russia

Nikolai Vasiliev, 57, is a Russian sports teacher with a passion for cross-country skiing… a passion that drove him to invent skis that don’t require snow. Vasiliev says he thought up the idea for summer skis about 40 years ago, but until recently, didn’t have the time to develop them.… Read the rest

Apparently, a PR group in Russia thought it would be a good idea to send a donkey (of all animals) to parasail over the ocean as a promotional stunt.
As the reporter in this video states, “Witnesses report hearing the terrified animal bray as it flew over the sea for… Read the rest

We here at Wend are pretty darn lucky to live in a place like Portland. Not only are our streets fairly bike friendly, but our city is also devoting some—though there is room for a lot more effort—energy towards eco-friendly ideas.
But one of the greater reasons that we (or… Read the rest

In the 1995 comedy Canadian Bacon (written and directed by filmmaker Michael Moore), Niagara Fall Sheriff Bud B. Boomer (John Candy), frustrates fans at a Canadian hockey game by refusing to sing the country’s National Anthem. But it isn’t until he takes a sip of Canadian beer and exclaims, ‘Man,… Read the rest

The tallest house in Archangelsk, Russia is nothing short of grotesque, but that doesn’t stop its builder, one-time gangster Nikolai Sutyagin, from fighting the state’s repeated attempts to bulldoze his self-titled “eighth wonder of the world”.
Sutyagin’s home is a building only in the most rudimentary sense of the word:… Read the rest

There are three dogs that spend their days with us here at Wend HQ, and each of them has a special way of reminding us of its presence. Porkchop, the eldest of the bunch, is a stubborn old land shark who likes to whimper his way into staff members’ lunch… Read the rest

Splashing around in water is fun. And no matter where you are on this grand planet of ours the rule is the same: if there is enough water people will find a way to have fun in it.
In his fly-fishing masterpiece The River Why… Read the rest, Oregon author David James

It sounds like something out of a crappy science-fiction flick, but Zurab Mikvabia, director of the Institute of Experimental Pathology and Therapy in Georgia, hopes to send a monkey to Mars. In collaboration with Russia’s Cosmonautics Academy, the Institute plans to prepare monkeys for a mission simulation that could result… Read the rest

Comic genius Mitch Hedberg used to say, “An elevator can never break; it can only become stairs.”  Unfortunately Mitch died in 2005. But unlike escalators and drug-addled comics, a well-crafted set of stairs can survive for centuries.
Through all the differences in culture and geography that permeate our world, one… Read the rest

In Russia this week police arrested three vagrants suspected of eating a 25-year-old man they had butchered and selling other bits of the corpse to a local kebab house.
According to Reuters:

Suspicions were raised when dismembered parts of a human body were found near a bus stop in the … Read the rest

The tranquility of the ice rink was disrupted in Russia today when a circus administrator was killed by an ice skating bear. Reports say it is unclear what caused the bear to attack, but it is most likely the result of the bear becoming pissed off at the irony of… Read the rest

Just when I thought pirates were out of the news I came across this juicy tidbit…

Luxury yachts in Russia are offering pirate hunting cruises in the dangerous waters off the coast of Somalia with the hope of being attacked.
Passengers pay about $5,000 to patrol and can pay an … Read the rest

Russian adventure-seekers have found a new way to pass the time. For lack of a better name, we will refer to it simply as what it is: group train-dodge rope-jumping over solid ice. Here’s how it works…
1. Find a train bridge with a frozen river beneath it (possibly for… Read the rest

Ever since we beat them to the moon, our comrades in the frozen North (just across the water from Sarah Palin’s house) have seemed determined to get back at us. They have tried several methods. First the Cold War, then Ivan Drago and most recently using their influence in Central… Read the rest

From Volume 2 Issue 1
In 1992, Eugene Buchanan, publisher and editor of Paddler… Read the rest magazine, traveled with three friends to the former Soviet Union, joined up with a group of Latvian paddlers they’d never met and ran one of the hardest, most dangerous rivers in Russia, the Bashkaus. A few