Thank you all for your wonderful birthday greetings! I had a lovely day, a rest day from the road. Thanks to my host Wiesław Sosnowski
and his wife Iwona for their kind hospitality! Also to Andrzej for
baking a birthday cake for me! Wieslaw used to live in Ireland and won
many marathons including the Longford marathon three times.
There were so many wonderful messages from almost every corner of the world, all six continents! What can I say... I am so lucky to have so many thoughtful friends. Many of you mentioned my world walk. I was not sure how many of you were following it. I only decided to do it last Christmas and eventually set out two months later, so there were a lot of people I didn't contact. Anyway, hoping you can all follow my walk around the world and post some likes from time to time and visit the website www.myworldwalk.com
Update: I am actually heading for a little know place in Europe that many people, including experienced travellers have never heard of! Did you know that there is a tiny exclave, not an enclave; a piece of Russia that is cut off from the motherland? Where is this mysterious place? Well it's surrounded by the European Union, and still very few people know of it! I was astonished when I heard this podcast (link below) on the Right Hook Show last year. Listen to the shows host George Hooks tone of incredulity as he discusses it with his travel adviser, Manchan Magan. Immediately, I said that I have to go! I hope to be in that part of Russia on Saturday, it's called Kaliningrad! I have my visa, but, I worry about potential red tape. Its about 200km across for me and then I walk to Lithuania, Latvia and then back to Russia for the real deal, about five months there. Please wish me luck, I hope you will stay for the remainder of my walk around the world!
Please click on this link to listen to this short fascinating podcast of Kaliningrad and I have also researched some information.
https://player.fm/1NQsDm
"The Russian exclave of Kaliningrad on the Baltic Sea is sandwiched between Poland to the south and Lithuania to the north and east.
Annexed from Germany in 1945, the territory was a closed military zone throughout the Soviet period.
The German population was expelled or fled after the war ended.
Kaliningrad was one of the most militarised and closed parts of the Soviet Union. It is still of great strategic importance to Moscow. It houses the Russian Baltic Fleet at the port of Baltiysk and is the country's only ice-free European port. During the Soviet period, agriculture was a key industry. The market for Kaliningrad's produce was largely dismantled with the collapse of the USSR, causing the economy to nosedive in the early 1990s.
Unemployment soared and poverty became very widespread, particularly in rural areas. Organised crime and drugs became increasingly problematic.
In a bid to tackle the region's problems, in 1996 the Russian authorities granted it special economic status and tax advantages intended to attract investors. The region's economy benefited substantially.
Kaliningrad underwent an unprecedented boom.
The region began to see increasing trade with the countries of the EU as well as increasing economic growth and rising industrial output.
However, the global financial crisis of 2008-9 affected the region badly, and by the beginning of 2010 unemployment had climbed to over 10% - considerably higher than the Russian average."
There were so many wonderful messages from almost every corner of the world, all six continents! What can I say... I am so lucky to have so many thoughtful friends. Many of you mentioned my world walk. I was not sure how many of you were following it. I only decided to do it last Christmas and eventually set out two months later, so there were a lot of people I didn't contact. Anyway, hoping you can all follow my walk around the world and post some likes from time to time and visit the website www.myworldwalk.com
Update: I am actually heading for a little know place in Europe that many people, including experienced travellers have never heard of! Did you know that there is a tiny exclave, not an enclave; a piece of Russia that is cut off from the motherland? Where is this mysterious place? Well it's surrounded by the European Union, and still very few people know of it! I was astonished when I heard this podcast (link below) on the Right Hook Show last year. Listen to the shows host George Hooks tone of incredulity as he discusses it with his travel adviser, Manchan Magan. Immediately, I said that I have to go! I hope to be in that part of Russia on Saturday, it's called Kaliningrad! I have my visa, but, I worry about potential red tape. Its about 200km across for me and then I walk to Lithuania, Latvia and then back to Russia for the real deal, about five months there. Please wish me luck, I hope you will stay for the remainder of my walk around the world!
Please click on this link to listen to this short fascinating podcast of Kaliningrad and I have also researched some information.
https://player.fm/1NQsDm
"The Russian exclave of Kaliningrad on the Baltic Sea is sandwiched between Poland to the south and Lithuania to the north and east.
Annexed from Germany in 1945, the territory was a closed military zone throughout the Soviet period.
The German population was expelled or fled after the war ended.
Kaliningrad was one of the most militarised and closed parts of the Soviet Union. It is still of great strategic importance to Moscow. It houses the Russian Baltic Fleet at the port of Baltiysk and is the country's only ice-free European port. During the Soviet period, agriculture was a key industry. The market for Kaliningrad's produce was largely dismantled with the collapse of the USSR, causing the economy to nosedive in the early 1990s.
Unemployment soared and poverty became very widespread, particularly in rural areas. Organised crime and drugs became increasingly problematic.
In a bid to tackle the region's problems, in 1996 the Russian authorities granted it special economic status and tax advantages intended to attract investors. The region's economy benefited substantially.
Kaliningrad underwent an unprecedented boom.
The region began to see increasing trade with the countries of the EU as well as increasing economic growth and rising industrial output.
However, the global financial crisis of 2008-9 affected the region badly, and by the beginning of 2010 unemployment had climbed to over 10% - considerably higher than the Russian average."
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