Privyet folks!

December is usually a pretty busy month for us. There’s the year-end budget-closing and reporting, an evening with our key clients and partners (x 2: (i) for our traditional/new products, and (ii) for our Operating System), New Year department parties, and my annual Santa Claus & Co. tour of all three HQ buildings (festive speeches, poetry and team photos on all 15 floors – and a sherry on each some:). And there’s another fun year-end event, which just so happens to be getting crazily big!…

I’m talking about our 10 and 25-years-working-at-K anniversary awards!

Read on…

SAS-2025 is already long gone, but a tale from the Thai side still needs to be told!…

So, after the business part of the event (which, it goes without saying, was great), we needed to unwind and hang out with SAS participants in a more relaxed atmosphere – I call it “decompression”. And that’s why our whole group headed out to the Similan Islands in the Andaman Sea – about 65km west of the Thai coast (not far to the north of Phuket). And I couldn’t have been happier, since I’m fast approaching a full 200 islands visited in my life, and I hadn’t been to this particular one (rather – this particular grouping of islands)!…

So what can I say? I’ll say that the Similan Islands are really great: they’re rather unusual, really picturesque granite formations. However, the islands in the bay just east of Phuket are even better for contemplative sightseeing, IMHO. Never mind; these granite islands still have a special charm of their own…

Read on…

Easter Island – done and dusted. But I’ve still got more tales from the Kamchatkan side to tell – including this one about… a volcano; fancy that?!

After a miserable first few days in Kamchatka – miserable due to the incessant rain spoiling our plans – the weather finally came to its senses to give us a bit of sunshine. Naturally, we tried to catch up on what we’d missed – the places we hadn’t managed to see yet. And first on the list was the most significant (constantly active!) of the northern volcanos – Shiveluch. And here it is in all its glory:

Shiveluch is one of the most active volcanoes in Kamchatka. It doesn’t just erupt at regular intervals – sometimes it does so with real force. There’ve even been cases where, after one of its eruptions, the airspace over Alaska (!) was closed – which is, believe it or not, more than two thousand kilometers away!

Read on…

In this, my last post in the series on Easter Island, a few words on day-to-day practicalities: how to get there, where to stay, and how to get around the island.

There are two ways to get to Rapa Nui: either a five-hour flight from Santiago (and getting to Santiago from anywhere on the planet is straightforward – albeit often long-winded:), or a two-week (!) boat trip from Valparaiso, Chile’s main port, which is about 120km from the capital. There used to be flights from Lima, Peru, too, but they stopped during covid in 2020, and somehow they just never resumed after that.

Anyway, back to the Santiago > Easter Island route…

Either one or two large planes do the route there and back daily. But on days when two planes fly, the lines at the airport in Santiago grow to truly inhumane lengths. We ended up queuing for our boarding gate all the way to the very furthest corner of the airport – in a line that stretched at least a hundred meters. Still, one should only ever remember the good stuff (and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise)! So, just read these lines, forget about them – and then go ahead and dream about planning your own Easter Island trip!…

Once there, how do you get yourself to the various tourist spots dotted across the whole island? You can do so yourself in cars, on scooters or bikes you can rent. But if you do, it’s better if you know Spanish, because almost every site charges entry, and there’s no guarantee anyone at the entrance speaks a language you know. We rented a mini-bus with a local guide, who was half-Spanish and half-Rapa-Nui, but unfortunately he didn’t speak the language of his island ancestors. (Curious fact: “Rapa Nui” = the Rapa Nui people, the Rapa Nui language, and the island of Rapa Nui!)

Next – where to stay? There are lots of options. We were apparently booked in at “the best place on the island” – the Explora Rapa Nui hotel, here…

And here ->

Read on…

…That’s a rhetorical question. Of course, a Kamchatka expedition begins… at the airport :). But it depends on where you’re flying in from. For me, my trips to Kamchatka have pretty much always started at Sheremetyevo Airport (Terminal B for many years now), with the whole crew traditionally meeting up in “Magadan”…

// Which reminds me… Once, we congregated in Magadan, several hours later landed in Magadan, and another hour later dined in… Magadan :)

This time it was simpler: we were flying straight to Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky!

Read on…

Still on with my intercontinental switcheroo, today we’re back on Easter Island!…

The topic of volcanoes is really interesting and diverse. It’s not just volcanos’ cones, the lava that sometimes flows out of them, and the smoke from eruptions. There are also all the colors, hot springs, and geysers – which all come under the “volcanisms” banner. There’s also a unique, lesser-known phenomenon – lava tubes. And they look something like this:

Read on…

Though Krasheninnikov volcano is one of the most meditative-contemplative volcanoes in Kamchatka, helicopter tours usually fly right past it. Even on my own travels around Kamchatka, we always skipped it too. And that’s such a shame, since it’s a truly fascinating sight! So – why’s it normally passed by? Because it’s practically always hidden beneath ever-present pesky clouds. Just like on this day: in the foreground is Krasheninnikov; behind it is Kronotsky ->

So, why even mention Krasheninnikov if it’s just one of the hundreds of Kamchatkan volcanoes? Because it’s been in the news…

Read on…

The attentive, regular reader might wonder – why have I been going to Saudi Arabia so often of late, when it’s hardly one of the most common tourist destinations? Indeed, I was here a year ago – in December 2024; before that in September 2023 (opening a regional office); and in 2022 I was here a full three times! And in all this is already my eighth visit here!

It’s quite simple really. Saudi Arabia is rapidly changing and developing (see those links above); you can see it in the more relaxed social rules, the number of buildings under construction, and the new airport terminals across the country. Naturally, special attention is given to the IT sector, and logically, cybersecurity is also a key focus. So for us, the Middle East is real interesting, and Saudi Arabia is of particular interest. Year after year, we’re growing here by double digits, and our Saudi business is one of the most significant slices of the company’s revenue “pie”.

So, of course, we have an office here, which I absolutely had to drop in on for an informal, friendly visit:

By the way, we already have more than 60 folks working here – mostly sales, marketing, and tech support.

Read on…

Strolling around Easter Island sounds exotic, but once you finally reach this remote outpost of humanity, the endeavor takes on a more practical nature. There’s plenty of walking to be done, and most of it is along the coastline – perfect for clearing your head after a long flight, or for meditative contemplation after viewing the moai statues up close in the quarry or on one of the surviving ceremonial platforms.

Read on…

Uzon – done.

Valley of Geysers – done.

The Valley of Death – done, but that was last year, and in the summer. So why not head back there to see it painted in autumnal colors? Why not indeed…

Read on…