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Greetings from Scotland! Over the past week, we've been making the most of the school break by travelling to this beautiful part of the world. We've explored Edinburgh…
As of October 16, 2026, our options-selling-powered dividend stock portfolio stood at $13,456, marking a weekly decline of 1.37% compared with the previous week.This…
As of October 9, 2026, our options-selling-powered dividend stock portfolio stood at $13,643, showing a decent weekly increase of +0.72% compared with the previous week.…
It was hard for me to decide should I put this place as a tourist attraction or as a military heritage, I opted for the second one. You see, things related to WW2, especially like Brethren Cemeteries is hard to call tourist attractions, right?
So, here is another one interesting place in Latvia, region of Courland you should visit some day - a memorial dedicated to fatalities of WW2. Some locals call this place just as a Mother (Latvian: Māmuļa) because of the sculpture in the middle of this ensemble.
Brethren Cemetery ensemble in Nikrace
Author of this sculpture: Līvija Rezevska
Brethren Cemetery ensemble in Nikrace
According to sources, around 3000 war fatalities…
What happens when bloggers, who are trying out some new photo equipment and who loves to cook comes together? Right, they do a food blog. This time blogger here is just one (I do have a lovely assistant) and strong jury although.
So, lets make a really simple hamburger today.
For ingredients you will need to have those lovely buns (you can try to buy them at your local shop), for patties I'm going to use ground meat (minced meat) out of pork, but you could use beef, as I believe a real hamburger is made out of beef.. wait, what am I talking right now? Pork is just fine.
1 egg, 2 onions, and your favorite seasoning for patties.
For toppings you can use, tomatoes, pickles,…
Lēnu church (Latvian: Lēnu baznīca) is located in Latvia, historical region of Courland in Skrunda municipality. I first discovered this place either in 2013, or 2014, and in fact I was surprised to learn than in Western Latvia (Courland) there are actually Catholic churches (turns out - there are, and a lot)
Lenu church
At time (On June 6, 2015) I visited this church a festival called Night of Churches happened, which basically means that this festival promotes awareness of Latvian churches.
Lēnu Catholic church
The statue of the Holy Virgin Mary at Lēnu church garden
At Lēnu church
About Lēnas Holy Trinity Roman Catholic church
The church with two…
Temple of Saint Seraphim of Sarov is located close to Borjomi (some 1.5km) in Georgia. You can get here either by car or as I prefer - by foot using Borjomi - Baghi - Tba - Tsemi road. That's actually exactly we did at the end of September during our hiking tour in Borjomi. I must admit this was not the first time for me at this place, but prior to that I didn't know the name and meaning of this place. Now I know, so the place is actually called the Temple on Saint Seraphim of Sarov and is related to Russian Orthodox church.
Tourist sign indicating direction to the temple
It's written in Georgian, unfortunately I'm not familiar with Georgian script (but hey there is Georgian…
Right, this might probably sound as yet another hipster style article and probably you are right. The thing is - during month of October I have decided to write down my everyday expenses and in the next month I will provide article on Cost of Living in Tbilisi (Georgia). Since it was start of October, I headed to Google Play Store to download first expense tracking app and started to write down my expenses.
I had to visit Tbilisi Dezerteer bazaar just to buy some groceries, and I decided hey it actually would be neat if I would write down actual prices for vegetables and fruits there. So I did. I must admit it was fun and entertaining to enter that app after each purchase I made…
At the start of September 2015, we booked a one day tour to Armenia. This trip took us to Lori province in Armenia, which actually is pretty close to Georgian border. During this trip we had a stops at Haghpat monastery, Sanahin monastery and Akhtala monastey.
It turned out that at our final destination place - the Akhtala monastery, a barbecue festival was held. At start I did find it a bit strange - a barbeque and a monastery? Well... why not?
Akhtala monastery in Armenia
If you will look closely into above picture you will notice the smokes, that's because of barbeque is being prepared
Road to Akhtala Monastery
There were a lot of tourists both local and foreign that day…
One of the most interesting attractions in Georgian resort town of Borjomi is a cable car leaving from Mineral Water Park and heading uphill offering lovely and scenery views of Mineral Water park. Sometimes it's just enough to take that ride here to enjoy those scenery and beautiful views of Borjomi.
Cable car station in Borjomi
There is actually just one cable car available at this station. Price for a ride per person 3 GEL (as on September 2015)
Cable car interior
For me it looks this cable car stays here back from Soviet era days, but it has been at least once totally renovated back in 2005.
Glass dome house in Borjomi Mineral water park
Actually, that's…
On September 19th, 2015 First meeting of Georgia Expat Photographers Club happened. As some of you already know - in the middle of this Summer Johann approached me with his idea to create a photo/travel club, and back then we established a community on Facebook. Read more on that here: Georgia Expat Photography Club
Since our community was established on Facebook (if you are up to for something in Georgia, then Facebook is your best friend) we quickly gathered critical mass of fellow expats and photographers and just logical that our next step was to plan some meeting to discuss further things and plans.
Georgia Expat Photography Club members
At the start of…
Total lunar eclipse was fully visible in Tbilisi, Georgia on September 28, 2015 between 05:07 and 06:55 (Tbilisi time). I must admit that I really enjoy photography, but I had never ever done anything like this (photographing lunar eclipse) before. This night was one of the strangest and mysterious nights I have experienced this year (at least) - what was meant to be just a photography turned ou to be a man's rescue from cold waters of Mtkvari river. (Spoiler: This story has happy endings).
Here is the story:
At first I was totally not into this thing - I slept well, and then without reason we woke up at around 4:00 AM. Hmm, OK, that sometimes happens... Then we…
Welcome to the another digital photography school tutorial on understanding focal length.It's not so long away when I entered magical world of Digital SLR photography, until then I was using simple compact sized cameras and did with them a simple thing - photographed things.Well, things changed when I bought Canon EOS 1200D camera (Read: First Impressions Of Canon EOS 1200D Camera With 18-55mm Lens), then I started to improve my photography skills. Since the camera I bought came with a kit lenses (18mm-55mm) I was left with what I got. Those lenses are perfect, don't get me wrong, but I started to look for ways how to get a closer shots. I have heard other photographers…
If you are heading to a remote Latvian village Cirava, you have few options to make your visit pleasant here, like there are very interesting but abandoned manor complex and a lovely church.However, local residents at Cirava has something else to offer for both local and foreign travelers - a rhododendron garden located in territory of cemetery.
Well, if you are hoping to see here something like Keukenhofs tulip gardens, then .. then go to the Netherlands, here in Cirava you will find a small (selected) selection of rhododendrons, it's about 150 plants here. Opened just back in 2010 this garden park has some bright future prospects of attracting travelers from neighboring…
In this post you will learn why I decided to take a personal 365 days photo project challenge and how I'm planing to complete it.
What is a 365 Project?
There are many different 365 projects, but they all share one goal in common: taking at least one photograph every single day, for a full year. Many photographers take that idea one step further to including taking, and posting, at least one photograph a day for an entire year. Some people start 365 projects on January 1st, but you can begin one at any time. Read more: Jumpstart Your Photography – Start a 365 Project
I like challenges and I really like to challenge myself. It was not so long ago, when at the start of October 2013, I…
Akhtala monastery was our third and last stop during our short one day trip to Armenia, before returning to Tbilisi. Prior to Akhtala monastery we visited Haghpat monastery and Sanahin monastery. The truth is - our trip was made especially to visit Akhtala because of a barbeque festival was held here. I will cover some details (and photos) about that festival in some of the next blog posts, but today I decided to share some photography I captured here at Akhtala.
Just like Haghpat and Sanahin monasteries, Akhtala monastery is located in province of Lari in Armenia (close to Georgian border). However, unlike Haghpat and Sanahin which are plain Armenian Apostolic church elements,…
Sanahin monastery is located in province of Lori in Armenia, close to Georgian border. Sanahin monastery was second site we visited during our short one day trip to Armenia, just shortly after we visited Haghpat monastery.
I was so eager to master a photography using my DSLR camera and a tripod (it's damn hard to use a tripod in 30 minutes sightseeing tour) so I didn't actually paid much attention on history a local guides were telling about this place. After all I prefer to do Wikipedia search after or before, but not on site.
So it's all about photography this time, for the first time I have used Adobe Lightroom to edit (fine tune) my images, but unfortunately I was not shooting in RAW…
Bad things happens time after time, and so did happened to me recently - after a longer pause I resumed work on a customers project, and I faced a problem - I had lost my password for accessing my Linode VPS. I must admit that I panicked a lot. Since this happened second time in a 3 years, I decided to wrap up a simple article to help me and others to quickly get connected back to our servers.
Interested in Linode VPS? You can actually have a Linode VPS starting as low as $10.00/mo
In this article you will learn how you can reset your password using Linode's dashboard, how to enter Lish Ajax Console for applying changes and how to change password using SSG for existing user…
Haghpat monastery, together with Sanahin monastery, are placed on UNESCO's World Heritage List since 1996.
At the start of September we booked a one day tour from Tbilisi to Armenia, and I had chance to visit both Haghpat and Sanahin monasteries. Since this time I was less into history, more into photography, that's what I exactly did - I photographed both places. Today I will start with photography of Haghpat Monastery in Lori province.
Landscape at Haghpat monastery
Look at the fog! I really enjoy days like this - it's green, there are mountains covered in lovely fog.
Haghpat Monastery complex
The location of Haghpat Monastery was chosen so that it…
Gardenia Shevardnadze is a lovely garden of ornamental plants, located close to the Tbilisi Sea, where you can buy seedlings for your yard, balcony, terrace, home, or office. Or just enjoy a tranquil afternoon.
I first discovered Gardenia Shevardnadze back in 2014 while Cycling to Tbilisi sea and back
We have been returning to this place ever since. Sometimes with a tripod, sometimes not. Sometimes for macro photography, sometimes just to enjoy a good cup of coffee at the onsite cafeteria. If you are into photography, then you will enjoy Gardenia Shevernadze just as I did.
Little Cafe at Gardenia Shevardnadze
Although this is a place where some can buy plants, it'…
Cirava Evangelic Lutheran Church is located in historical region of Courland in Latvia. Cirava church is closely located to Cirava manor complex, those of you traveling to Latvia and especially to Courland, it's woth to pay a visit to Cirava as well.
Cirava Church
This massive church has been built in 1780-1781, and had been rebuilt in 1876 and 1888. The church is known for its exquisite Rococo altar, pulpit and organ. Read more (In Latvian)
Architectural monument
Cirava church
View to Cirava church from distance
Now, this was a quite interesting experience discovering a small village in western Latvia (region of Courland) - Cirava.I was so fascinated about this place that I decided to make two separate articles - one for the manor complex and the second for the church. Today I will write about the manor complex which actually seemed abandoned for me, but as it turns out it's actually sold to some Italian investor for about EUR 700 000 back in 2014. So seems this is money you should have in your pockets to acquire a badly managed manor complex in Latvia.Cirava manor complex in LatviaOriginally built for blue blood German barons - rulers of lands which now are part…
Although this monument in Liepaja (in seaside park) is dedicated to the sailors and fishermen perished in the sea I decided to add this place in military heritage category, because for me it kinda reminds something from Soviet military. Well actually this is a great example of Latvian architecture, as it turns out it's designed by local Latvian designers Alberts Terpilovskis and Gunārs Asaris.
Anyway - once in Liepaja, this place is a worth of visit.in case you are heading for a lazy walk on seaside park you will definitely notice this monument and hopefully enjoy views from its stairs.
View to the monument form park
Not the best picture I managed to capture here, too much light…
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