Blog Archive: September 2014

Baltic States vs. South Caucasus GDP Comparison: 2012-2013

10 September, 2014 | Macroeconomics | 24 seen

A while ago, I compared the GDP of Baltic nations with Caucasian nations using data from 2012. As we are now in the second half of 2014, it's time to revisit this comparison using the most recent data available from the World Bank for 2013.

Some might argue, "Why compare these regions?" Well, why not?

Country

2012 ($bln)

2013 ($bln)

Growth ($bln)

Azerbaijan

68.73

73.56

4.83

Lithuania

42.34

43.82

1.48

Latvia

28.37

29.61

1.24

Estonia

22.37

24.47

2.10

Georgia

15.84

16.12

0.28

Armenia

9.95

10.43

0.48

Total

187.6

198.01

10.41

The largest economy among these six former Soviet Union countries in 2013 was Azerbaijan, with a GDP of $73.56 billion. The smallest economy was Armenia, with a GDP of $10.43 billion. Given the ongoing military conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh, Armenia faces significant economic challenges. Armenia's economy is approximately seven times smaller than…

My Sighnaghi Travel Guide

9 September, 2014 | Travel guides | 153 seen

Georgia teaches one important lesson—everything is relative. This was especially true during the last weekend of August. Following the trend of getting out of Tbilisi, we decided to book a hotel in the remote village of Napareuli (about 20 km from Telavi). On Saturday morning, we planned to take a marshrutka to Telavi and then a taxi from there.

First things first—I found out that marshrutkas to Telavi leave from Samgori. We took a taxi to the station, but the driver insisted we needed to go to Isani instead.

At Isani, there were no marshrutkas going to Telavi. After advising the taxi driver not to be a smart-ass, we finally drove to Samgori.

Unfortunately, we missed the 11:00 marshrutka and had to wait another 45 minutes. No way were we going to do that. Instead, we quickly found another marshrutka going to Sighnaghi.

My Georgian geography is above average, but not quite good enough to realize that Sighnaghi was not where we needed to go.

Still, we headed to Sighnaghi, as the driver assured us there would definitely be another marshrutka from there to Telavi. So wrong. Never trust…

13 Best Dell Laptops - Buy Online From Amazon

8 September, 2014 | Laptop Reviews | 112 seen

Meet 25+ great laptops from DELL available on Amazon.

For years Dell laptops have been known as reliable business computers. Nowadays Dell builds not only business laptops, but also gaming laptops, Chromebooks, and of course simple but powerful everyday-use machines. 

In this post, I've listed some popular user buy choices you might like to consider before buying your brand-new Dell laptop. 

Alternatively see: Top 20 Best Selling DELL Laptops in 2023

A quick note: This article contains affiliate links to Amazon.com, by clicking on links on this page and by making a purchase on Amazon site, I might earn an affiliate income from that. Prices for laptop computers listed on this page are retrieved using Amazon Product Advertising API and is updated daily. For actual prices please refer on the product page on Amazon.

• 12GB high-…

Average Salary in Former Soviet Union 2014

7 September, 2014 | Macroeconomics | 21 seen

Some time ago I did a comparison of minimum government set wages in Former Soviet Union republics. Today, I decided to figure out - what is the average salaries in those republics.

I must admit, it was harder to gather data about average salaries, than gathering data for minimum wages. Seems governments are not eager to share such data. So in this average salary table you will find figures for 2012, 2013 and 2014. Unfortunately it makes this table not 100% reliable, but it gives us some overview.

Again,…

Top 10 Largest Countries by GDP 2013

6 September, 2014 | Macroeconomics | 7,407 seen

Last year I started to pay more attention to the TOP 10 largest economies in the World by terms of Gross Domestic Product. It's time to compare them again.

Top 20 Largest Economies In The World by GDP Nominal (2019)

Data source:World Bank

What makes me surprised - Japan. Japan has experienced 17.44% downgrade of it's economy. Since…

Estonia To Catch Up Income Level like in Scandinavia in next 9-14 years

4 September, 2014 | Emerging Markets | 25 seen

Last year I red an excellent article pointing out that income level in Estonia could reach level its in Scandinavia in next 10-15 years. Although this article made me smile, I decided to compare - is it real for Estonia to reach level like that? 

Since its almost a year since  I wrote that article - I decided to compare again and see how Estonia is doing in it's already 9-14 years plan to reach that level.

In my measurements I'm using raw data for GDP, GDP per capita, I could use minimum wage as an indicator as well, but since there is not set a government minimum wage in Scandinavia, it would be harder to compare. Although there is a minimum wage in Estonia - and in 2014 it was set to EUR 355/ USD 480

According to Wikipedia - Nordic countries are:

The Nordic countries are a geographical and cultural region in Northern Europe and the North Atlantic. It consists of five countries (Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden) as well as their autonomous regions (the Åland Islands, the Faroe Islands and Greenland).

For sake of the ease of…

My Online Income Report - August 2014

3 September, 2014 | Blogging | 17 seen

This is already my eight Online Income report this year - covering my online income for month of August 2014.

In brief - August so far has been the absolute best in terms of online income. In total I earned $95.03 what is a 343% growth if compared to last month ($21.41) In absolute numbers I earned $73.62 more than in previous month. $95.03 makes average $3.06 per day, what is up from $0.69 last month.

For me such a leap is a great achievement, and I'm very proud of myself.

In fact - last month I earned more, than in previous seven month combined.

Now, there is a one pattern I have noticed - Affiliate pays of more better than contextual ADS like Google Adsense.

In August I have done Google Adsense and three affiliate marketing promotions - Booking.com, Hotels.com and Amazon.

I have found following:

• Google Adsense makes pennies - but I'm fine with that
• Hotel industry is just way too competitive - in hour days it's hard for a small blogger to compete with major brands
• Amazon is my best finding last month, in fact most of the…

Blog Traffic Report - August 2014

2 September, 2014 | Blogging | 9 seen

Month of August was good in terms of my blog traffic. Comparing to previous month (July) my blog's traffic has increased by 15.98% of unique visitors, totalling in 2,584 (2,228 in July).

I have managed to attract 356 more unique visitors this month, if compared to previous month.

Blog Traffic Report August (Data source: Google Analytics)

• 2,584 unique visitors makes average 83.35 unique's a day, what is up by 11.55 visitors in a day, compared to month of July (71.8)
• In total there were 12 days this month, I got more than 100 unique's in a day
• The least visitors, as usual, I got in weekends, the day with less visitors got me 50 unique's

One of my success cornerstones are  - continuously posting every day with minimum of 500 words per article. In fact last month I have written 37 articles, with average 1047 words per article, in total making more than 38K words. This is my absolute personal best. Compared with month of July - total word count has increased by 52%. It's pretty much I…

Top 5 Asus Gaming Laptops for Hardcore Gamers

1 September, 2014 | Laptop Reviews | 8 seen

Asus is a well-known brand in the gaming laptop market, offering a wide range of options for gamers who are looking for high-performance machines that can handle the latest games with ease. In this article, we will take a closer look at some of the top Asus gaming laptops that are available on the market.

Disclaimer: Please note that this article contains affiliate links to Amazon. This means that we may earn a commission if you decide to make a purchase through our links, at no additional cost to you.

The Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 is a powerful gaming laptop with a 14-inch Full HD display. It is powered by an AMD Ryzen 9 4900HS processor and has an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 graphics card, which can handle the most demanding games with ease. The laptop also has 16GB of RAM and a 1TB SSD, making it a top-performing machine for gamers.

The Asus ROG Strix Scar 17 is a high-end gaming laptop with a 17.3-inch Full HD display. It is powered by an Intel Core i9-11900H processor and has an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 graphics card, which can handle even the most…