42 Comments

Gref is jealous that he lacks your charm, talent and good looks.

All that's left for him is to count his space shekels. You, on the other hand, have a village, a friend who welds Bricmobiles, a dog, a woodpile and a flooded tunnel.

I would say that you have much the better situation.

Expand full comment

Yes, yes, yes... but one must add that Riley's neighbor is a successful person, he is not a blogger.

Expand full comment

Man, i love Substack. And you are so rigjt.

Expand full comment

Riley, when in Rome, do as the Romans do! Your posts always make me smile, so provide a valuable service to readers. Never stop blogging!

Expand full comment

Never ever!

Good luck with the wood, mine, three years dried, is stacked already. I am just back from the woods where I collect smaller sections and light woods to start the fire properly.

Expand full comment

Thank you, dear Edward. Your blogs always cheer me up and they are very informative, which proves they serve a useful purpose. I bet that man Greg knows nothing about the essential timing of tunnel-digging and wood-chopping. Pff!

Expand full comment

Ah, don’t sell yourself short. You’re blogging while also practicing as an architect and sidelining as a mechanic. A good stretch more useful and entertaining than that barking banker.

Expand full comment

Hi Riley and all readers !!!

Your comments, Riley, on your fantastic/“crazy” russian journey are still wonderful and much more informatives compared to the cold and frightening words of the bankruptcy blogger German Gref!!! 😉🤪😉

Hope to read you soon again…

Expand full comment

Listening to German Gref, I’m reminded of the famous speech by Bricktop in the movie Snatch that your colleague Rurik quoted in a recent article: “do you know what Nemesis is?”

The purpose of the Samizdat in any age is to prick the pomposity of the likes of Gref. The pen, the sword and all that.

Expand full comment

And who better for this worthy task than Riley. His talent for drollery and abundance of humor is the work for which he is made.

Expand full comment

while corporations and social media are turning many into transgender zombies bloggers and meme warriors are single handedly fighting for humanity and life itself.

Expand full comment

So of course the bankers hate us.

Expand full comment

when we look into countries that extricated themselves from the globalist bankers things get weird, before WWII Germany did.. Gadaffi. Interesting how rejecting the bankers those are demonized?

Expand full comment

Only the government could talk about talking, and yet say nothing. Except of course to say that talking is stupid.

Expand full comment

Riley...I'm so happy for you. You sound like you've found a good life. I hope upon moving next year that I, too, will find such a life. I've already thought about wood for the winter in such a locale, and being an old lady, I would hope to prevail upon my neighbors or a local company to sell wood...if I hopefully have a wood stove.

Oh, Riley, Gref isn't original. Expanding banking or blockchain into space is simply reiterative thinking. Nothing original here. Like most oligarchs and transnationalists, he simply always thinks in terms of expansion and getting his product into more markets. What's original about that idea? Nothing. It's the natural impulse of a man who likes to control and rule. His arrogance is also a hallmark of such people.

And what is original about a science? We all have to laugh out loud. Scientists during the Covid Scam were shown to be untrustworthy; liars; and morally corrupt. Even now most can't acknowledge that the Covid injections have caused untold death and disability although analysis after analysis has been published, and many doctors are calling for the withdrawal of mRNA injections from the market. Hope JFK, Jr. doesn't disappoint.

Gref mentions this type of activity because he can use and manipulate their products for his own financial windfall. He's so simple. He values people from whom he can make money.

Expand full comment

Gref is just jealous because he doesn't know how to chop wood or weld or grow potatoes. Or do anything valueable at all.

Riley, please keep blogging !🙂

Expand full comment

I don't suppose he can do the cossack dancing either!

Expand full comment

Gref is the second from the left guy in yellow, executing la "danse des canards":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B_VJe5iHrJw

Expand full comment

We have a saying that dates way back to about five minutes ago, "Mamma don't let your boys grow up to be bloggers". I ignored the golden rule and took a vow of poverty, but hey, at least I'm not Gref!

Expand full comment

About your famously impractical woodpiles: while perhaps time consuming to create, they offer the builder and the viewer a testament to the whimsey and creativity imbuing what otherwise might merely be a banal stack of wood chunks. The turn of your mind and phrase is a pleasure to behold.

Expand full comment

From watching neighbours in Aug caring for their wood pile and thinking Pfff ! To an abandoned house with wonderful pictures of fine ladies & gents, to cyber banks and Prokofiev .. Did you stick your finger randomly in an encyclopaedia 4 times & made a story to fit ? Love your reality. :-) :-) :-) :-)

Expand full comment

I love your wood piles! I'm getting a load of firewood delivered next week, but I don't think I have the elite skills to do what you've done. I'll probably just make a boring, practical, rectilinear stack.

Your advice about (1) when to get wood and (2) to avoid wet is good, and is something I learned the hard way when living in Vermont. But it's obvious I didn't follow the first part of your advice this year. I'm new here in the Sierra Nevada, no longer have a wood lot, and it took me a while to find someone who'd actually deliver when promised.

Expand full comment

Loved the pictures of the chopped and split wood. There is nothing finer than a nice piece of split wood that is ready to be burned. I still miss my wood burner and splitting wood chunks which I haven't had for over 30 years. Wood is such a marvelous creation as trees are abundant and quite functional creatures in nature.

Expand full comment

I can see why Gref might say this. Before I retired, my job soaked up enough hours of the day that much of what was left had to be devoted to what I would call life's "overhead". It is only now that I have time to explore so many things in detail and satisfy my curiosity more completely.

Of course, then we have people like Elon Musk, whose success doesn't seem to have limited his ability to maintain a robust on-line presence...

Expand full comment