I try to avoid self-referential posts and indeed have only done one such post dissecting the contents of my server logs in the past - over three years ago! - that I can recall, in which I wrote:
- A visitor from an IP address associated with Ketchum Communications - providers of "really smart PR" to the Russian government - arrived here based on a Google search for abkhazia map 2008
- A visitor from the socom.mil domain (that would be the US military's Southern Command) arrived here based on a Google search for Black Sea Caucasus blog
I know this is a sad excuse for a post - whenever weblogs resort to navel-gazing like this, I usually roll my eyes and navigate away. But I hope that my regular readers - all 5 of them - will indulge me just this once.OK, twice. Anyway, I've noticed in perusing my server logs that people sometimes visit from interesting domains, and sometimes the search terms which lead those visitors here are illuminating. For example, just in the past week or so:
- A visitor from an IP address associated with Ketchum Communications - providers of "really smart PR" to the Russian government - arrived here based on a Google search for abkhazia map 2008
- A visitor from the socom.mil domain (that would be the US military's Southern Command) arrived here based on a Google search for Black Sea Caucasus blog
- A visitor from NATO's Allied Command Transformation (domain name act.nato.int - interestingly, Statcounter still identifies the IP address as associated with SACLANT, although the reorganization of SACLANT into ACT took place 8 years ago) arrived here based on a simple Google search for a not-so-simple guy: rogozin
- A visitor using a computer on the NY Times' network found us while googling first for nashi and mishki and then just for mishki - it also seems one NYT reporter, who shall remain nameless, found this blog while googling himself
- Visitors from imedia.ru - a domain associated with the publisher of the Moscow Times - arrived here recently searching for moscow blog and abkhazia cement
- And someone visiting from pentagon.mil liked the map of Achara that I posted so much that they checked out the blog's archives for the past three months.
[Update July 15]
One more interesting one from yesterday:
- Someone visiting from the aommz.com top-level domain, which belongs to the flagship of Transnistrian industry, the Moldovan Metallurgical Factory, searching for itera usmanov.
[Update July 23]
OK, I guess I'm going to use this post to catalog a couple more interesting hits from recent days:
- Someone visiting from house.gov, a.k.a. "Information Systems U.s. House Of Representatives," searching for russophobia
- Someone visiting from the State Department, searching for rumsfeld foundation four [sic] central asia
- And this interesting search conducted by someone visiting from Ireland (a bit of an inside joke for the family of SRB commenters)
3 comments:
i know who was looking for abkhazia cement. if you happen to know anything about plans to build cement factories in abkhazia, let me know and i'll put you in touch with that person.
Joy, I don't have any inside sources of info on that subject - I based the one or two posts on related issues that I've done on relatively mainstream media like IWPR, if I recall correctly. A couple of sources that might not come up high in the Google or Rambler results that I suggest for background:
1. the International Crisis Group reports on Abkhazia - they may have had another one out recently, and they do look at things like economic factors, although I'm not sure if they addressed the cement factories.
2. There is an outstanding blog, cyxymu.livejournal.com, where such issues are raised once in awhile and where the regular commenters often have fairly unique insider-y insights.
One more thing I would say is that - since it seems unlikely that someone in Abkhazia would talk to a Moscow journalist - it might pay to try to find more talkative people in Moscow who are close to Luzhkov, who seems to be heavily involved in this sort of "Russo-Abkhazian economic cooperation."
And another angle to pursue may be a rumor I've heard that cement factories (or perhaps just one cement factory) in Transdniester are also getting Sochi-related orders. You can give the person my email if they want to follow up more, but the bar exam is in about 10 days now, so I can't promise I'll be particularly responsive until the start of August.
cool, thanks. good luck with the bar!
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