To all opponents, co-commanders, etc.

[alaric99x]

I'm back in the USSR.....

It was with some sense of irony that I landed on the 4th of July in Minsk, "Republic" of Belarus, the last dictatorship of Europe. It was no great surprise when I got to the home of my wife's family and found that the lock had been broken on my suitcase and that my laptop was missing. It's my own fault, I somehow forgot what country I would be visiting. To put myself even further out of communication, I also forgot the password for my email. For some reason Yahoo asked me to change that a few months ago so I plugged in something at random. I never had to remember it because my computer had it in memory. I next tried to get a new password by answering my personal questions. No problem with that except in August 2009 I also entered my favorite author. Well, I have about 50 favorite authors so I tried to remember who I might have favored in 2009 and started plugging in names. After I gave a sufficient number of wrong answers, the system locked me out completely. I won't be able to access any emails until after 17 July at which time I can try to correct this back in the US.

I know this all sounds amazingly stupid for a guy who seems to be able to comprehend Tiller wargames, no further comment on that....

Anyway, I'm having an interesting time here in Minsk, suddenly I'm rich. The local dictator has screwed up the economy so thoroughly that they're having quite an economic crisis right now. Since the beginning of the year the Belarus ruble has lost over 50% of its value. You could get 3115 rubles for a US dollar in May before a government devaluation. The rate today is just under 5000 for a dollar, but there aren't any dollars (or Euro) available in the banks. The real rate, or black market rate, is a little different. On 6 July my brother in law got me 6000 rubles for each dollar, two days later I bought some more and the rate was 6250 per dollar. People are very eager to get dollars, or any other kind of reliable currency. That's usually not possible so they buy any kind of nonperishable product just to get rid of the rubles. Over here the US dollar is the unofficial currency, it has been ever since the dissolution of the CCCP. My brother in law owns a truck and car repair shop with one other partner, they only accept dollars or Euro in payment. Regular employees, paid in ruble, end up with less value in each paycheck, retirees are in a particularly deplorable situation. Agriculture in this country is produced by collective farms and the economic model is based on the dictator's concept of central planning which he calls "market socialism." Somebody tell me why that isn't working.