Hi, I'm Rauf Aliev.

Today marks exactly one month since I decided without any apparent reason to stop eating anything containing sugar and flour. It’s certainly not possible to completely eliminate both, but I managed to ensure that the bulk of my calories come from other foods. The hardest part was learning to drink unsweetened tea and not to eat the crispy crusts of freshly baked bread in restaurants. Pastries, cakes, and candies have never evoked much of a feeling in me. As a result, I don’t eat sandwiches and don’t drink various colas. Now, cola seems so “bleh” that I wouldn’t drink it even if I was dying of thirst:) Beer, noodles in soup, and sugar in pickled chili don’t count as restrictions.

As a side effect, almost five kg down.

http://lifehacker.ru/tag/zdorovoe-pitanie/

Early in the morning I had English, translating a fairy tale. Here’s a little task for you: how would you translate the phrase “Жалко старику старуху, жалко сына и дочку.”?

See, that’s just how you are. You took a big piece for yourself and left me a small one.

– And what would you have done?

– I would have taken a small piece for myself.

– Well then, why are you yelling? I gave you exactly that.

Thought it was the perfect time to watch some horror movies, so I watched James Wan’s The Conjuring (2014) in its original version. Scary and interesting. Supposedly based on real events.

Should I also watch his Insidious? Saw? What other movies of this kind should I definitely watch? Suggestions?)

http://www.kinopoisk.ru/film/468994/

Interesting facts. Before posting here, I made sure to fact-check. Overall, everything looks close to the truth, see the links below.

— In 2 years, China produced more cement than the USA in the entire 20th century. From January to December 2014, China’s cement industry produced 2 billion 476 million tons of cement. And over the last two years, 4 billion 890 million tons (4.9 gigatons). In recent years, the USA produces about 80 million tons of cement per year (30 times less than China), Russia produces 65 million tons.

— The length of roads in China is 4 million kilometers. It is the largest road network in the world. The recent growth rate is about 10 thousand km of expressways per year.

— 300 thousand bridges across the country, of which 1000 are longer than a kilometer. And by 2016 a bridge from Hong Kong to Macau will be built.

— Every year, the number of cars increases by 20 million, and in Beijing, you can only enter if the last digit of your license plate is allowed on that day.

— Every year, 100 airports are built.

— Huge viaducts, 150 km long (Danyang–Kunshan Grand Bridge). Or consider a tunnel that is 32 km long (New Guanjiao Tunnel).

— A train from Guangzhou to Guiyang crosses 510 bridges and 236 tunnels at a speed of 250 km per hour in one hour.

— Over 30 years, the Chinese have increased the residential area of the country by 8 times.

— In 10 years, China will have 220 cities with a population of more than 1 million people.

A very interesting article – “China’s Cement Meters”, http://aftershock.su/?q=node/311149

“Until 1957, there had been no bridges across the Yangtze River. The ‘First Bridge’, as it is called, was built in 1957 in cooperation with engineers from the USSR. However, they had to leave before finishing the work due to emerging political disagreements between our countries. The bridge has two levels — a railway track on the lower level and a four-lane highway on the upper level. Additionally, there is even a museum on the bridge that tells the story of the creation of the first crossing over the Yangtze River. Possibly, the future bridge in Crimea will be somewhat a copy of this bridge.

Now there are about 80 bridges over the Yangtze River, including more than 10 bridges that are world record holders in various categories. Such as: the largest arch bridge in the world, the largest concrete arch bridge, the largest double-deck railway viaduct, the largest double-deck railway bridge, etc.”

“The colossal leap in the development of HSR (high–speed rail) over the last 10 years has been made by China, leaving its closest competitors from Europe and Asia far behind. China now has the largest network of high-speed and very high-speed railways in the world, exceeding those in Japan and Europe combined. The vast network of high-speed railways gradually covers all of China, and huge viaducts extend up to 100–150 km in length. The Danyang-Kunshan Viaduct, part of the Beijing–Shanghai HSR with its 165-kilometer length (of which 9 kilometers are laid directly over Yancheng Lake) — is absolutely the world leader.”

“The current urbanization in China is a colossal and unprecedented process in scale in history. The living space per capita in cities has increased from 4 square meters in 1980 to 31.5 square meters in 2010, although this is much less than in the USA (65 square meters per person), it is already more than in Russia (24 m2 per person).”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cement_industry_in_China

http://www.statista.com/topics/1195/cement/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_road_network_size

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/fedb9308-8501-11e3-8968-00144feab7de.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_long_tunnels_by_type

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_in_China_by_population

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danyang%E2%80%93Kunshan_Grand_Bridge

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hong_Kong%E2%80%93Zhuhai%E2%80%93Macau_Bridge</p

Interesting facts.

— In 2 years, China produced more cement than the USA in the entire 20th century. From January to December 2014, China’s cement industry produced 2 billion 476 million tons of cement. Over the past two years, 4 billion 890 million tons (4.9 gigatons). The USA in recent years produces about 80 million tons of cement per year (30 times less than China), Russia 65 million tons.

— The length of roads in China is 4 million kilometers. This is the largest road network in the world. The recent growth amounts to about 10 thousand km of expressways per year.

— 300 thousand bridges across the country, of which 1000 are longer than a kilometer. And by 2016, a bridge from Hong Kong to Macau will be built.

— Each year, the car fleet increases by 20 million vehicles, and in Beijing, you can only enter if the last digit of your vehicle registration number is allowed that day.

— Every year 100 airports are built.

— Huge viaducts, 150 km in length. Or consider a tunnel that is 28 km long.

— A train from Guangzhou to Guiyang passes 510 bridges and 236 tunnels at a speed of 250 km/h in one hour.

— In 30 years, the Chinese have increased the country’s residential area eightfold.

— In 10 years, China will have 220 cities with a population of more than 1 million people.

Speaking of healthy eating: from 1994 to 1999, my daily diet in the dorm consisted mainly of the following products: bread, fried potatoes with pork scratchings, pasta fried with pork scratchings, pork fat, alcohol (beer, wine, etc.), tea and coffee. And no problems at all with excess weight or health) remember, Andrey Koryavchenko, Svyatoslav Kulikov?

Bought carrots and apples at McDonald’s for 1000 rubles/kg.

Passed by a minor accident involving a coach and a car in a village near Solnechnogorsk. And it got me thinking.

So, if a driver with CASCO insurance gets slightly scratched by a coach full of weary miners, am I right to think that the drivers of both vehicles start collectively waiting for the traffic police to provide a report for insurance purposes, while the passengers get off the fully functional bus and either walk through the woods to the next mode of transport or wait inside? It seems to me that a driver with a scratch won’t get off easily.

“An affront to the sacred.” An “Immortal Regiment” advertisement posted at my daughter’s school. I simply cannot understand how people who died over 70 years ago in a war saved my life or anyone else’s, and even more so – our children’s lives. The key word here is “saved”. It seems to me that they saved the lives of many of their contemporaries, but certainly not those of 21st-century schoolchildren.