The longest day and the shortest night. The beginning of summer.
Daniel says that if we lived in Fairhaven, we would celebrate with a bonfire by the ocean.
But we live in New Bedford, our house is in a relatively good neighborhood, but not on the ocean. There will be no bonfire tonight, and tomorrow is work.
Anyway, I don’t like summer.
Siberians can “throw slippers at me”*, and they will be right. Just like me. To each his own.
For example, my friend Olya loves summer and she finally got to Gelendzhik. Why finally?
Just because Rosaviatsia** extended the flight restriction regime to the south of Russia for the 19th time. Flights to a number of airports in southern Russia were restricted for the first time on February 24 due to the start of a “special military operation” on the territory of Ukraine.
My friend has an apartment in Gelendzhik. Every May she flies there for the whole summer. Her husband, children and friends come there to keep her company on their vacations. This year, instead of May, she got to Gelendzhik only yesterday (June 20). She said it was a long way. I don’t know the details yet. But I’m glad she is safe and sound.
It seems that soon almost everything will be dangerous in Russia. I mean to travel by plane, by train and even by car, especially the new ones that have just been produced.
Due to the sanctions, the technical condition of the aircraft, trains, and vehicles is deteriorating.
6/21/22
The landing gear of the An-24 aircraft of the airline “IrAero” caught fire when landing in Irkutsk. According to a representative of the East Siberian Transport Prosecutor’s Office, no one was injured.
6/11/22
Loaded with timber and lead concentrate, 24 freight train cars derailed in the Krasnoyarsk Oblast, while some of them overturned. It was reported by the Eastern Interregional Investigative Department for Transport of the RF IC. No one was injured.
5/16/2022
The Russian government has allowed the release of simplified models with lower environmental and safety standards. Meaning that Russian car factories can produce cars of any ecological class — even “Euro-0”, and without anti-lock brakes (ABS), AIRBAGS and dynamic stabilization system (ESP).
Life in the distant Siberian Tomsk goes on as usual.
-The acting governor Vladimir Mazur lifted the COVID-19 restrictions in Tomsk on June 14.
-The Siberian Botanical Garden held an exhibition of succulents last weekend.
-The Tomsk Philharmonic opened the season of street concerts “Classical Summer” on June 17. Concerts will be held on the embankment of the Tom River. Before the pandemic, it was fun there.
-The Military Commissariat of the Tomsk region is looking for 207 drivers and 50 shooters for contract service. The salary is promised from 35 to 200 thousand rubles. The place of service of the soldiers is not reported.
But it’s not hard to guess.
I really hope that there won’t be many who want to sign up. There is no one guarantee that they will return home.
And it is not only that.
Back on May 28 2015 President Putin made changes to the list of information related to state secrets. According to this decree, “Information revealing the loss of personnel in wartime, in peacetime during the period of special operations” is a state secret.
On the day of the start of the special operation in Ukraine, on February 24, Roskomnadzor ordered all media operating in Russia to use information about it exclusively from official Russian sources. According to the service, there is a surge of fakes about the events in Ukraine in the media.
The last time the Russian Defense Ministry reported on Russian losses in Ukraine was on March 24, 2022. And today is June.
The way the Russian government treats the troops and dead soldiers, relatives may never know what happened to their family members.
-The Day of Remembrance and Mourning is celebrated annually in Russia on June 22, the day of the beginning of the Great Patriotic War (World War II). The traditional action “Candle of Memory” will be held in Tomsk on the night of June 22.
On the morning of June 22, 1941, German troops crossed the border of the USSR. The Great Patriotic War began. In 1996, by decree of the President of Russia, June 22 was established as a Day of Remembrance and Mourning for the heroes and victims of the struggle against Nazi Germany.
Honestly, I don’t know when the “Candle of Memory” became a tradition. I take all the info from the official resources. However, those resources are not independent anymore. All the media are ruled by the government now.
I wonder what Ukrainians will call the day of February 24, 2022?
Of course, there are many more events happening in Russia and Tomsk now. Unfortunately, these are not always pleasant events. And it’s hard to write after a long silence.
You can always ask me about what interests you. I’ll try to find the answer if I don’t know it myself.
“A strange night, he thought. Somewhere now there is shooting and men are being hunted and imprisoned and tortured and murdered, some corner of a peaceful world is being trampled upon, and one knows it, helplessly, and life buzzes on in the bright bistros of the city, no one cares, and people go calmly to sleep, and I am sitting here with a woman between pale chrysanthemums and a bottle of calvados, and the shadow of love rises, trembling, lonesome, strange and sad, it too an exile from the safe gardens of the past, shy and wild and quick as if it had no right”
Erich Maria Remarque, Arch of Triumph
*Just funny expression
** The Federal Air Transport Agency, also known as Rosaviatsiya, or FATA, is the Russian government agency responsible for overseeing the civil aviation industry in Russia. Its headquarters are in Moscow. It is also called the Russian Federation Civil Aviation Administration.
https://ria.ru/20220621/samolet-1797076138.html
https://iz.ru/1348456/2022-06-11/v-krasnoiarskom-krae-soshli-s-relsov-24-vagona-gruzovogo-poezda
https://ria.ru/20220621/ukraina-1797044560.html
Let’s hope that peace will come and it will last forever between Russia and Ukraine…
Hope is the only thing we have now.