Russia

I've noticed a lot of Russians lately. It seems that online video places have large numbers of Russians. I don't know what the laws are in Russia involving videoing people, but they must be more lax than the rest of the world. Every other video that is people having sex in a public place or really horrible car crashes is from Russia. The number of people who are falling down drunk and repeatedly hurt themselves as they say the same thing over and over, while the bystanders laugh, is mind boggling. You would be hunted down in the States if you violated Someone's rights like that.

Recently, one of the vloggers I watch went to visit her family in Russia. Siberia actually. She is a California girl. She now has to deal with -45C temperatures. and Rubles. She showed the isle of the store devoted to vodka in the local grocery store.

There is an unfortunate trend in Russia of people pulling in front of someone and slamming on the breaks to collect the insurance. This causes many Russians to mount cameras aimed out the windshield. This is probably why so many Russian care accidents wind up on the Net.

Another source of online videos are the "roads" in rural Russia. People seem to accept the hared conditions of roads in the outback of Russia. The German army of WWII can attest that Eastern Russia was not meant for traversal during several months of the year. Winter brings mountains of shifting snow. Spring brings bog ... thousands of miles of bog. This leads to huge off road vehicles being swallowed up by rivers and such. There are a couple of normal looking semi trucks fording rivers that I would not want to shoot down in a raft.

Something else that was very interesting about the vlogger I mentioned above, she and her family sang a song while riding the bus to the store. That was really cool. There were a tone of people on the bus. How cool is that? She also mentioned that the food tastes so much better in Russia. She says it is because there are less preservatives. I think that what she is missing is much of the food that I've seen her eat in the vlogs has been fresh cooked by her family.

As cool as it is to watch videos of someone visiting their family in Russia, I still have no interest in visiting. I don't have anything against Russians, I've heard too many bad things about Americans visiting Russia. There are horror stories about being strong armed for bribes. Being targeted for fraud and receiving no support from the local authorities. These kinds of things can happen anywhere. The videos I'm getting out of Russia on the net are not helping me want to know more.