Top 3 Things to do in Kazdanga, Latvia

18 December, 2018 | Tourism objects | 9 seen

I first discovered the small Latvian town Kazdanga back in the Summer of 2015, since then I've returned here many times.

Kazdanga is located near the motorway P117 some 9 km from the Aizpute and 167 km from Riga.

In today's article, I decided to list the top 3 places/things to do once in Kazdanga.

Tutarchela Megrelian Restaurant in Tbilisi

16 December, 2018 | Restaurant reviews | 22 seen

Restaurant Tutarchela is located on Archil Mishveladze street 76, Tbilisi, just next to the Vake Park. 

I was a bit surprised to learn that here is served Megrelian cuisine, and should admit that Megrelian cuisine is as great as Georgian

According to the restaurant's FB page, there is served a wide selection of delicious Megrelian dishes, and for the preparation of all dishes, the restaurant uses natural products.

Anyhow, here is what we got

Elarji

Now, this was something new for me - at the start, it looked something like a Swiss fondue to me, then I thought it is Georgian Ghomi porridge. To learn this is actually a typical Megrelian food Elarji.

Elarji is a popular dish from Samegrelo region, made from coarse cornmeal, cornflour and Sulguni cheese.

Nadugi in Sulguni cheese plates

Another popular Georgian food - nadugi. Kind of one of my favorites. 

Nadugi is a snack in the shape of sacks, made of thin sulguni cheese flat cakes with the filling of nadugi, light milk product with a delicate taste of cream, and mint.

How To Make Nadugi -…

Top 14 Luxury 5-star hotels in Baku, Azerbaijan

14 December, 2018 | Hotel reviews | 50 seen

Baku is the capital and largest city of Azerbaijan, as well as the largest city on the Caspian Sea and of the Caucasus region.

Baku is located 28 metres (92 ft) below sea level, which makes it the lowest lying national capital in the world and also the largest city in the world located below sea level. It is located on the southern shore of the Absheron Peninsula, alongside the Bay of Baku. 

Here are the top 3 reasons visiting Baku (according to Booking.com) old town, city walks & friendly locals.

Surprisingly but a a luxury stay in Baku, doesn't mean expensive, in fact you could get a 5-star hotel in Baku, starting EUR 65 per night.

Continue reading to find out the best luxury 5-star hotels in Baku

Disclosure: hotels listed below contain links to Booking.com, by clicking on links on this page and by making a reservation on Booking.com site, I will earn an affiliate income, at no cost to you.

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Hotel Kvareli Eden Review

12 December, 2018 | Hotel reviews | 19 seen

Kvareli Eden Hotel is located in a remote place some 1 or 2 km from the Kvarteli town center, Georgia.

Kvareli Eden features an indoor swimming pool and a wine therapy spa center. Free Wi-Fi and free private parking are provided.

We booked a stay at Kvareli Eden in the mid of November 2018 during Georgia Discount week (kind of paying half the price). We stayed here for two nights and paid about GEL 500 (EUR 165 / USD 188) for that.

Disclosure: this article contains links to Booking.com, by clicking on links on this page and by making a reservation on Booking.com site, I might earn an affiliate income, at no cost to you

Top 5 Luxury & Spa Hotels in Kvareli, Georgia

Kvareli Eden hotel in the night

I was very eager to make a long exposure night photography tonight and were thankful for having a sturdy tripod with me.

Kvareli Eden Hotel is located in Kvarteli town center, on the right bank of the Bursa River. It features an indoor swimming pool and a wine therapy spa center. Free Wi-Fi and free private parking are provided.

Room at hotel Kvareli Eden…

The Grand Documentary of 2016

11 December, 2018 | Documentaries | 19 seen

Filmed in 8 countries throughout 2016, glued, sanded, laminated, blamed and put together in Tbilisi, Georgia using Adobe Premiere CC. 

The Great Documentary is 13 minutes and 2 seconds long short from our lives back in 2016. 

The story starts in Venice, Italy, travels to Georgia, Armenia, then Latvia, Lithuania, Spain, Gibraltar and ends in New York, US.

Jokes, notes and wine (chacha) traverse the scene from the first seconds of the movie. Spoken in Latvian (and a little bit Russian)

For HD quality lovers, the Full HD version is available privately by talking to an exclusive show.

Places from the film:

• My Italy Travel Guide
• Best of Armenia in Two days (Yerevan and Beyond)
• 7 days in Spain (Region of Andalusia)
• 10 Day Business / Leisure Trip to the United States (New York & Philadelphia)

Roshen Candy Store in Kiev (Khotynska Street)

9 December, 2018 | Shopping Venues | 66 seen

Roshen Confectionery Corporation is a Ukrainian confectionery manufacturing group.

The leading manufacturer of confectionery products in the country, it operates facilities in the Ukrainian cities of Kiev, Vinnytsia and Kremenchuk, as well as in Budapest, Hungary and Klaipėda, Lithuania. The name of the company was derived from the last name of its owner, current president of Ukraine, Petro Poroshenko.

It was back in August 2017, we were in Kiev to celebrate my birthday when we discovered this lovely candy store.

Roshen Candy store in Kiev

If I remember right, this one is located on Khotynska St, 2

At Roshen candy store

Pet Food Store in Tbilisi - Zoomart on Abashidze street (near Vake park)

8 December, 2018 | Shopping Venues | 27 seen

Zoomart on Abashidze street 78  (located very conveniently close to the Vake park) has been our favorite pet food store (actually the only one) for several years already. We came here regularly to buy special cats dry food. 

According to Zoomart website, there are already 11 stores across Tbilisi (2018). 

At Zoomart you will find brands like Canvit, ferplast, Vitakraft, Brekkies, catzone, elmubas, Versele-Laga, Advance, Kong, Acana, Morando, Animology  e.t.c

Together with Natia Beridze Veterinary, these are two of the pet-related places I'm familiar with in Tbilisi

Top 16 Best Luxury 5-star SPA hotels in Milan city center

7 December, 2018 | Hotel reviews | 45 seen

Milan is the world' s fashion capital, so there is no surprise seeing high-end hotels located in the city center.

I've been once in Milan, back then we chose to stay at a hotel close to the Milan-Malpensa airport and chose Holiday Inn Express Milan-Malpensa Airport Hotel (Case Nuove, Italy),  as we traveled from Milan to Venice then Florence and back to Milan. For a complete travel route, please see ​My Italy Travel Guide.

For a luxury stay in the Milan city center, you should be willing to pay EUR 150 - 850 per night. Continue reading to find out the best luxury 5-star hotels in Milan

Milan is the world’s fashion capital and its stores are packed with Italian designer brands and more. T

he super stylish Milanese shop for haute couture at top prices – but also enjoy unbeatable sales! Go past the consumerism and you’ll discover a city with a modern edge and urban sophistication. Go crazy when football season kicks off at San Siro, or explore the Salone Internazionale del Mobile in April – the largest furniture and design exhibition in the world.

Start your day under the towering Duomo Cathedral, take a…

IWA Christmas Charity Fair Tbilisi 2018

6 December, 2018 | Living in Georgia | 7 seen

Annual Winter Fair (Christmas charity fair) was held at Tbilisi's Radisson Blue Hotel on December 1, 2018

For many expats in Georgia, it has been already a tradition to visit this fair year. For me, this was already some sixth or seventh fair (as a visitor), maybe I should start selling hot wine in the next years (who knows)

Here are a few articles from the past: Christmas Charity Fair Tbilisi 2017, Christmas Charity Winter Fair in Tbilisi 2015, Christmas Charity Winter Fair in Tbilisi Sheraton Hotel, Christmas charity fair in Tbilisi

As usual, I took my DSLR camera, backpack and went shopping (this year was special, as it was the first fair for our little daughter).

Fair is a great place to buy great things and let's believe to help charity, as all earnings made during this fair is believed to be donated to charity.  It should, after all. Winter fair was organized by International Women's Association Georgia (IWAG)

Kid books at British embassy stand

Bought a few reading books for the little fella. 

Candles for sale at…

November 2018 Dividend Income Report - $111.60

5 December, 2018 | Investments | 15 seen

Welcome to the nineteenth (#19) dividend income report, covering earnings I've made from dividend-paying stocks, peer to peer lending (both fiat and cryptocurrencies) in November 2018. 

In case you are wondering why I'm sharing online my earnings - the answer is pretty simple -  back in January 2017, I set a goal to reach one million dollars in my bank account by the time I will turn 60 (27, 26 years still to go). I believe in transparency and sharing dividend income reports every month helps me to observe my personal progress or bounces. Hopefully, those reports can give some inspiration to you as well. (If so, please leave a short comment below).

In short, last November was neither good nor bad, I managed to crack $100/mo milestone, and I hope I will never be under $100/mo. Anyhow last month dividend income doesn't impress me at all. That's how it works I believe. Greed. Greed is good!

Disclosure: This article contains affiliate links to mintos.com peer to peer lending website, by clicking on links on this page…

Documentary "Inside Mao's China"

4 December, 2018 | Documentaries | 14 seen

A very interesting film by Martin Gronemeyer, telling a story about foreign expats in China during the cultural revolution.

The film tells a unique personal story combined with rare historical footage give a new perspective on Mao’s utopia. 

At the height of Maoism, China was as closed off as present-day North Korea. Then as China eased out of its age of isolation in the early 1970's, Westerners equipped with government regulated narratives began to romanticize the new government. Only a small group of Westerners who grew up and lived inside Mao’s China witnessed first-hand the upheaval of the Cultural Revolution. Until now they had preferred to remain silent but armed with a new outlook on life they are committed to sharing their experiences without fear.

When the Westerners were finally granted permission to leave, they were shocked to find their peers in Europe cheering for the very dictator they had just fled. In this time young leftist activists In Western Europe idolized Mao as a harbinger of a utopian society. However, many Western Maoists who journeyed to China to enjoy the revolutionary tours often returned disillusioned or confused.…

Top Hotels in Liepāja, Latvia

30 November, 2018 | Hotel reviews | 9 seen

As a frequent guest to Liepāja, I decided to list top hotels found in the city.

So far I have stayed at two great Liepāja hotels: Hotel Fontaine Royal Review In Liepāja and Europa City Amrita Hotel Review in Liepāja

Disclosure: hotels listed below contain links to Booking.com, by clicking on links on this page and by making a reservation on Booking.com site, I might earn an affiliate income, at no cost to you.

Europa City Amrita Hotel is located in the center of the town Liepāja, in Latvia’s Kurzeme region. The 4-star hotel offers rooms with a flat-screen TV with cable channels, a mini-bar and a private bathroom. Free private parking is available for hotel guests.

The rooms of the Amrita Hotel feature an elegant interior design with wooden furniture, which includes a work desk and a wardrobe.

The hotel’s staff is available 24 hours a day. The Amrita provides a shuttle service. Guests can rent a car directly at the hotel.

The hotel’s restaurant, Oskars, serves international and Latvian dishes. Grill bar Bruno serves barbecue dishes. In the morning a breakfast…

How To Install XTRF 8 on Ubuntu 18.04

29 November, 2018 | Servers | 47 seen

XTRF is a Polish translation management system available to install as SAAS or on your own server (both Windows and Linux). In today's article, I will keep notes on how to install XTRF 8 on Ubuntu 18.04

Our company has been using the XTRF translation management system since 2011 (if not earlier) and recently we opted for a major upgrade (from version 2 to version 8). The previous version was run on Linode VPS (Debian). For the latest version, I decided to go with the same VPS from Linode (to make it work I chose 8GB RAM Linode), but instead of Debian, i opted for the latest Ubuntu 18.04 LTS release.

Insert the following line into the /etc/apt/sources.list file:

then

Run the command to insert XTRF package signing key into the database:

Enter the following command:  

Run the following command 

To start…

Documentary about The Winter War 1939 (Soviet Union vs Finland )

28 November, 2018 | Documentaries | 14 seen

A very well documented documentary about the Winter War fought back in 1939. About defensive war and great guerilla tactics to fight a more powerful army.

The Winter War was a military conflict between the Soviet Union and Finland in 1939–1940. It began with the Soviet invasion of Finland on 30 November 1939, and ended with the Moscow Peace Treaty on 13 March 1940.

Watch it on YouTube

Documentary about Kazakhstan: The new green superpower? Oil giant tries to wean itself off the black stuff

27 November, 2018 | Documentaries | 6 seen

An interesting documentary from the Guardian. About Solar panels, renewable and green energy. Kazakhstan should be on every investor radar.

See also: Invest in Kazakhstan - Peer to Peer lending loans up to 21% Yield from Kredit24 on Mintos.com Marketplace

Kazakhstan is rich with oil, gas, and coal but Nursultan Nazarbayev, its president for life, has committed the country to a dramatic shift from fossil fuels to green energy. Is this huge nation, which is beset by rural poverty, major infrastructure challenges and environmental crises, able to realize his vision?

Phoebe Greenwood from the Guardian travels to the Kazakh capital, Astana, and the Aral Sea region

Watch on YouTube