Author Archives: admin

No new direct European flights to Sochi

Four months have passed since my (and many Sochi residents’) excitement over possibility to see new Europe-bound regular airline flights in the near future. But none of those routes have opened. No news from Ural and Yakutia airlines, and Orenair has Frankfurt/M, Munich, and Dusseldorf on the flight table, but only for Olympics dates. Not even for Paralympics.

Not cool.

New direct European flights to Sochi soon

Russian aviation authorities have recently allowed(rus) several new European destinations for direct regular flights from Sochi. This is very good news for both Sochi residents and foreign guests, who normally had to fly to Europe through other cities, usually Moscow, Krasnodar, or more recently Istanbul.

Flowing European cities were added to the map of the places that have direct air connection with Sochi:

  • Belgrade
  • Bratislava
  • Hanover
  • Helsinki
  • KievDonAvia
  • London
  • Madrid
  • Minsk
  • Oslo
  • Prague
  • Stockholm
  • Zurich

Flight Sochi – Belgrade will be operated by Ural Airlines (starting July according schedule on their website) two times a week, Sochi – Prague flights  – by Yakutia Airlines (they have newest Russian jet – Sukhoi Superjet 100, I hope we’ll see it here in Sochi) three times a week, all other destinations will be operated by Orenair (Orenburg Airlines) – subsidiary of Aeroflot – three times a week.

The only other foreign cities Sochi is currently directly connected with are Istanbul (Turkish Air, DonAvia), Trabzon (UTair), Erevan (Armavia, DonAvia), and a couple of Middle Eastern former Soviet cities.

Food you will not find in Sochi during the Olympic Games

Food safety authorities want to ensure that following popular in Russia food items are not sold in Sochi during Olympic and Paralympic Games next year.

  • Homebrewed beer
  • Home distilled spirits
  • Homemade non-alcoholic drinks
  • Cottage-cheese from raw (unpasteurized) milk
  • Stockfish
  • Dried mushrooms
  • Cook canned vegitables, meat, fish, or mushrooms
  • Macaroni Russian navy style (ground meat and macaroni)

WP Plugin: Nofollow from Home

[текст на русском ниже]

In English

Nofollow from Home is a WordPress plugin which adds rel=’nofollow’ to all external links in your posts or static page, only on your home page. It means these same links will not have the attribute when your post slips onto the 2nd page, or when displayed in Categories or Archives pages roll, or when a post is displayed as a single post.

Update Jan 20, 2017: Plugin re-written to work on modern versions of WP. Tested with WP 4.7.1

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Russia is selecting Olympic mascot

Within next two hours Russia will pick the official mascot for the Olympic Games 2014!

Concert, with nationwide phone, SMS, and internet poll in the end, I guess, has already been started. If you’re in Russia, you can watch it live at http://itv.1tv.ru/. I’m not sure you’ll be able to see it if you’re outside of Russia. Trying won’t hurt 🙂

Here’s what we’re choosing from:

Except for left-most — Uncle Frost. Russia has decided to pull him from the poll because International Olympic Committee will have all rights for the mascot. Uncle Frost is Russia’s Santa, so it would cause some issues in the future.

Anyway, you can find more information and pictures at talisman.sochi2014.com

Which one would vote for?

Within next two hours Russia will pick the official mascot for the Olympic Games 2014!
Concert, with nationwide phone, SMS, and internet poll in the end, I guess, is already started.
If you’re in Russia, you can watch it live at http://itv.1tv.ru/ . I’m not sure you’ll be able to see it if you’re outside of Russia.
Here’s what we’re choosing from:

Public 2014 Olympics mascot contest continues – you can participate

I should’ve blogged about it a couple of months ago, but I was traveling, and changing to a new workplace.

There’s an ongoing public mascot contest organized by Sochi 2014 Olympic committee. It started on September 5th, and a month later they announced they are accepting international entries.

Their idea, as they announced it, is to get some ideas from public, and then they’ll give popular ones to the pros to complete them. So, when you see the pictured in their gallery, don’t jump to conclusions 🙂

Official website of the contest: talisman.sochi2014.com

Gallery: https://web.archive.org/web/*/http://talisman.sochi2014.com/gallery/

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Sochi-Abkhazia train services resume

On June 26th Russia and Abkhazia resumed passenger train services between Adler, Sochi and Gagra, Abkhazia. The train travels twice a day – at 7:05 AM from Adler’s train station, and back at 17:57 (5:57 PM) back the same day. The over two hours trip includes two ten minutes stops for passport control on both Russian and Abkhazian sides. Passengers do not leave the train for this procedure. More trains are expected to operate on this route in the near future.

The passenger train service between Sochi and Abkhazia was active in years 2003-2004, back then around 400 people traveled during each ride. It is hoped that resuming of the Sochi-Abkhazia train service will help to unload automotive Russia-Abkhazia border crossings, which increased in the recent years, and reaching 35000 people per day.

Sochi Virus

Web surfing takes me places…

Yesterday I found out there’s a computer virus Virus.DOS.Sochi.703, which apparently was dedicated to Sochi’s 2002 Olympics bid — the virus contains the text *Ks&I* Sochi Olympic Games 2002.

While trying to get more information on this I stumpled on a real biologic virus called Dobrava-Sochi virus (DOBV-Ap) – separate lineage of Dobrava virus found in and around Sochi.

And then on the same search I stumbled on a fun club mix by DJ Virus — Sochi 2014. I liked it, so I’m embedding it here 🙂