Nota Bene

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.

Read on…

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…

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…

Hi everyone!

Yesterday I was lucky enough to personally watch the landing of the Soyuz MS-27 descent module from the RKA Mission Control Center in the town of Korolyov just outside Moscow. And it was a wholly interesting event! Surprisingly, taking photos was allowed, with the press up on the balcony reporting live. I too was up on the same balcony – and it all looked like this:

// Curiously, down on the right there are two flags next to each other – those of Russia and the U.S., which is quite a rarity these days.

Launches and landings of spacecraft – especially manned ones – are rather long-winded processes. When landing, the cosmonauts close the hatches more than three hours before undocking (six hours and 40+ minutes before the actual landing), undocking from the ISS occurs around two hours and 30 minutes before braking begins, and from the beginning of braking to touching down on Earth it’s just under an hour.

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…