case last week to my 14 years old daughter who said: "Let's call it Suzon" (a French diminutive of Suzanne, my grand ma's name).
Hey brother! I have come to join you in celebrating the melting of snow, quiz you about St. Patrick's Day In Russia and spam your page with links to my work! :)
Okay so, I did a deep dive into St. Patties Day for an article and along the way I came across news stories of St.Patties day celebrations in Russian cities (man those Irish really get around don't they!). One of the news stories said that people celebrate the Russian St. Patrick's Day on March 30th, rather than March 17th. If that is true, what is that all about? Is this some kind of 5D Chess Putin Judo chop to defeat the Irish Catholic world order?
"Father Igor Fomin, rector of the church of the Holy Prince Alexander Nevsky at MGIMO says that "holy justice has been served,".. "Having always loved him, we can now pray for him officially" (source: https://tass.com/world/936171 )
"Holy Justice" has been served? Does that come in an ice cold mug?
Because it is an open thread, I will sum up my pet subject of the last months, that is sun activity and it's direct repercussion on volcanism and seismic activity here on earth.
At the moment when the European totalitarian dystopia is behaving like raving mad because of some financial armaggedon in London (and thus elsewhere) no geopolitical analysts (even the very best, like the unfortunately not well know MoneyCircus substack is including the natural events taking place in Europe in their analysis (I do post about it in the comment section of that very very great Substack).
So what is going on that is worth mentioning about Europe? First, there has been a never ending seismic swarms in the Aegean, close to the famous Santorini volcano, more precisely, the Kolumbo and their neighboring Islands. First the "experts" were reassuring, saying that it was tectonic by nature and thus that we could only expect at worst, strong earthquake like the region has already experienced. But, as the swarms were continuing to occur on a never seen numbers (ten of thousands), some graphs revealed that it was not all the story and that magma was implicated, and that a different story. We have seen a leading scientist resigning claiming that the government had made political nomination instead in the scientific advisory board. Then Santorini was evacuated by two third of it's inhabitants.
To sum up. While nobody knows what will happen, the area is crucial for the Greek economy because of the many millions of tourists bring every year and we are about to see the beginning of the touristic season. The politicians have to deal with the question of closing the whole area or taking the risk of a major catastrophe that could be very deadly.
That is a very very serious matter.
But there is worst. The bay of Naples hosts one of the earth's super volcano, the Campi Flegrei. It hasn't erupted for four hundred years so the people get used to live in that beautiful area without much fear, oblivious of what was under their feet. This has changed dramatically since the May solar outbursts where rumbling started for real, even reaching a 4.1 event that "shook " the people and the politicians. People started to talk about evacuation.
Ok, so you have something like 5 millions inhabitants in the area, 300000 living right in the caldera....
Recently, the seismic activity has started again for real and it is still going on, so much that it is becoming a local, regional, national concern in Italy. Bradyseim, high level of CO2, never ending earthquakes are now questioning the inhabitants in the most serious manner. Will the Campi Flegrei erupt? Likely yes. What would be it's intensity knowing it is a super volcano? Will it be rather "mild" like the last time or cataclysmic ? In every cases the European so called union would be dramatically affected and Meloni and the Italian has already other worries of epic proportion beyond the Ukrainian problem. Some are calling for instance, for the inhabitants to relocate in the deserted rural norther Italia, it is no joke guys... My pet subject is a pet dragon in fact.
If one want to dig, among others, a woman is doing a regular program on the subject. Like all Youtuber, she attracts attention, but it is not fear porn, all her analysis are sourced. Beware of AI generated video.
Among my other canals of information (among which one of my neighbor from Naples, one can check that Italian one which makes regular update of the situation. It is very informative:
I was chatting with a friend yesterday who lives in what originally was a one up, one down (rooms) cottage. The toilet out in the yard, where they now keep coal for the stove. It was extended before she bought it and now includes kitchen downstairs, bathroom and further bedroom upstairs. I would imagine it had a single cold water tap and sink. I agree that water on tap would be my choice over electricity. I wonder how far mains water is from the village? Whilst on my tour of Kaliningrad Oblast, I did see a stand pipe in a village with modern houses. The well dressed villagers were there getting water, gallons, and placing in their big 4x4s. Just read that Russia spreads across 11 time zones. That's a lot of pipes!
I have a friend in Vermont who also has no plumbing. She collects rainwater in big barrels, and heats water on the wood stove for bathing. She also has a bathtub outside, fed by rainwater. It is set up on bricks so that she can light a fire underneath and get the water nice and warm.
Her cabin doesn't have electricity or a phone line, but there are a couple of small solar panels with a big battery, so she can charge portable devices. And of course, there is an outhouse, which is fun to use in the middle of winter when it's snowing; at least there are no mosquitoes or ticks then.
I've stayed at her place many times, and enjoyed those visits, so I'd probably fit in well in your village.
P.S. I wasn't familiar with the Onegin ballet, but as soon as I heard the opening bars I knew it was Tchaikovsky. He's not my favorite Russian composer, but I do like his ballet music.
I love Tchaikovsky!
He covers life in all its glory from A - Z!
From chaotic mess to peaceful tranquility!
And everything in between.
Hi Riley,
It's great to see you post regularly again. :)
Was it difficult for you to adapt to the lack of plumbing after living in the city? I know it's no big deal for the village people, but I can't imagine my life without plumbing. I think I'd rather live without elecricity.
Hi Natalie! It was obviously a big change. Now I prefer no-plumbing life. It's actually a wonderful feeling to truly value the simple essentials--like water. And when you haul your drinking water from a well (sometimes in freezing temperatures), every glass of H20 tastes like champagne :)
I don't want to romanticize it, though. It's a lot of work.
Mr Waggaman,
You are a genuine Hobbit. For never would one of these noble creatures would ever dare welcoming people in an Open Thread without having clean himself first. This is appreciated.
Amitié
Lionel
Amitié, amour are interesting word in French since there root is âme/Soul. Many Russians used to share this community of soul with France... Praying for this "amitié/amour" to remain in the midst of that utter dementia.
French was, for a long period, the customary language of the Russian elites ...
Hello Klaus,
Yes and it still is. Tolstoy, heading the Duma has an almost perfect French. Even Dugin speaks a very good French and Daria was proficient. Have you ever heard about the French café called bistrot? It comes from the Cossak asking for more drink while in Paris.
Yes, our history has strong links with Russia. It is a crying shame that the City of London , Fabians and co are destroying these links.
But millions of people don't buy into the ridiculous, childish propaganda we are fed with in order to steal our remaining money as people because the Bank of England (and thus bank of France) has defaulted already.
Stay safe
respect
Thank you so much for your kind, very well informed post !!!
I entirely agree.
The Bitish Islander's worst nightmare: Continental powers (knowledge, experience and natural resources) uniting ...
Merci beaucoup !!!👍👍👍 🔥🔥🔥 🐻🐻🐻
French AI bots are catastrophic, let the basic human corrects : are interesting "words"... "their root"
Also glad to hear you are taking sauna, it's a great and rejuvinating tradition that we here in the Scandinavian peninsula share with our Slavic siblings, I do one twice a week, never felt better!
Besides plumbing, there is heating. Here in the pampered West, my thermostat runs on a programmed timer. It's pretty set-and-forget, except for a monthly ritual: open the gas bill, cry, lower all the programmed temperatures a couple degrees.
I can see from those big piles of wood that heating in the village takes a lot of work on a month to month basis. What about on a daily basis? What's the routine?
Hi Michael. Good question. I keep around a month's supply of wood on my veranda so that I can avoid the daily trek to the woodshed. Depending on the temperature when I wake up around 6am, I will light one or both of the stoves (we have a stove in the living room and a much larger stove in the kitchen that we also use for cooking). I collect various kinds of kindling year-round and keep them in barrels and boxes behind the kitchen stove, so stove preparation usually doesn't take more than a minute or two. The daily routine is not really labor intensive--but there is certainly a huge amount of work that goes into making sure there is enough wood/cob-400s to make it through winter.
It's springtime soon, and you should try to make this https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/83349/farikal/ except this recipe is lame you also have to put potatoes in, you layer the potatoes,mutton and cabbage with sprinkles of flour and peppercorn in the middle, also needs ample salt, I'm sure this dish would be very popular in the village, also it's time aquire some "seed" potatoes soon Riley, I sure hope you have some saved from last year and haven't just been chopping birch wood, although why not try to make birch beer?
Two of my favorite things - that my dreams are made of! The countryside (and that log rotunda) with creatures, and ballroom dance. I do believe I shall waltz (although that wasn’t a waltz) through my day. My walls shall hear Strauss.
In light of all the darkness in the world these days, I have begun to follow the theme - Bring Back Beauty. You covered them both, enhanced by the specter of a weekly body cleaning. Delightful! I don’t care for beer myself, but someone suggested birch beer, and that does sound pretty good.
Thanks!
"Bring Back Beauty"... Thank you.
I’m curious, when you go in a grocery store, do they play music? If so, what genre?
Hi Andrea. There's no music at the closest grocery store (about 30km away). There's a truck that sells various food items that drives through the village 4 times a week--also no music. I suppose this is small but intriguing difference between Russia and the "elevator music" West!
"One of the great mysteries of the 21st century is why western alt media coverage of Russia bears little resemblance to Russian alt media coverage of Russia."
A popular western "progressive party" recently published some "facts" from Russian MSM!
I was rather shocked!
Sadly they have not had the benefit of an ES education!
The alt media appears to have divergent and even opposing views on many things!
This is a matter of great concern.
The Edward Institute is equipping people with basic fact finding tools.
Along with basic independent living survival skills!
Yikes, no indoor plumbing sounds like it could be a problem for someone with sensitive skin. 😁
Btw, the interview concerning "All Sorts of Things Russian" with Maryann Gebauer is insightful, as it sort of explains why there's two different narratives being advanced on social media platforms in Russia and the US about the Ukraine mess as well as the scamdemic. To put it simply, an attempt is being made to disseminate appealing narratives that'll ultimately shepherd two opposing groups into the "same" totalitarian technocracy.🤨
A recent article titled "The Dark MAGA Gov-Corp Technate" describes in detail the ultimate goal of billionaire oligarchs in the West and East and how we're quickly headed into a totalitarian technocracy.
https://unlimitedhangout.com/2025/03/investigative-series/the-dark-maga-gov-corp-technate-part-1/
If you don't have time to read the above lengthy article, here's an animation which brings home the point:
.https://youtu.be/vWkepoLUZfs?si=rUJo1Qc_t3eBWzV2
Salut Charlotte! Hope you are fine.
Thank you for bringing that "Dark MAGA" stuff. I hope many will have time to read the article. The "good news", if there is any nowadays unless a sunny day or a smiling human, is that Steve Bannon is just against it as well as his cohort of respectable but conned of real popular MAGA people.
Stay well
Beware the fox with orange fur in the White (or not so white) House!
More like an orange Trojan Horse.😁
Are Americans really colour blind?
American politics is theatre of the absurd!
But people flock to the theatre in droves!
Are they just blind period?
First pic looks like part of a still to me.
Rockettes, eat your hearts out. You ain't got nothing on the Bolshoi Ballet. I have no clue about ballets, but can anyone identify all those various uniforms the guys are wearing? And the women in white...my oh my.
If I may, I'd like to suggest you call ex-Susan Oskar because she/he didn't win any. Besides that, I wish the snow melted as fast over here. And that weekly cleansing ritual of yours is commendable. We all need cleansing!
Hello,
You know, pretty soon the guy's gonna F... around whatever his human servant call it. I brought the case last week to my 14 years old daughter who said: "Let's call it Suzon" (a French diminutive of Suzanne, my grand ma's name).
Take care J-J
Hey brother! I have come to join you in celebrating the melting of snow, quiz you about St. Patrick's Day In Russia and spam your page with links to my work! :)
Okay so, I did a deep dive into St. Patties Day for an article and along the way I came across news stories of St.Patties day celebrations in Russian cities (man those Irish really get around don't they!). One of the news stories said that people celebrate the Russian St. Patrick's Day on March 30th, rather than March 17th. If that is true, what is that all about? Is this some kind of 5D Chess Putin Judo chop to defeat the Irish Catholic world order?
( article spamming link : https://gavinmounsey.substack.com/p/decolonizing-st-patricks-day )
"Father Igor Fomin, rector of the church of the Holy Prince Alexander Nevsky at MGIMO says that "holy justice has been served,".. "Having always loved him, we can now pray for him officially" (source: https://tass.com/world/936171 )
"Holy Justice" has been served? Does that come in an ice cold mug?
Because it is an open thread, I will sum up my pet subject of the last months, that is sun activity and it's direct repercussion on volcanism and seismic activity here on earth.
At the moment when the European totalitarian dystopia is behaving like raving mad because of some financial armaggedon in London (and thus elsewhere) no geopolitical analysts (even the very best, like the unfortunately not well know MoneyCircus substack is including the natural events taking place in Europe in their analysis (I do post about it in the comment section of that very very great Substack).
I mean, the earth is showing signs of natural unrest elsewhere in the world, for instance in the US (https://conservativefiringline.com/906-earthquakes-hit-california-and-nevada-as-we-closely-watch-seismic-activity-at-yellowstone-mt-rainier-and-the-san-andreas-fault/), in Ethiopia....
So what is going on that is worth mentioning about Europe? First, there has been a never ending seismic swarms in the Aegean, close to the famous Santorini volcano, more precisely, the Kolumbo and their neighboring Islands. First the "experts" were reassuring, saying that it was tectonic by nature and thus that we could only expect at worst, strong earthquake like the region has already experienced. But, as the swarms were continuing to occur on a never seen numbers (ten of thousands), some graphs revealed that it was not all the story and that magma was implicated, and that a different story. We have seen a leading scientist resigning claiming that the government had made political nomination instead in the scientific advisory board. Then Santorini was evacuated by two third of it's inhabitants.
To sum up. While nobody knows what will happen, the area is crucial for the Greek economy because of the many millions of tourists bring every year and we are about to see the beginning of the touristic season. The politicians have to deal with the question of closing the whole area or taking the risk of a major catastrophe that could be very deadly.
That is a very very serious matter.
But there is worst. The bay of Naples hosts one of the earth's super volcano, the Campi Flegrei. It hasn't erupted for four hundred years so the people get used to live in that beautiful area without much fear, oblivious of what was under their feet. This has changed dramatically since the May solar outbursts where rumbling started for real, even reaching a 4.1 event that "shook " the people and the politicians. People started to talk about evacuation.
Ok, so you have something like 5 millions inhabitants in the area, 300000 living right in the caldera....
Recently, the seismic activity has started again for real and it is still going on, so much that it is becoming a local, regional, national concern in Italy. Bradyseim, high level of CO2, never ending earthquakes are now questioning the inhabitants in the most serious manner. Will the Campi Flegrei erupt? Likely yes. What would be it's intensity knowing it is a super volcano? Will it be rather "mild" like the last time or cataclysmic ? In every cases the European so called union would be dramatically affected and Meloni and the Italian has already other worries of epic proportion beyond the Ukrainian problem. Some are calling for instance, for the inhabitants to relocate in the deserted rural norther Italia, it is no joke guys... My pet subject is a pet dragon in fact.
If one want to dig, among others, a woman is doing a regular program on the subject. Like all Youtuber, she attracts attention, but it is not fear porn, all her analysis are sourced. Beware of AI generated video.
https://www.youtube.com/@silki24/videos
Among my other canals of information (among which one of my neighbor from Naples, one can check that Italian one which makes regular update of the situation. It is very informative:
https://www.youtube.com/@silki24/videos
Crucial times...
I hope no Nika news is good news, but it’s still *no news*. Just sayin’.
Thanks for the recent posts. Enjoy the mud