The Brazilian city of Foz do Iguaçu has plenty to offer the visiting tourist – and not just the waterfalls and the Itaipu Dam; there’s also a really cool bird park – situated right at the exit from the national park of the same name (Foz do Iguaçu) where the waterfalls are. It’s called Parque das Aves (“Bird Park”), and it’s simply must-see!…

Get ready… Coming up: copious quantities of colorful feathered cuties!…

Read on…

My globetrotting catch-up continues. Today we’re in neither Kamchatka, Saudi, nor Brazil, but in… Georgia – in its capital, Tbilisi!

I’d long dreamed of visiting this place, for Georgia and many Georgian things make up a significant part of the essence of my social-cultural-historical backbone in life. There are certain old movies featuring Georgian actors (or directors) that I keep watching over and over, and there are Georgian authors I’ve read and highly respect. Plus, of course, there are the very frequent appearances of Georgian cuisine on the menu chez-moi or in restaurants…

I did manage to visit the Georgian SSR (Batumi) back in 1981 (as part of a school physics‑math contest), but never to independent Georgia – until now…

Read on…

As promised, I turn now to the Itaipu Dam – the third-largest hydroelectric power plant in the world. It sits on the border between Brazil and Paraguay next to the Brazilian city of Foz do Iguaçu, which is also famous for the nearby Iguaçu Falls.

So let’s go for a walk inside the power plant – where they actually run excursions!…

A monumentally massive structure! The main part of the dam, where the machine hall, the turbines, and all the other key stuff is, runs to nearly 900 meters long!

Read on…

Back in Kamchatka, and it was time for my favorite installment of any trip there (and there’ve been several, if not a dozen or so): when we head back toward the south of the peninsula…

I was especially thrilled to be heading south this time since, unfortunately, during our northern escapades, the weather was most unfriendly – with none of the sunshine needed to let us enjoy the surrounding sights to the full. But still, we did more or less manage to see the Klyuchevskaya group of volcanoes, visit Uzon and the Valley of Geysers (with a hike to the nearby Valley of Death), trek the rim of the caldera of Maly Semyachik, and even reach all the way to the mightiest northern volcano – Shiveluch.

Before heading south, despite the gloomy overcast skies, some of us still decided to make a short outing from our base – Tumroki Hot Springs – to the glaciers of the Kronotsky Peninsula. I passed on this event, since ice, IMHO, should only be viewed in sunny weather (walking on glaciers in foggy gloom only spoils your mood). So the Kronotsky photos below are those taken by my travel companions…

Read on…

Brazil is a huge country that, just like Russia, actually stretches across two hemispheres. The difference is that while Brazil sits across both the Northern and Southern Hemispheres, Russia straddles the Eastern and Western ones.

But perhaps what sets Russia apart from Brazil the most is that Russia’s territories mostly lie on permafrost. Brazil is all about tropics and humid subtropics – perfectly suitable for street carnivals with scantily-clad crowds…

Sure – there are differences; where aren’t there any? But we’re also more or less similar. Let’s take a look:

Size: Brazil = eight million km²; Russia = 17 million km² (but permafrost is more than half of that).

Population: though 10–15 years ago the two countries were roughly equal, today – Brazil = 212 million; Russia = 144 million.

Now, for geography and populations, Wikipedia will do for me. But when it comes to economies, I trust – believe it or not – CIA data more!

Here, for example, are the top 10 economies in the world in terms of GDP at purchasing power parity (2024 data):

Read on…

Continuing my winter globetrotting tales, today we’re back in Saudi Arabia; specifically – in the mountainous Wadi Al Disah nature reserve…

Read on…

My “Another day – another different corner of the globe” series continues! Today – back to Kamchatka!…

Some 350 kilometers north of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky is one of the most magnificent volcanic sights in the world – the Klyuchevskaya group of volcanoes. It’s the largest “agglomeration” in Russia – combining 14 volcanoes (including four active ones) and several hundred cones, domes, and other knolls. And the stars of the show of this group are the three adjacent volcanoes Klyuchevskaya Sopka, Kamen, and Bezymianny.

I never tire of marveling at the Klyuchevskaya group, which is why I’ve kept returning over and over down the years. During our September 2025 trip around Kamchatka we approached it from a different direction but, alas, it was completely shrouded in dense cloud. Still, even in that setting the views are simply stunning. Add to that the lack of oxygen in the helicopter (we were flying up near the summits – altitudes not to be sniffed (between ~3000 and nearly 5000 meters!)) and the other impressions we’d picked up along the way, and it all still added up to a  VIP experience (Volcanism Impossibly Perfect)!

Read on…

My recent trip to Saudi Arabia was spoiled somewhat by some logistical troubles – of a suitcase! – on the way back. It was something that had never happened to me before: ALL the luggage of ALL the passengers got lost! It happened on the Riyadh–Moscow Saudi Airlines flight. The plane arrived in Moscow with… an empty cargo hold: they’d simply failed to load it at the departure airport! As a result, around 90 passengers – mostly Saudis – lined up for the red channel at Sheremetyevo (those are the rules there – only through the red channel if your suitcase is lost). And since it took some 10 minutes to process the paperwork for each passenger, the customs officials joked grimly that the last person in line would still be around to see the next flight and to personally receive their luggage!

But at least we were first in said line. And we were first because I’d heard the announcement in Russian: “Passengers arriving from Riyadh – please proceed to the lost luggage desk”, so my travel companion, NK, and I raced to lost-and-found as fast as we could. But there was more: we still had to then get over to the red channel and separately fill out the customs “baggage without passenger” form.

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And now for my traditional review of the outgoing year, and a preview of the new one…

// To some of you who are new to these here blog-pages of mine, January 13 might seem a bit late for such a review/preview; let me briefly explain: the first week – sometimes longer (like this year) in Russia is a national holiday: everyone’s off work – this year till last Monday, January 12! So this means business is generally put on hold from the last few days of a year through to mid-January of the next!

All righty. Let’s start with 2025 business…

The main result of the year: despite the pressure of ongoing double-dyed geopolitics, we’re doing just fine.

Our global business is developing – with revenues growing in many places. Sure – not everywhere, and of course the situation’s not straightforward – but when was/is it ever easy?

So yes, everything’s fine. The company is stable and resilient, we’re steadily developing products and technologies, and our regional teams around the world are getting stronger. In the current environment this really is a major achievement, and it’s the result of all the hard – smart – work done by the whole team.

Read on…

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…