Inequality of Minimum Wages in Former Soviet Union: An Updated Look in 2014

21 July, 2014 | Macroeconomics | 13 seen

It has been six months since I last analyzed the minimum wages in the former Soviet Union. Although it is not a major factor in economic growth, the minimum wage is still a relevant indicator in understanding a country's economic status.

In my previous research in 2013, I found that Estonia had the highest minimum wage of $427, while Kyrgyzstan had the lowest at just $17 per month. In this updated analysis for 2014, the highest minimum wage is still in Estonia, with an increase to $480, and the lowest is still in Kyrgyzstan, but with a slight decrease to $16 per month.

The Baltic States, specifically Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, remain at the forefront of the minimum wage table. The gap between Estonia and Lithuania is a substantial $89, indicating significant differences even among countries in the same region. It is noteworthy that minimum wages in some countries, such as Russia, Kazakhstan, Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia, Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzstan, have decreased instead of increased. However, it is not necessarily due to the government's decision to cut down the minimum wage, but rather the devaluation of their national currencies against the USD.

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Georgia Plans To Have Full membership in EU in 5-10 Years (2014)

20 July, 2014 | Emerging Markets | 18 seen

Recently Georgia signed Association Agreement with EU, which includes Free Trade Agreement with the EU as well. Georgian Politicians were so happy, that they rushed to announce some great plans - and so the MP of Georgia announced, that Georgia is eager to have full EU membership in the next 5-10 years. 

So far so good. 

On the other hand, the newly elected president of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker has already announced, that he is not willing to see any enlargement in European Union for the next 5 years, mainly because none of the existing candidate's countries could fulfill the requirements to join EU in next 5 years. 

Since Georgia is not even a candidate country for full EU membership - it's hard to believe that Georgia could join in the next 5 years.

So it might be 10 years then? 10 years sounds more realistic, but again, I'm not so sure regarding this also.

My understanding is that Georgia one day might become a member of the EU is only after or together when Turkey will join the EU (if that gonna happen at all). 

Now, since I'm a more practical guy, liking some…

Cycling Tbilisi - Night Ride - Tbilisi Old Town

19 July, 2014 | Outdoor Activities | 7 seen

This ride was an extended versions for ride I made a few days ago - Dinamo Arena - Dibude. And again - evening (night), with hopes there will be less people in the streets and less vehicles. Wrong, Wrong, Wrong.

Seems, Tbilisi never sleeps - and speaking of night cycling in this Caucasus city- it seems even more dangerous than cycling bt day - in day there are at least traffic jams, making overall vehicle movement  slow - by night - there are less cars (of course), but they drive twice as crazy as they do in days.

Not to speak about pedestrians - they never watch where are they going, they don't care are they on the pathway or in the middle of street - anyway- traffic in Tbilisi sucks.

We started our rode at Marjanishvilli street, headed down to Rose Garden, to take a look at newly opened open air cinema. Turns out they show movies here in exchange of - you must spend 10 GEL for coffee - another neat Georgian marketing trick. After stop at Rose's Garden we continued our ride heading to Dry Bridge, before that we turned right and went straight…

16 Best Batumi Beach / Seaside Hotels

18 July, 2014 | Hotel reviews | 59 seen

Batumi offers plenty of hotels over there. If you are into getting some tan at pebbled Black Sea coast beaches, you might like to have a comfortable rest after it.

Choose your hotel among the best available in Batumi. Prices among the best hotels in Batumi will vary starting from 100 GEL ($57/ EUR 42) and will go up to 360 GEL ($205 / EUR 150) or higher.

While you are in Batumi, consider Batumi Real Estate Crypto Investment

From my personal recommendations from Batumi hotels I have stayed so far, I should note Batumi Hilton and Batumi Radisson hotels. For a family friendly budget stay I can highly recommend Best Western Premier Hotel

Here is the list with some of the best beach/seaside hotels in Batumi

This property is 3 minutes walk from the beach. This 5-star hotel is located in Batumi city centre, 200 m from the Black Sea Coast. The Sheraton Batumi offers a spa area with indoor and outdoor swimming pools.

Free Wi-Fi and a flat-screen TV are included in all rooms at the Sheraton Batumi Hotel. The spacious rooms also feature chic, modern design and a…

Cycling Tbilisi Embankment - evening ride - Dinamo Arena - Didube

17 July, 2014 | Outdoor Activities | 14 seen

Yesterday was a hot day, it was about 37 Celsius, and I offered to make a cycling after 9:00PM, but we agreed to ride at 7:00PM, at first we stopped for some chicken barbecue at 11 Katkha restaurant near Dinamo Stadium. It turned out - yesterday Georgian National Football team played against Kazakhstan, since our favourite restaurant is located right next to Dinamo Stadium, it was full with folks eager to have a drink before the game.

That's another interesting observation -  about 95% of folks there - ordered just beer, and we were left with bad service - although we ordered some food instead of beer. And I believe our total cheque was the same as 10 beer drinkers. But we received 10 times worst service. Georgians tend to serve beer first - this is a pattern I have noticed living in Georgia.

Anyway - after meal we started to wheel. Our route was not new for us - but this time I used Map My Ride Android App, to map this ride and measure the distance (previously I had no clue - how long is this route).

We started from Dinamo Stadium, then headed down to embankment, did some problems crossing the street to get to pathway, but after some 5-8 minutes of…

Using Custom Channels in Google Adsense

16 July, 2014 | Blogging | 74 seen

Custom Channels is a great way to measure performance for your Google Adsense ad units, and it's a great way to get more targeted ads for your websites. In this article I will explain how you can use Custom Channels to track which ad units performs better, and how to sell those ad units for potentiall bidders.

Let's login to our Google Adsense account and head to My ads section, then in the left sidebar you will find - Custom Channels section, click on it

My Google Adsense Custom Channels

We are allowed to create up to 500 Custom Channels in Google Adsense, what is fairly enough for me, who is having some 5-6 websites.

Before you are creating your Custom Channel - I suggest that you have created your Ad units already. My method I preffer working with Google Adsense is to Create a sepperate ad unit for each website and position. For example, on this blog I have 3 ad units (top of the content, bottom of the content and right sidebar) - I'm not using these 3 ad units on any other site.

Now, I have created 3 Custom channels for each of my ad units - you are not obligatory to follow my way - I have done this, just to…

How to create URL channels in Google Adsense

15 July, 2014 | Blogging | 61 seen

I have been using Google Adsense for almost 5 years already, first 4 and a half years I didn't paid much attention for it. I mean I was not paying attention for better implementation, CTR, CPC and other things. I just put Adsense code to my webpages, did some small blending stuff and was sitting back and waited when cash will flow in. It didn't!

And then I started my blog - I can tell just one - after I started my own blog, I started to pay attention for more details. In short time I raised my CTR from 0.5% to 1.5-2%, I started to target more paying keywords, and I increased (a little) my CPC rate. Although my highest earnings from Google Adsense in one month haven't reached more than $16 - I'm happy with results - because those results happened just last month.

By learning more techniques, serving more content, I have been able to raise my earning from Google Adsense.

Since I have more web properties than just my blog, where I'm serving Google Adsense, I wanted to have better overview  how each website performs on it own. One option is inside Google Adsense to filter sites and see your overview, but that's a little time consuming.

I have installed…

Rafting in Georgia - Khertvisi - Aspindza - Borjomi

14 July, 2014 | Outdoor Activities | 31 seen

Some time ago we find some offer on Facebook offering rafting tour in Georgia for 2 days - on Mtkvari river. Tour included raft, safety wests, oars, overnight in tents. It sounded pretty good, and we decided to claim this offer. Said - done!

Our rafting tour started Saturday morning from Tbilisi (minibuss waited for rafters next to Radisson Blue and it was supposed to leave Tbilisi at 9:00 AM)

As usualy doing something unexpected I don't plan it very detailed - for me it was clear - it's rafting, what should I plan here? I'm paying my money - and everything rest is handled by organizators.

We started our trip to our destination place - Khetvisi fortress:

In above map you can see our route - according to Google maps the distance from Tbilisi to Khetvisi fortress is about 211 km and time to drive 2 hours and 51 minute. We made this route in 5 hours. Well we did stop to take some scenic views:

Update:

One of the team members - Bogdan Egikov, pointed that my map is not precise, he gave me route according to his records:

Stop in mountains

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Flights to Mestia from Tbilisi will resume starting July 18th by Service Air

14 July, 2014 | Living in Georgia | 13 seen

<p>Today I red splendid news on Georgian news - <a href="http://newsgeorgia.ru/economy/20140714/216770339.html&quot; target="_blank">starting July 18Th flights from Tbilisi to Mestia will be resumed</a> - and will be performed by Georgian flight company - Service Air.</p><p>According to news - the flights will happen 3 times in a week - Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Flight will leave Tbilisi at 11:00 and will return from Mestia 14:00. Ticket price will be 65 GEL.</p><p>I was so impressed and eager to visit Svanetia, I immediately called "Service Air" company - to make a reservation. Unfortunately women at the other end of phone - explained me - that they (Service Air) don't know anything yet, and full confirmation should be announced today/tomorrow. Answering on my question - yes, but the news are already in newspapers, she told me - that newspapers have rushed events.</p><p>Anyway - that's great news - and I do believe flights will resume to Mestia soon. It's awaited that flight duration will be about 45 minutes - that's just brilliant - instead of 7-8 hour drive by car -…

Vazhatravel.com - tours and travel in Georgia

13 July, 2014 | Drupal Development | 11 seen

Vazhatravel.com was a Drupal-powered site a built for a friend. Vazha Travel offers one of the best rates for tours and transfers in Georgia. With Vazha Travel you can order airport transfer from Tbilisi airport to the Tbilisi city centre as low as 25 GEL (Most taxis at Tbilisi airport will ask you more), so do you can book a transfer to and from Kutaisi or Batumi airport.

The further developments of Vazhatravel website has been canceled, though the service is still available, feel free to contact Vazha by phone numbers listed in this article or visit VazhaTravel Facebook page, alternatively see: Organized tours in Georgia

This site is built with Drupal 7 under its hood, and its expected to use the multilingual feature on it soon. It's awaited to add Russian, Polish and other languages. Right now it's more just the "core" with more functions to come in future.

Vazha Travel front page.

One of the features I wanted to build into this site - booking function - availability for customers to book online tours and transfers. For such a behavior I'm using simple, but yet powerful combination of Drupal nodes and node…

How I turned my Instagram account into a Photo Blog

12 July, 2014 | Drupal Development | 13 seen

In April I bought my first ever "smartphone" - Android phone with Dual SIM... It actully has WI-Fi router built in and in days I have no "ground" Wi-FI I can use Mobile Internet to connect to my laptop. Anyway - I'm very satisfied with my first Android phone.

I must admit I'm using phone for it's sole purpose - to call, but that has changed - with my new Android phone - I'm using few apps on it (Google Adsense, Google Analytics, some news apps and Instagram).

Some already probably knwo - I'm an expat in Georgia (South Caucasus), when I first arrived here, more than 3 years ago. I arrived already with an aim - to build Travel site for Georgia. Since I didn't know anything about this amazing country - I decided this will be amazing expierience. To put my Drupal knoweldge together with something exciting - exploring a new country from A-Z.

I wanted to build something fancy, something cool - I wanted to build kinda a Lonely Planet site for Georgia alone. I believe I created a really good job in terms of site architecture. Site involved complex structure, it used XML feeds to Parse Flickr, Wikipedia, it had geotagged content attached to almost every node.…

18 Kutaisi Hostels That Won't Break Your Travel Budget

11 July, 2014 | Hotel reviews | 13 seen

<p>Kutaisi although second largest city in Georgia, comes with pretty bad infrastructure. In 2012 new Kutaisi airport was opened in Kutaisi (actually it's located some 30 km out of Kutaisi city centre). Wizzair cheap avio flights come to Georgia, new routes from Kiev, Warsaw, Vilnius and other destinations has been added and new hostels popped like a mushrooms after a rain in Kutaisi. These hostels are not typical hostels with standards you might seen somewhere else in Europe. Most often they come with basic necessities. My observations - that many owners of Kutaisi hostels are Ukrainians. I guess the reason is Kiev-Kutaisi flights.&nbsp;</p><p>Anyhow - &nbsp;if you are one of the "lucky ones" arrived at Kutaisi airport, and are desperate finding an accommodation for your future discoveries in rest of Georgia, then here is the list with:</p><p><strong>18 Hostels in Kutaisi with price less than 50 GEL for 2 persons per night.</strong></p><p><strong><br></strong></p><h2 class="item"><span id="hp_hotel_name" class="fn"><a href="http…

Setting my first Booking.com affiliate goal

10 July, 2014 | Blogging | 11 seen

I'm new to affiliate marketing and I'm new to Booking.com affiliate marketing. Although I have been using Booking.com affiliate marketing for more than one year already - I haven't made much of it. But that doesn't mean this affiliate marketing program sucks. That means - my affiliate marketing tactics sucks. And I have decided to change that. To make changes we must change our behaviour. It so simple. If I want to succeed with Booking.com affiliate marketing - I must define some goals at first.

I could now write down - how I plan to get 80K in a year from Booking.com - but I wont do that. That doesn't mean I wouldn't be happy to make 80k with Booking.com, what it means - I'm to small to make such a money in such a short time. Instead I will write how I plan to send my first 50 visitors in a month to Booking.com site.

Yes, that's right -

I'm not talking right now for any actual bookings, I'm talking to drive traffic to my site(s) to drive traffic to Booking.com

Why my goal is so modest?

As I already…

Former Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze died at 86

7 July, 2014 | Living in Georgia | 17 seen

<p>Today at 12:00, Tbilisi time - former president of Georgia Eduard Shevarnadze after continues illness has died.&nbsp;</p><p>Many including me - remember Eduard Shevarndadze not only as president of Georgia, but also as a foreign minister of Soviet Union. There were time Mr. Shevernadze was considered second person after Mikhail Gorbochov in USSR.</p><p>Eduard Shevernadze after collapse of Soviet Union became a 2nd president of Georgia in 1995 and held his position till 2003, when resigned from office after Rose Revolution, which led Mikheil Saakashhili in power.</p><p>There has been many talks about Mr. Shevernadze impact on Soviet Unions foreign policy as well his role in newly independent Republic of Georgia. But one is for sure - such an important political figure be hard to find soon in Georgia.</p><p>Taking in consideration that Mr. Eduard Shevernadze was not in active politics for last decade, he was considered prominent consultant. I remember some time ago I red an interview with Eduard Shevernadze, where &nbsp;- quote:</p><blockquote><p>Mikheil Saakashilli was best gift Russia could dream…

Feature Film Mayrig Review

7 July, 2014 | Worth to Watch | 63 seen

Mayrig is a feature film about Armenian immigrant family living in France, shortly after they have emigrated from their motherland - Armenia. Set on the streets of 1920-ties in Marseilles, France this film shows different aspects of life and struggles of an Armenian family.

You can access this movie on Youtube

A chapter or some 30 minutes is dedicated to Armenian Genocide in 1915 - when Ottoman empire humiliated, starved and mass killed a large population of Armenian people.

Mayrig movie is about a mother. As far as my Armenian language knowledge reaches - Mayrig, means mother in the Armenian language. 

The story is told by young Armenian boy - Azad Zakairian, who later becomes a famous director of theater and changes his name to Pierre Zakar. He never forgets his native Armenia.

There is a great scene in this film when young Azad together with other French schoolboys attends Sunday school at French Catholic Church, and pastor impacts to schoolboys - There can be no forgiven without Catholics Church,  young Azad silently in his thoughts replies to the pastor:

Armenian Apostolic church was built 17 centuries…