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For decades various models of ‘ZiLs’ (’ZiL’ is an acronym for ‘Zavod Imeni Likhacheva‘ - ‘The production plant named after Likhachev’) dominated market… Oops! What am I talking about?! - there was NO MARKET in the Soviet Union.. OK, then: ‘they represented the most common type of the middle capacity truck in the country’s transportation industry’, how about that?

And of course, the mentioned Mr. Likhachev never was the plant’s OWNER:)

This particular model of ZiL, - ZiL-130, a sort of workhorse for that industry, - was built in a few modifications for utilizing the specialized tasks. Pictured here is a ’sedelnyi tyagach’, or ‘trailer tractor’, and it was mainly used to haul a variety of long-sized loads, such as logs, poles, long concrete construction elements. My dad drove this machine for years. Before it he drove dump trucks, aslo of the ‘ZiL’ make. After driving ZiLs for years he became a ‘ZiL-expert’.

You may believe, or maybe not, but I saw the same vehicle just… less than a week ago. OK, it was in Santa Clara, Cuba, where we were flying to on the charter from Halifax.

A little bit of ’spying’ needed in order to get this picture!

I’ve just come back home from another 5-day pairing. A very special, very ‘cosy’ one, for I took my wife Victoria with me:)

As we stayed three nights in the row at one place, Halifax, Nova Scotia, and there wasn’t much flying out there in these days (in fact, we flew only a ‘pink eye’ charter to Cuba, and that was it), it created a nice opportunity to explore the area.

Which we did, and I’m going to post some interesting stuff from this 2.25Gb depository of images taken during this pairing.

On April 29th we rented a car and went for a journey down the ‘Lighthouse Route’, a picturesque road that goes through the genuine ‘Atlantic coast landscape’ and places ‘loaded’ with history that goes back to the time the first settlers came here centuries ago.

The Canadian dime on the top picture isn’t just for a reference to the ’storage relative size’.

And you could easlily figure out what was the purpose of placing the coin into a composition.

Please do not hesitate to put your comment on it.

Welcome to the historic Nova Scotia!

I got up early this morning and elected to take an ‘inspirational walk across’ our neighborhood. For this purpose we’ve got here a terrific net of walk paths. And the weather looked really promising, so there was no reason ‘why not’. And, why not to take a camera, eh:)?

First I stepped into the woods of the Griffith Park

The trail that I chose this morning (from the number of them existing in the area) led me to one of the Elbow River ‘wetland sleeves’ where I stopped by to marvel at Mother Nature, and some of her children basking in the pleasant comfort of the clean environment.

Then I turned toward ‘out of the woods’, crossed the Discovery Ridge Boulevar, and climbed up onto the trail running along the top of a few hills edging the Elbow River valley in our area.

Seems like after the short spell of a dreadful weather that we recently had the spring is back on the full throttle

See, what the cute guys hide in the weeds covering the hill slopes(will check with the reference book for the name of this kind of spring flowers. Its amazing, in my native Semipalatinsk, Kazakhstan we had the same kind of flowers blossoming in the spring!)

Hills are also populated by birds. Robins are numerous

I had also a chance to get a nice capture of the different kinds of ‘feathered creatures’

And this one is my favorite:

Check out the blow-up, a registration can be read easily:

C-GWBN, and I tell you, I flew this particular thing on..

(Go to THIS PAGE to read further..:)

I’m not quite sure I remember who are the two guys in white shirts on the sides of this picture, but all other folks are absolutely identifiable.

Family reunions, gathering on public holidays and family occasions were quite popular. Our ‘extended family’ wasn’t an exempt. It wasn’t rare a thing that up to 50 people would get together. And HAVE FUN!

I think at that time (late 50s - late 80s) people socialized way more than they do it now in the modern Russia.

Being often asked questions by my colleagues and friends here in Canada about ‘What kind of life you had in the Soviet Union’ I’ve come to the idea of starting a respective topic, and this picture would be a nice introduction for such a ‘memoir’.

Here we are, my dad, and myself, being held on a fender of his ‘Zakhar’.

Early (’very early’:) 60s, Kazakhstan, Semipalatinsk. Wonder, what would be your comments on what you see here?

An idea of traveling to Whitecourt was enticing to me ever since I got a message from Magnat, a navigator, one of the Mil-26 helicopter crews, saying that they were going to stay there for the next couple of weeks waiting for a new contact with mining/oil companies.

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The area where we live - Calgary and the vicinity, - is remarkable for its clean air. There’s no serious sources of the industrial pollution (yet), and we are open to the winds that wash away ‘exhales’ inevitably generated by the big city’s ‘breathe’.

And normally, there’s not very much humidity in the air. As a result, the air is very clear and transparent, and the sunsets are often quite spectacular. There may be a few more factors involved into creating this beauty, - a horizon line ‘jagged’ by Rockies, for example, that apparently affects the optics of the atmosphere while the sun is going down. All in all, it is a sort of unique place, the one where we live.

I think the set of these photos that I took on the night of January, 21st would make a decent slide show, and illustrate along the point of the speculation above.

So, enjoy the sunset observed on the Highway #8, just West of Calgary, on January 21, 2007.

P.S.

A few images to illustrate how clear the air normally is:

And one specifically local phenomenon deserves to be reviewed in a dedicated topic:

A spectacular aerial view of the Chinook Arch:

Just playing around with the wealth of imaginary that accumulated over a period of time since 2004.. Experimenting.

They look pretty sequenced in the slide show.

Click on images to enlarge..

A long nurtured idea of starting a blog has surfaced here and now.

“Answer the simplest question, - why?”, my ‘inner editor’ wants to know.

‘Because’..

..and, of course, ‘to be continued’.