The Top Secret Reason I Took a Break from my AL Conversion

[umberto]

 I think you guys have seen my posts about spammers, and how the site has been under attack for the last few months.  Danger and I concluded that the best way to combat this was to go the source and hand out some justice.  So I booked a flight, updated my passport, and headed to mother Russia to go all Chuck Norris on some dudes. 

Okay, that first part is made up.  My wife was born in Russia, and her parents still live in Moscow not far from Red Square.  We go and visit from time to time, but this time was really special.  The FIFA world cup was in Moscow and surrounding areas, and the atmosphere was crazy.  We actually got to watch a game in a Russian pub with English and Croatian fans, and even though my ancestors lost it was probably the coolest watch party I have been to.  Those fans are INTENSE! 

I'm a bit of a military history buff, and the highlight of the trip was visiting a new military museum at Patriot Park outside Moscow.  The museum there had lots of Russian stuff, but the highlight were the captured German tanks.  They had several very rare tanks in excellent condition, including the King Tiger and Tiger that I attached.

[umberto]

In addition to the tanks (which I could bore you with all day), they had airplanes and helicopters.  My father-in-law was a salesman for Aviaexport, which was responsible for selling Russian equipment to foreign countries.  He knew many of the famous Russian designers, and had a ton of stories about the planes and helicopters.  I'll only bore you with one: the Mi-26.  First off, the dang thing is enormous.  I had my son stand in the picture for scale.  My FIL told us a great story about trying to sell the first few helicopters to the Indians and the Iraqis.  The Indians were desperate for a heavy lift copter to get troops and supplies to Kashmir to fight the Pakistanis, so they basically just ignored all his warnings and bought them sight unseen.  Of course everything he warned them about (don't exceed the hours limits, parts will be tight the first years of production) they later complained about.  Sounded a lot like my customers. 

The Iraqis were more cagey.  They wanted to trade in their Mi-6 helicopters, and asked for every flight test you could imagine.  Most of these were done near Moscow.  They were interested, but wanted one more test before they would buy.  They asked for the copter to be flown to the very southern part of Russia to the dessert where temperatures were close to what you would see in Iraq.  They wanted to see the 26 at max load (22 English tons) hover at 8,000 feet.  My FIL arranged for the local aircraft factory to loan them some pig iron and the helicopter was loaded.  The pilot wisely kept the fuel load low, both to avoid a long period under stress and to keep the weight down.  As they were about to take off, the Iraqi general said to my FIL, "Aren't you coming?".  Of course he had not planned to go, because it would be a rough ride, but he could not look his customer in the eye and say he wasn't going.  He said it was the roughest ride he had ever been on, and he was extremely happy to land.  The Iraqis ended up buying the helicopters, and we blew them up in Desert Storm.   

In addition to the big helicopter they had a ton of jets, including a Mig-25.  The engines on this thing are huge.  It was built to intercept the SR-71 (good luck with that), and was rumored to be able to exceed Mach 2.5 easily.  Of course it wouldn't turn worth a flip, and all-in-all was considered a failure. 

[umberto]

Of course no trip to a foreign country would be complete without a trip to a bike shop.  Moscow has several Kawasaki shops, so I grabbed my FIL and drug him to a Kawasaki, Suzuki, Honda, and KTM shop.  They were in the center of the city, so they only had two dirt bikes, but it was cool to see how the shop was laid out.  I was able to talk with one of the salesmen (I speak a little Russian, he spoke a little English, and my FIL translated a little bit) and show him pictures of my bikes.  He thought the 250 was "crazy", and asked me if Goliath was a sidecar racing bike.     I guess it will take them a few years to catch up with the rest of the world's love of the KX500. 

We got to go to a few other museums, a concert by the father of Russian Jazz, and ate like crazy.  It was a good trip, but I am glad to be back in the good old USA. 

Now for a few standard housekeeping items when I tell people that I am married to a Russian woman:

• No, my wife was not a mail order bride.   
• After the fall of the Soviet Union, no one knew how to manage a business without clear production goals from the government.  My FIL saw a business opportunity, and started bringing groups to the US for Western style management training.  He had a partnership with Oklahoma City University, and they offered a scholarship to my wife to come study.  We met at OCU.
• Russian women are not all "stout" and hairy.  Walking in Moscow will wear you out staring at pretty girls.   
• My wife is neither "stout", nor hairy
• No offense meant to you if you like your women "stout" and/or hairy.   
• Both my in-laws speak English, and my wife has almost no accent.  She has resisted all attempts to get ya'll, fixin' to, and other locals terms in her vocabulary.
• Yes, the Russian people are nice, friendly, and genuinely like meeting Americans.  They are a lot like us, just in a different location and situation.
• Russians will try to kill you with food.  My mother in law is especially good at this.
• While the language barrier is difficult, I think most people would enjoy seeing Moscow and the surrounding areas.  A lot of the FIFA fans had a great time and were able to navigate using Google translate.
• I don't get in to Russian politics with my family.  I have my opinions, but keep them to my self for my both of our sakes.

[umberto]

One last set of pictures.  Some views from my in-laws' apartment of the newer part of the city where all the skyscrapers are.  It's called Moscow city, and contains some of the tallest buildings in Europe.  Also, I attached another of picture of the older, more traditional part of the city.  Moscow is a unique mixture of the early beautiful architecture, the sixties and seventies building boom of cheaper stuff, and today's more mainstream stuff. 

[sandblaster]

Wow... That was cool....
And just think... The SR-71 was designed in the late 50's...

Here's a interesting article on both aircraft

http://www.wvi.com/~sr71webmaster/mig25.html

[umberto]

That's a good read.  It's funny that the US took the plane apart and returned it in pieces.  During WW2, a B-29 had to make an emergency landing in Siberia.  The Soviets took the plane apart and made a direct copy, which allowed them to produce the plane in Soviet factories.  They were nice enough to return it to the Americans in one piece, albeit after a much longer period.  One of the other museums we visited had a really nice example, and you would never be able to tell them apart except for the cannons where the B-29 had machine guns. 

I wonder if the Americans made copies of the MiG-25 for later study?

On another note, we also saw a display with Francis Gary Power's U2 remains.  It was kind of like seeing your favorite team in a picture where they lost the big game. 

[umberto]

I forgot to mention that for some random reason they had a motocross track at Patriot Park with all the tanks and planes.  It seemed to be well thought out, it was just a little bit of a random placement.