but has the quality of vodka held up?  can they still make it right 
without massive suffering?   ;^)

At 12:22 PM 10/17/2009, Inge wrote:
>Hi all,
>am back after a couple of weeks by boat all along Volga river. Visited many
>places, from small villages to Moskow.
>Remarkable how brainwashed and indoctrinated I've been despite TV programs,
>books, films etc. I still thought that mobile phones wouldn't work
>everywhere, expected rusty Ladas, slammering trams, flimmering TVs, a KBG
>man following me when taking photos near a military missile area,  greyish
>and wrecky houses, shops with more or less empty desks, 25 year old
>passenger aircrafts,  rusty railway trains, stinking diesel trains,
>suspicioius people when shooting around with my digi cameras etc. What a
>wrong image I had in my head. All quite opposite. Mobile worked everywhere,
>even hundreds of kilometers from nearest community (masts everywhere), more
>new cars than what I have seen anywhere else, super modern trains, that you
>will not find anywhere in the US,  latest flatscreen TVs, noone interested
>in my sneeking around, I could  walk straight into KGBs headquarter if I
>wanted, the defense ministery had no fences around the huge building, I
>walked with camera lifted just outside the President's office building (the
>guardsmen took no notice) ,  modern diesel engines, advertisments of a size
>I've never seen before, e.g. a 10,000 sq meter announcement for Mercedes
>Benz. More moderna cash machines than what we have, everything computerized.
>American music everywhere, english menues, english announcements, american
>cars,....I thought sometimes that I was in the US, but this was many a times
>much better (sorry to say so, but that's what I thought).  No forgotten
>ghettos like in New Your or Paris or Liverpool, no people hanging around
>doing nothing. No overweighted people. Everywhere a rumbling of building
>machines, caterpillars and cranes. Building, repairing everywhere.  Of
>course, I didn't see whole Russia, but 2,400 kilometers along Volga gives at
>least a good glimpse.
>
>So, I had to readjust my idea about that country. Furthermore, maybe a very
>wrong statement from my view, but I dare say : America, look up...not far
>from here Russia will pass you (I don't speak of military power, which I
>have nada insight in,  but welfare.
>
>This doesn't change my attitude to America, which I like very much, but
>America got a competitor on my inside.
>
>Nevertheless, noone will care about what I think or say, I'm just 1 / 6 000
>000 000 of the total.
>
>Inge
>
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