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Think being a Muslim on this planet is not easy? Try being a Muslim in orbit. For starters, which way do you face while praying? (And how do you lay down your prayer rug?)
Sheikh Muszaphar Shukor of Malaysia, a crew member on the 16th mission for the International Space Station, is lifting off to space today in a Russian Soyuz spacecraft, Wired reports. The ten day trip will take place during the holy month of Ramadan.
Being a devout Muslim, the astronaut is planning to do what he has to do. To start with, he will fast. Where will he face while praying, you ask?
Malaysia's space agency, Angkasa, convened a conference of 150 Islamic scientists and scholars last year to wrestle with this and other burning questions and published "A Guideline of Performing Ibadah (worship) at the International Space Station (ISS)". According to the report, determining the qibla (a direction a Muslim should pray toward Mecca) should be "based on what is possible" for the astronaut, and can be prioritized this way: 1) the Ka'aba, 2) the projection of Ka'aba, 3) the Earth, 4) wherever.
Like many other travelers, I usually don't spring for the easy-to-reach canonical tourist destinations. It's not that I feel that I'm better than Cancun or a Royal Caribbean cruise around the Dominican Republic, it's just that I feel like I should go to the difficult places while I still have the energy and wanderlust to get there.
Many of these places, though, have stringent visa requirements. And let's get something straight before I continue: you need a visa for any foreign country that you visit -- it's just that most places you can get a stamp at the border or can get waved through without stamps or papers. Trust me, when your 90 day tourist visa is up you'll still be in trouble, regardless of the country you're in.
But to go places like China or Russia it's necessary to apply and get a visa before you leave the country -- often times several months before you leave. This can be as simple as sending your passport into your local consulate or as difficult as paying some draconian service to take your passport into the embassy, fill out the forms and charge you a hundred bucks for their "service." Luckily, CNN has compiled a comprehensive list of countries in which you'll need visas in advance and procedures to get them.
My advice: plan ahead and go to the consulate in advance yourself. You may have to jump through a few extra ridiculous hoops to get your visa, but that's more time that your passport is in your hands and not in the hands of a middleman who could potentially lose the most important document that you own.
Today marks the 50th year anniversary of the day the space satellite Sputnik was launched into orbit by the Soviet Union. That day the space race was on.
These days, if you have the money to do it, it's not uncommon to travel to space on a private venture. That's what Richard Garriot is going to do next year. He'll be the 6th private citizen to have this ultimate get-a-away experience.
Not to be outdone by their oil-rich colleagues in the Middle East, semi-oil rich Russia is now creating its own Slavic version of Dubai's The World complex.
The World, as you might remember, is a manmade archipelago fashioned in the shape of our planet. The Russian version is slightly more nationalistic in scope and will be designed in the shape of Russia itself.
Federation Island, as it is expected to be called, will be located off the coast of Sochi, the future site of the 2014 Winter Olympics. Although the nearby mountains are a wonderful winter paradise, the beaches they overlook are Russia's most famous and beloved. The 6.2 billion dollar investment in Federation Island hopes to capture some of that sentiment and become a second home to Russia's upper class and deep-pocketed tourists--especially those visiting for the Olympics in 2014 when the project is expected to be completed.
Russia's national carrier, Aeroflot, has made a lot of progress in the last few years. Once abhorred by the general public as a "dangerous" carrier (although their record is no more tarnished than any domestic airline), a few new Airbus aircraft, superjets and an international advertising campaign have surged the company into the present. Now you too can enjoy the paltry legroom in coach, paper-thin seats and an indifferent, completely hostile ground crew.
But Aeroflot has one juicy perk that most other carriers don't have: a delightful communist past. And though most of the crew and staff are tight lipped about the Soviet days, some of their aircraft ooze it.
It seems that everyone who has flown Aeroflot, the Russian airline, has some sort of crazy story, either from takeoff (pilot sitting on a crate of beers), landing (wheels falling off), or mid-air (the doors not being completely closed causing the cabin to get freezing cold). Those could all be urban legends, but the truth is, their planes tend to be old. All this could change very soon.
Russia just introduced their brand new plane: Sukhoi's Superjet 100, the first Russian commercial airliner designed since the end of the Soviet Union. As a mid-range passenger liner with 75 or 95 seats, it will compete directly with Brazil's Embraer and Canada's Bombardier. Good news, folks.
Flying Aeroflot, assuming they will purchase these planes, might just become as boring as flying any other airline!
A Russian woman has given birth to a baby girl weighing 17.5 pounds, more than twice the average newborn weight.
"We were all simply in shock," reported the baby's mother, Tatyana Barabanova. "My husband couldn't say a thing - he just stood there blinking."
The baby girl, Nadia, was by delivered by Caesarean section at a hospital in the Altai region of Siberia, and will be joining her eight sisters and three brothers.
All of Tatyana's previous babies weighed more than 11 pounds.
"We don't have the money for special foods so I just ate potatoes, noodles and tomatoes," added Tatyana.
Several news agencies are reporting on the story of a 15-year-old Russian boy who climbed onto the wing of a Boeing 737 and hung on for two hours as the plane flew 800 miles to Moscow.
Is it even physically possible to hold onto something when traveling at over 500 miles per hour especially when the temperature routinely drops down to -58 Fahrenheit at cruising altitude? "His arms and legs were so severely frozen that rescuers were at first unable to remove his coat and shoes," according to the Russian News and Information Agency.
I have a hard time believing it, and so does the Moscow Times. Its report reads a bit differently:
"A 15-year-old boy is recovering with severe frostbite after hiding in the wheel well of a plane flying from Perm to Moscow, Tvoi Den reported Monday."
That sounds a little more likely. Even so, the wheel well can be a very dangerous place to hide, and many people have been found dead while attempting to stow away. He's a lucky kid.
The subway, like most modes of transport, is designed to get people from point A to point B. And that's about it.
For the most part, the subway is the most anti-social place on our planet; commuters disappear into their own little world when they sit down and almost never talk to anyone. It's the unwritten law.
Some partygoers in Moscow, however, recently decided to deviate from the norm and turn their subway train into a party train. As you can see from the above photo, they've managed to set up a bunch of tables and even prepare a feast to commemorate the passing of a favorite local poet.
Can you imagine stepping into the subway and coming across this party? Hilarious. I'll bet no one even bothered to come up with a law preventing such an activity.
Thanks go out to English Russia for spotlighting such a great idea. Let's spread the word and make subway parties a regular part of commuting around the world.
There is no better subway in the entire world than the Moscow Metro. I've said this many times in various posts here on Gadling, but this time I have something to back up my statement: a YouTube video.
Well, actually, it's more of a slide show set to classical music, but it's still one of the best visual examples of what the metro is like.
Before you scoff and ask yourself why anyone would spend five minutes watching a slide show of subway trains come and go, realize that the Soviets created the subway system as an enormous propaganda piece, showcasing that art and culture of the USSR. What the slide show depicts is not trains, but rather stations--exquisite stations made of fine marble and populated with statues, mosaics, paintings, artwork, and a slew of other fine craftsmanship that one would expect to find in a museum and not buried deep underground in a subway station.
So, take five minutes out of your life to amaze yourself over the one thing that the Soviets did right; if only we in the West could emulate this today, I think a lot more of us might consider taking public transport on a daily basis.
The Blacksmith Institute yesterday released a new list of the "Worst Polluted Places" in the world. This year the places spread out over 7 countries and effect over 12-million people. In Vapi, India, for instance, "Local produce has been found to contain up to 60 times more heavy metals (copper, chromium, cadmium, zinc, nickel, lead, iron) than non-contaminated produce in control groups," according to the Blacksmith Institute. Appetizing. Here's a list of the top 10 sites, along with a map containing the "dirty thirty."
If you happen to be in Ulyanovsk, Russia today, man are you in luck!
In an effort to boost Russia's sagging population, the local government has proclaimed Wednesday, September 12, to be Family Contact Day.
What does that mean, exactly?
Well, today is exactly nine months before Russia's national holiday on June 12. Anyone who pops out a baby on that day will be awarded a 'valuable prize." Last year, one lucky mother won a brand new car for giving birth on this special day.
Officially dubbed, "Give Birth to a Patriot on Russia Day," the pseudo-holiday is nothing more than a gentle reminder to go home and boink. In fact, according to the Moscow Times, the local governor has asked companies to give their employees the day off to help accomplish this patriotic act.
While the Forbidden City is forbidding Starbucks, the global coffee chain finally opened its doors in Russia two years after it won a legal battle to protect its brand in the Russian market. It took long enough. McDonald's has been there since 1990, so I'm surprised it took Starbucks over 10 years to set up shop in Russia.
The shop is located in a Mega shopping mall in Khimki, just north of Moscow. The company plans to open another shop on Moscow's historic Stary Arbat street before 2007 is up, but is keeping mum on further expansion plans.
My prediction? It won't be long before Starbucks shops pop up across Russia like pimples on an adolescent's face.
Congrats go out to Jim Lee and Kyle for correctly identifying this as the holocaust memorial "behind the Great Patriotic War Museum" in Moscow.
The memorial can be found within Victory Park, an enormous complex in the suburbs of Moscow which houses a Russian Orthodox church, a synagogue, a mosque, a rather large museum detailing the events of World War II, a one-ton memorial obelisk standing 140 meters tall, and this 8-meter tall, memorial to the victims of the holocaust. This sobering Tragedy of Peoples is a haunting portrayal by controversial Moscow sculptor Zurab Tsereteli.
Victory Park itself isn't the first place on most tourist itineraries. In fact, most visitors probably never make it out this far from the city center. The park, despite its morbid themes expressed in a variety of artistic ways, is still a very nice place for a stroll as well as an opportunity to observe locals enjoying themselves on a sunny afternoon. Many Russians come here to just hang out, skateboard, and drink. It's an odd mixture of paying respect to the war dead and seizing the day.
Have you ever tried to get anything done -- report theft, start a business, get a driver's license -- in Eastern Europe? If so, you will appreciate what Alexander Kuzmin, the 33-year old mayor of a Siberian oil town of Megion, is trying to do: make bureaucrats more friendly.
If they banned these in all of Eastern Europe, state employees would become officially mute. And they say Russia is not progressive. Pretty soon, their bureaucrats might even smile!
Think being a Muslim on this planet is not easy? Try being a Muslim in orbit. For starters, which way do you face while praying? (And how do you lay down your prayer rug?)
Like many other travelers, I usually don't spring for the easy-to-reach canonical tourist destinations. It's not that I feel that I'm better than 
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It seems that everyone who has flown Aeroflot, the Russian airline, has some sort of crazy story, either from takeoff (pilot sitting on a crate of beers), landing (wheels falling off), or mid-air (the doors not being completely closed causing the cabin to get freezing cold). Those could all be urban legends, but the truth is, their planes tend to be old. All this could change very soon. 
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