Hotels in north hollywood
North Hollywood, CA
2014.06.18 02:16 North Hollywood, CA
North Hollywood, aka NoHo, is a neighborhood in the San Fernando Valley region of the city of Los Angeles, California. It is home to the NoHo Arts District, the Academy of Television Arts, and a buncha cool people.
2009.08.05 02:37 MamsTaylor Road Trip!
/roadtrip is your source for everything road trip related. Whether you enjoy traveling by motorcycle, car, or recreational vehicle this is your destination for everything related to road trips!
2014.06.18 02:05 sometimes_correct North Hollywood, CA
NoHo = North Hollywood, California (in Los Angeles) - Please post in /NorthHollywood!
2023.06.05 15:20 Late-Firefighter578 [REQ](&150) - (#rochester, Kent, uk)(repay & 200 on 6/17)(Bank Transfer) Daughter needs rehab appointment I need to stay in a hotel close to her. Have had a loan before and repayed and an easy transcation
submitted by Late-Firefighter578 to u/Late-Firefighter578 [link] [comments]
2023.06.05 15:19 reddnegade I am from Mandi, visiting manali-spiti for a day or two. Need a Zostel
Since I'm a local , I'm not a big fan of hotels. If anybody can suggest a good Zostel please . For two guys either in manali or in spiti.
submitted by reddnegade to HimachalPradesh [link] [comments]
2023.06.05 15:18 JoeMcBob2nd Moving to Spokane within the year. Any apartments without a laundry list of prerequisites to move in?
Me and my partner live in NorthEast Arkansas right now and we’re sick and tired of the weather and MAGA bullshit and are looking to move to Spokane for better laws, urbanization, and cheaper rent than somewhere like Seattle.
We’re looking at a lot of apartments but so many of them require 3 previous landlord references, proof of stable income, etc. Pretty much everything we can’t do due to the fact we’re moving across the entire country to come here.
Any tips for what to do or recommendations for low requirement apartments would be appreciated
submitted by JoeMcBob2nd to Spokane [link] [comments]
We’re looking at a lot of apartments but so many of them require 3 previous landlord references, proof of stable income, etc. Pretty much everything we can’t do due to the fact we’re moving across the entire country to come here.
Any tips for what to do or recommendations for low requirement apartments would be appreciated
2023.06.05 15:17 bestnjplumber Plumber in North Brunswick, NJ
Are you searching for a licensed plumber in North Brunswick, NJ who has the expertise in restoring the well-being of your plumbing system? R.A. Nichols Plumbing & Heating offers complete plumbing services such as e-maintenance. repairs. Additionally, we provide emergency plumbing services and new installations. Call us at (609) 948-8829 to schedule your service,
submitted by bestnjplumber to u/bestnjplumber [link] [comments]
2023.06.05 15:16 roleplay_oedipus_rex Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan - a review so you don't have to
Background: I've been traveling for almost three years, working remotely for 2 1/2 of them and ended up in Kyrgyzstan because a Portuguese guy in Skardu, Pakistan recommended I visit Song-Kul. I was also interested in Bishkek as a place to work from in the future since I've heard rumblings that it's a good place to do so - umm what?? lol. I speak Russian fluently so this part of the world fascinates me and I thoroughly enjoyed my time in Uzbekistan in September so I figured I'd check it out again.
First things first, most importantly - WiFi: Is good, one of the very few good things about Bishkek. Much better than wifi in Uzbekistan. Think 50-70mbps.
Accommodation: I am staying in a decent hotel in the center for less than $20 a night. Just checked Airbnb prices and they are... waaay overpriced. Probably due to an influx of Russians and also believe it or not there are quite a few tourists in Kyrgyzstan, a lot more than I anticipated that likely are the cause of the ridiculous prices.
Food: Groceries and street food are on the cheap side, you can buy water and bread for a fraction of a dollar, samsa for like 75 cents and shawarma for less than $2. Eating out in restaurants can cost about $6 consistently. The restaurants aren't that good though in my opinion.
Getting around: There are buses that are probably a fraction of a dollar but I've been using Yandex (local Uber, there is also another app for taxis that I haven't used) and that runs about $2 a trip. Not really a walkable city.
Things to do: Work. Yeah... almost nothing to be honest, ranks up there for most boring cities I've been to. There is a main square that isn't anything special, a few museums, a market and that's about it. Most of the stuff worth visiting Kyrgyzstan for is outside the cities, Song-Kul was very beautiful and same with Fairy Tale Canyon. Burana is a short ride away. Everything else is better accessed by renting a car in my opinion and is difficult to get to so I'd say this country is much better to visit for a short time as a tourist rather than doing weekend trips from cities (the cities are pretty depressing).
Language: Russian will get you far, some people in speak English but I wouldn't expect to have an easy time with it. People in hospitality will be able to speak it. Outside of Bishkek and in the more rural parts, there is more Kyrgyz with supplementary Russian (maybe less the more remote you are).
Currency: No issues using my Betterment debit card withdrawing money but basically everywhere accepts cards.
Nightlife: There are bars and clubs, I haven't gone to any because I am not interested in that at the moment.
Dating: Yeah, nothing to write home about. If you've been to Latin America or Southeast Asia you will have to lower your expectations.
Climate: It's pretty hot at the moment and will likely get a lot worse during the summer months, but it'll be good in the mountains.
Getting out: For shorter distances, you can use Yandex for the easiemore expensive route. Otherwise, marshrutkas/shared taxis will run about $1 an hour and there are bigger buses as well although they are a less popular option. Hitchhiking is also pretty easy but there sometimes is the expectation that you will pay about the same as the marshrutka price. Issyk-Kul is a huge lake that is nice to swim in with some natural sites around it (Fairy Tale Canyon, Ala Kul, and so on). Song-Kul is about six hours away and can be done with a tour (8150 som or ~$93 for two days one night with everything included from Kochkor) or you can drive up there with a regular car during the summer months.
Expats/Digital Nomad scene: Many remote workers from Russia working out of Bishkek as well as a few other international nomads. Sierra Coffee Manas Ave is a good spot.
Final Thoughts: Like I said, Bishkek is not a place I would work from and I'm not sure why anyone would recommend it as it is extremely boring. However, Kyrgyzstan is great if you're a nature lover with beautiful lakes and tons of mountains and parks and opportunities for hiking. People are on the friendlier side.
If you still have questions after reading all of this, feel free to ask and I'll do my best to answer. Cheers.
submitted by roleplay_oedipus_rex to digitalnomad [link] [comments]
First things first, most importantly - WiFi: Is good, one of the very few good things about Bishkek. Much better than wifi in Uzbekistan. Think 50-70mbps.
Accommodation: I am staying in a decent hotel in the center for less than $20 a night. Just checked Airbnb prices and they are... waaay overpriced. Probably due to an influx of Russians and also believe it or not there are quite a few tourists in Kyrgyzstan, a lot more than I anticipated that likely are the cause of the ridiculous prices.
Food: Groceries and street food are on the cheap side, you can buy water and bread for a fraction of a dollar, samsa for like 75 cents and shawarma for less than $2. Eating out in restaurants can cost about $6 consistently. The restaurants aren't that good though in my opinion.
Getting around: There are buses that are probably a fraction of a dollar but I've been using Yandex (local Uber, there is also another app for taxis that I haven't used) and that runs about $2 a trip. Not really a walkable city.
Things to do: Work. Yeah... almost nothing to be honest, ranks up there for most boring cities I've been to. There is a main square that isn't anything special, a few museums, a market and that's about it. Most of the stuff worth visiting Kyrgyzstan for is outside the cities, Song-Kul was very beautiful and same with Fairy Tale Canyon. Burana is a short ride away. Everything else is better accessed by renting a car in my opinion and is difficult to get to so I'd say this country is much better to visit for a short time as a tourist rather than doing weekend trips from cities (the cities are pretty depressing).
Language: Russian will get you far, some people in speak English but I wouldn't expect to have an easy time with it. People in hospitality will be able to speak it. Outside of Bishkek and in the more rural parts, there is more Kyrgyz with supplementary Russian (maybe less the more remote you are).
Currency: No issues using my Betterment debit card withdrawing money but basically everywhere accepts cards.
Nightlife: There are bars and clubs, I haven't gone to any because I am not interested in that at the moment.
Dating: Yeah, nothing to write home about. If you've been to Latin America or Southeast Asia you will have to lower your expectations.
Climate: It's pretty hot at the moment and will likely get a lot worse during the summer months, but it'll be good in the mountains.
Getting out: For shorter distances, you can use Yandex for the easiemore expensive route. Otherwise, marshrutkas/shared taxis will run about $1 an hour and there are bigger buses as well although they are a less popular option. Hitchhiking is also pretty easy but there sometimes is the expectation that you will pay about the same as the marshrutka price. Issyk-Kul is a huge lake that is nice to swim in with some natural sites around it (Fairy Tale Canyon, Ala Kul, and so on). Song-Kul is about six hours away and can be done with a tour (8150 som or ~$93 for two days one night with everything included from Kochkor) or you can drive up there with a regular car during the summer months.
Expats/Digital Nomad scene: Many remote workers from Russia working out of Bishkek as well as a few other international nomads. Sierra Coffee Manas Ave is a good spot.
Final Thoughts: Like I said, Bishkek is not a place I would work from and I'm not sure why anyone would recommend it as it is extremely boring. However, Kyrgyzstan is great if you're a nature lover with beautiful lakes and tons of mountains and parks and opportunities for hiking. People are on the friendlier side.
If you still have questions after reading all of this, feel free to ask and I'll do my best to answer. Cheers.
2023.06.05 15:15 kbjone It's that time again...
While it's not quite the Stanley Cup Playoffs, college baseball's postseason is one hell of a trip with all kinds of twists, turns, and plenty of teams to point and laugh at from the first pitch of each regional to the glories of Omaha. (It's baseball, OF COURSE the crown jewel would be in the middle of... well, not quite nowhere, but close enough. As an LSU fan, it's that proverbial pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.)
-Without further adieu, let's cut to the chase with our first batch of eliminations. These teams are like those opening jobbers on Ninja Warrior, the ones who slip off the first obstacle and end up all soaked.
Northeastern, Florida A&M, Arizona, Lipscomb, Tulane, Eastern Illinois, Army, San Jose State, Maine, UNC-Wilmington, Oklahoma State*, Ball State, Auburn*, Wright State, Central Connecticut, and Nicholls State: Pack your shit up, and go home, you are ELIMINATED from the NCAA College Baseball Championship.
Now, why do two of those teams have stars by their name? Because not only did they lose two straight... they did so as the host team! #13 Auburn suffered the indignity of losing to Penn in their opener before getting sent home by Southern Miss. #11 Oklahoma State one-upped them by losing to ORAL ROBERTS... then getting Malcolm X curbstomped by DALLAS BAPTIST 18-4.
-With the jobbers out of the way, this next batch of teams comes up on the chopping block. One win is better than zero, but the end result is the same.
So... Maryland, UConn, Santa Clara, Clemson*, Sam Houston, Vanderbilt*, Oklahoma, Cal State Fullerton, UL-Lafayette, Rider, Washington, West Virginia, Samford, North Carolina, NC State, and Troy, you have been ELIMINATED. Kindly pack your stuff up and return home... unless you have a star by your name, as you're already home. And possibly being lynched by angry fans.
Once more, we get to point and laugh at a pair of teams. #4 Clemson, #6 Vanderbilt, you had visions of hosting Super Regionals dancing in your heads. And then you got concussed by Charlotte and Xavier after understandable losses to Tennessee (now officially Clemson's daddy) and Oregon. Go stand in the LOL corner and think about what you've done.
-Despite Mother Nature taking a piss on several regionals, even more teams have met their 2023 season's final resting place in the regional finals. Considering it takes two wins just to get that far, there's little dishonor in bowing out here. Usually. For this step, we'll give the losers a little extra blurb to honor their achievements this season. And there's still quite a few regionals wrapping up, so some TBDs are sprinkled in, they'll get their own post in the responses once they get their final marching orders.
-George Mason: If only you could have avoided the sudden juggernaut that is #1 Wake Forest. Outscored 27-1 in your two losses to them... but at least you're not Maryland who gave up three TDs in their one brush with death. -TBD 2: Florida survives becoming the top LOL by beating Texas Tech in the return match, today's the rubber decider between the two teams. -TBD 3: TCU holds advantage after beating #3 Arkansas 20-5, the Razorbacks now need to dig deep and win two straight to advance. -Charlotte: A very honorable departure, any time we get to point and laugh at Clemson is a WIN for everyone. Godspeed you crazy bastards, as Tennessee was just better than you. -TBD 5: All the rain in Baton Rouge, we're just getting to the regional final now with #5 LSU holding advantage over Oregon State. Personally: DON'T BLOW IT. I WILL BE MERCILESS IF YOU DO. -Xavier: Another honorable departure as you took #6 Vanderbilt down in dramatic fashion, then just had nothing left in the tank for Oregon. So be it, head home with your heads held high. -East Carolina: Meh. Being down to #7 Virginia was a death sentence, one you couldn't even delay. Oh well. -TBD 8: Another rubber match as #8 Stanford avenges an earlier loss to Texas A&M, forcing the decider back to today. My apologies to the unfortunately named Ty Uber, as your teammates picked up your starting DUD (4 runs, 5 hits, 1 out) with interest. -#9 Miami: LOL. You needed two straight to advance, and started the first game well with a 3-0 lead over Texas. And then the third inning happened. Nine runs given up, and your season is OVER. Go into the LOL Corner for your sins, and tell Clemson and Vanderbilt to stop crying for fuck's sake. -TBD 10: #10 Coastal Carolina beats Duke in their first meeting, forcing a decider this afternoon. Would be one hell of a recovery from losing your opener to winning your home regional, just one win to go. As for Duke... nobody will feel bad for you if you lose. -Dallas Baptist: Helping humiliate #11 Oklahoma State is good, and helping Oral Roberts get the "regional sweep" is even funnier. Have an honorable trip home, don't feel too bad. -TBD 12: #12 Kentucky blows Indiana out 16-6... unfortunately it still only counts as one win, offsetting your earlier 5-3 loss to them. One more game for the regional title... -TBD 13: The two teams that combined to let us all laugh at #13 Auburn once more face off in a decider, Southern Miss with momentum after beating Penn 11-2 yesterday to avoid elimination. -Iowa: Eh, #14 Indiana State had your number both times. At least you did the same to North Carolina, I guess? -Campbell: Avenging your loss to NC State will have to suffice, #15 South Carolina had no interest in losing at home. At least you scored seven? -Boston College: #16 Alabama wasn't losing in Tuscaloosa, carry on. If only Nicholls State had won that opener...
-From 64 teams, we're down to 23. Seven more will be sent home... hopefully all today, if Mother Nature can get her irregular bladder under control. Sixteen will move, or have moved, one step closer to Omaha; all that stands between them and the College World Series in Omaha is a simple best of three this coming weekend.
Just remember the most important rule of the college baseball playoffs, same as every other playoff: DON'T! GET! ELIMINATED! Or do, we all need teams to point and laugh at.
submitted by kbjone to UrinatingTree [link] [comments]
-Without further adieu, let's cut to the chase with our first batch of eliminations. These teams are like those opening jobbers on Ninja Warrior, the ones who slip off the first obstacle and end up all soaked.
Northeastern, Florida A&M, Arizona, Lipscomb, Tulane, Eastern Illinois, Army, San Jose State, Maine, UNC-Wilmington, Oklahoma State*, Ball State, Auburn*, Wright State, Central Connecticut, and Nicholls State: Pack your shit up, and go home, you are ELIMINATED from the NCAA College Baseball Championship.
Now, why do two of those teams have stars by their name? Because not only did they lose two straight... they did so as the host team! #13 Auburn suffered the indignity of losing to Penn in their opener before getting sent home by Southern Miss. #11 Oklahoma State one-upped them by losing to ORAL ROBERTS... then getting Malcolm X curbstomped by DALLAS BAPTIST 18-4.
-With the jobbers out of the way, this next batch of teams comes up on the chopping block. One win is better than zero, but the end result is the same.
So... Maryland, UConn, Santa Clara, Clemson*, Sam Houston, Vanderbilt*, Oklahoma, Cal State Fullerton, UL-Lafayette, Rider, Washington, West Virginia, Samford, North Carolina, NC State, and Troy, you have been ELIMINATED. Kindly pack your stuff up and return home... unless you have a star by your name, as you're already home. And possibly being lynched by angry fans.
Once more, we get to point and laugh at a pair of teams. #4 Clemson, #6 Vanderbilt, you had visions of hosting Super Regionals dancing in your heads. And then you got concussed by Charlotte and Xavier after understandable losses to Tennessee (now officially Clemson's daddy) and Oregon. Go stand in the LOL corner and think about what you've done.
-Despite Mother Nature taking a piss on several regionals, even more teams have met their 2023 season's final resting place in the regional finals. Considering it takes two wins just to get that far, there's little dishonor in bowing out here. Usually. For this step, we'll give the losers a little extra blurb to honor their achievements this season. And there's still quite a few regionals wrapping up, so some TBDs are sprinkled in, they'll get their own post in the responses once they get their final marching orders.
-George Mason: If only you could have avoided the sudden juggernaut that is #1 Wake Forest. Outscored 27-1 in your two losses to them... but at least you're not Maryland who gave up three TDs in their one brush with death. -TBD 2: Florida survives becoming the top LOL by beating Texas Tech in the return match, today's the rubber decider between the two teams. -TBD 3: TCU holds advantage after beating #3 Arkansas 20-5, the Razorbacks now need to dig deep and win two straight to advance. -Charlotte: A very honorable departure, any time we get to point and laugh at Clemson is a WIN for everyone. Godspeed you crazy bastards, as Tennessee was just better than you. -TBD 5: All the rain in Baton Rouge, we're just getting to the regional final now with #5 LSU holding advantage over Oregon State. Personally: DON'T BLOW IT. I WILL BE MERCILESS IF YOU DO. -Xavier: Another honorable departure as you took #6 Vanderbilt down in dramatic fashion, then just had nothing left in the tank for Oregon. So be it, head home with your heads held high. -East Carolina: Meh. Being down to #7 Virginia was a death sentence, one you couldn't even delay. Oh well. -TBD 8: Another rubber match as #8 Stanford avenges an earlier loss to Texas A&M, forcing the decider back to today. My apologies to the unfortunately named Ty Uber, as your teammates picked up your starting DUD (4 runs, 5 hits, 1 out) with interest. -#9 Miami: LOL. You needed two straight to advance, and started the first game well with a 3-0 lead over Texas. And then the third inning happened. Nine runs given up, and your season is OVER. Go into the LOL Corner for your sins, and tell Clemson and Vanderbilt to stop crying for fuck's sake. -TBD 10: #10 Coastal Carolina beats Duke in their first meeting, forcing a decider this afternoon. Would be one hell of a recovery from losing your opener to winning your home regional, just one win to go. As for Duke... nobody will feel bad for you if you lose. -Dallas Baptist: Helping humiliate #11 Oklahoma State is good, and helping Oral Roberts get the "regional sweep" is even funnier. Have an honorable trip home, don't feel too bad. -TBD 12: #12 Kentucky blows Indiana out 16-6... unfortunately it still only counts as one win, offsetting your earlier 5-3 loss to them. One more game for the regional title... -TBD 13: The two teams that combined to let us all laugh at #13 Auburn once more face off in a decider, Southern Miss with momentum after beating Penn 11-2 yesterday to avoid elimination. -Iowa: Eh, #14 Indiana State had your number both times. At least you did the same to North Carolina, I guess? -Campbell: Avenging your loss to NC State will have to suffice, #15 South Carolina had no interest in losing at home. At least you scored seven? -Boston College: #16 Alabama wasn't losing in Tuscaloosa, carry on. If only Nicholls State had won that opener...
-From 64 teams, we're down to 23. Seven more will be sent home... hopefully all today, if Mother Nature can get her irregular bladder under control. Sixteen will move, or have moved, one step closer to Omaha; all that stands between them and the College World Series in Omaha is a simple best of three this coming weekend.
Just remember the most important rule of the college baseball playoffs, same as every other playoff: DON'T! GET! ELIMINATED! Or do, we all need teams to point and laugh at.
2023.06.05 15:14 smh_00 Adelaide changes?
What are they doing on Adelaide in the west end? Near Bathurst it looks like they’re repainting to put lanes on north side? Why? Total mess right now with confusing lines everywhere.
The one area of the city that was clear, now seems…less so
submitted by smh_00 to torontobiking [link] [comments]
The one area of the city that was clear, now seems…less so
2023.06.05 15:13 RDR2germany hungry irony
(STORY MODE)
North of Valentine near the Dakota River, you'll find a cabin called Clawson's Rest. The first thing you notice is that all the windows have been boarded up from the outside. The door is also initially locked, but can be forced open with force. Inside, you immediately see two children lying dead in bed. Judging by their clothes, it appears that it was two boys and they have been lying lifeless for a long time. They have no injuries and one wonders what happened. There are empty tin cans and bottles all over the kitchen. In addition, in the house you will find the comic Otis Miller and the Arabian Prince, premium cigarettes, opened cocaine chewing gum, opened snake oil, ground coffee, two cigarette pictures and above all a note informing about what happened here. The note is from the mother to her sons Glen and Eddie. The mother writes that she is looking for the men who stole her money. The door is locked and the windows are boarded up. The children should not leave the house and should not open the door to anyone. They have food and drink at home for four days, but their mother would be back in a day. Since the front door and windows are still locked when you find the hut, it is clear that the mother has not returned home. The boys seem to have obediently waited for their mother for several weeks. All the groceries in the house have been used up, which shows all the empty cans. Unfortunately, the two boys died at some point for lack of food and drink and were too weak to get out of bed. What happened to the mother that she didn't come home to rescue her sons? And what men was she talking about? A newspaper report (Blackwater Ledger No. 68 or Saint Denis Times No. 49) may provide us with the answers. called "Warnings of Roanoke Ridge". The article mentions a woman named Agnes Henshaw who has been missing with her two sons for some time. According to the information, their looted car and battle scars were found in the Roanoke Ridge area. It looks like Glen and Eddie's mother fell victim to the Murfree brood and tried to fight back. Anyone who knows this gang can imagine what happened to the mother. What an irony in the game that the children starved to death while the mother herself became the meal for the Murfree brood 🫤
submitted by RDR2germany to reddeadredemption2 [link] [comments]
North of Valentine near the Dakota River, you'll find a cabin called Clawson's Rest. The first thing you notice is that all the windows have been boarded up from the outside. The door is also initially locked, but can be forced open with force. Inside, you immediately see two children lying dead in bed. Judging by their clothes, it appears that it was two boys and they have been lying lifeless for a long time. They have no injuries and one wonders what happened. There are empty tin cans and bottles all over the kitchen. In addition, in the house you will find the comic Otis Miller and the Arabian Prince, premium cigarettes, opened cocaine chewing gum, opened snake oil, ground coffee, two cigarette pictures and above all a note informing about what happened here. The note is from the mother to her sons Glen and Eddie. The mother writes that she is looking for the men who stole her money. The door is locked and the windows are boarded up. The children should not leave the house and should not open the door to anyone. They have food and drink at home for four days, but their mother would be back in a day. Since the front door and windows are still locked when you find the hut, it is clear that the mother has not returned home. The boys seem to have obediently waited for their mother for several weeks. All the groceries in the house have been used up, which shows all the empty cans. Unfortunately, the two boys died at some point for lack of food and drink and were too weak to get out of bed. What happened to the mother that she didn't come home to rescue her sons? And what men was she talking about? A newspaper report (Blackwater Ledger No. 68 or Saint Denis Times No. 49) may provide us with the answers. called "Warnings of Roanoke Ridge". The article mentions a woman named Agnes Henshaw who has been missing with her two sons for some time. According to the information, their looted car and battle scars were found in the Roanoke Ridge area. It looks like Glen and Eddie's mother fell victim to the Murfree brood and tried to fight back. Anyone who knows this gang can imagine what happened to the mother. What an irony in the game that the children starved to death while the mother herself became the meal for the Murfree brood 🫤
2023.06.05 15:11 haroldkebba I Think My Village Was Haunted By God... [Part 1]
I hope this is the right place and someone can tell me what may have been going on in my village. I moved here a few weeks ago. It's a small village in the heart of Russia and my parents and I came here because things start to get really bad in Moscow and my father lost his job. I don't know why we had to move to this isolated village, so far away from civilization. Maybe my parents wanted peace and quiet? To escape the things in that city, the poisoned minds?
The houses here had all been far below average in price. Almost everyone who lives here has moved here recently.
But, there are crazy rumors about this village that people tell each other. It was found abandoned in the mid-nineties. Where everyone went, no one knows. They say that no signs of people were found at all, nothing. But... everywhere in and around the village… strange patches of earth had been discovered, circular and smooth. Not only in the forest or on the road, but also in the dilapidated wooden houses. At our new neighbors' house, one of the mysterious spots had supposedly been found right in the living room floor, where the floorboards had been just cut away.
These rumors scare me. I am afraid of this village. But yesterday... I was redoing the floor in my room with my father and there... I found a notebook under the old boards. I hid it from my father, I don't know why... Someone must have left it there.
Last night... that's when I read it. I read it and now I'm incredibly afraid of this house and this village. Of the fields and the woods that surround me. The notebook apparently belonged to someone called Ilya Vasiliev. I have tried to translate what he wrote, hoping that someone here can help me find an explanation for the rumors. For this uneasy feeling that I have since I moved here...
***********
I am fine. I want that to be clear from the beginning. My story is strange and in huge parts troubling, but I am still in the best state of mental health.
I am fine!
My story begins seven months ago, in December 1979, when deep winter was upon our village. We were preparing for Christmas, the first Christmas to be celebrated publicly throughout the village, after years of having to practice our faith in secret because the Soviet government did not allow religions. Only in the last few years did the Reds' view loosen and they allowed small islands of faith. One of them was my village, which finally dared to celebrate and praise the Lord.
I have been a believer all twenty years of my life, an exemplary Christian, just like my parents. Faith had kept our family line alive in times of terror and misery. Death had always been close to us, as the fields where most of the population of our village had worked for generations had once brought the end of hundreds of people. Many years ago, on those fields, atrocities had occurred that had finally given them their present name: The Fields of Death.
I myself had not been born back then, not by a long shot, but my grandparents had spent their childhood there, a childhood full of hunger and depravity. My grandfather Fomenko often told me and my sister the stories he had experienced and how faith had saved everyone. There had been a long, cold winter and the grain had been confiscated by the government to be taken to the cities for distribution. After all, the grain belonged to all the people, not just those on the farms who planted it, tended to it, and harvested it. And so, the only food of that time left my grandfather's village and never came back. Some of his neighbors had once tried to hold back some grain, to hide some sacks, but when they were caught, a hail of bullets determined their fate. People lived in fear, not daring to stop working, not daring to keep for themselves the food that was destined for the common good. In those days, horrors happened in my village that I cannot truly picture today, not even when I hear my grandfather's usually clear voice begin to tremble. When I see in his eyes that he would rather forget, in order to experience a peaceful sleep once again… someday.
He told us about those horrors to warn us of how quickly life can plunge from safety into infinite terror. Winter had reigned. The grain was being hauled away. They still shot all those who tried to keep back pieces of it, be it a sack or some husks that had fallen from a cart. In time, hunger began to drive people in our village insane. Parents locked up their children so they wouldn't be taken by neighbors to feed their hunger. Friends turned their backs on each other and killed each other in fights for the last livestock that was still breathing. The streets reeked of decay and death, of misery and suffering. One day, my grandfather told us, he had hidden in the back room of his house while his parents dragged themselves, emaciated, to the fields to pick the last scraps of grain from the furrows with their dirty, half-frozen fingers. He had come across a book there, a book that had saved his life.
The word of God. An old Bible.
My grandfather had learned to read at an early age, one of the sad advantages of living in the Soviet Union.
It was in the room I now live in that Grandfather Fomenko had found the dusty book. Actually, he had been looking for something to eat, the days before he had found some sawdust. But despite his hunger and the grumbling in his stomach, eating the book was out of the question. Books were sacred, and no book as sacred as this one. He had begun to read and learned about the greatness of the Lord. Of the miracles his Son had performed. And of the magic of faith. His stomach had growled, but he had ignored it. The words gave him comfort.
The next day he immersed himself in the book again, disappearing into better worlds and times, hearing wisdom and encouragement. But around noon there was a knock at the door. My grandfather emphasized each time that he had not been afraid, that he had known that the Lord would protect him, when the old neighbor gained entrance to our house armed with a cleaver. It was clear what he wanted: Meat. My grandfather told us each time about how the neighbor had looked more undead than human, stinking and with sunken eyes, smelling like death from his mouth, the cleaver trembling in his hand.
"I'm sorry, boy," was all the man could get out.
My grandfather tried to mimic this poor man’s voice at the end of his wits, to express his pain through words so that we understood that poor fellow a little.
The Lord's words had given courage to my grandfather in his most terrible moments. He had stood up and firmly said:
"Away with you, the Lord protects the inhabitants of this house!"
But the intruder did not care, coming closer. And so, my grandfather again sought comfort and prayed. He prayed for mercy and peace and for his life. He would serve the Lord for the rest of his days. Trust Him blindly.
Suddenly, like a gruesome miracle, the famished intruder let out an inhuman groan and collapsed, lifeless and debilitated. There had been no hunger for my grandfather and his family for a week after that. My grandfather had been praying to the Lord since that day, thanking Him for His mercy. The story spread around the village and out of desperation or hope, in the next few days everyone secretly knelt in front of small wooden crosses they had made themselves and prayed to the Lord. A week later, like a miracle, the long-awaited delivery of grain arrived, along with spring. There had not been another bad time since then.
These events are the reason for the faith in our village... and our family. The psalm my grandfather had prayed as the hungry neighbor attacked had become the guiding psalm of our faith. All these years we had not been able to celebrate Christmas with the other families, but since the restrictions on faith communities had been relaxed, we had all finally decided to celebrate the holy festival in the village square. And so, we started the preparations.
There, in those evening hours, my part of the story begins. I and my younger sister Zarina, together with other youths and young adults, were fetching wood for the fire that was to burn in the center of our village. So, we went out into the night, dressed with thick pelts, to fetch logs from the edge of the fields that some men had prepared.
My breath could be seen as an icy breeze in the dawning darkness and I was already looking forward to dancing around the fire with everyone later, drinking good drinks and eating sumptuously. I was glad that we didn't have to walk across the fields themselves, but could stroll along their edge to get the logs.
You can feel death when it has hit a place. I was glad that I didn't have to work the fields myself, and had learned the carpentry trade. Therefore, I was spared from having to wander around there every day, among the echoes of past atrocities and sadness.
We were all in good spirits, strolling over the muddy ground, when all at once Zarina pointed up and into the clear night sky.
"Look, an angel is descending!" she exclaimed excitedly.
We all looked to where her outstretched hand pointed. A round light glowed in the night sky, glaring yellowish and shining strangely cold.
"It's singing! At Christmas! The Lord puts our feast under his sign!" Zarina cried.
We stopped and listened into the silence of the night. At first, I could hear nothing, at first, everything remained quiet, and only the distant beating of axes and the rustling of the wind in the treetops were audible.
But then, there in the wind, I could hear it, briefly but clearly. It was a kind of melodic whisper, joyful, yet also strange and otherworldly. It was heard only very briefly, and soon died away as the glow flew out of sight and disappeared somewhere far away.
"Let's go find the angel! Let's..." Zarina cried, continuing excitedly, but I interrupted her.
"We have to get the wood. We can report back to the village later, if it hasn't already been noticed there too," I said.
"You heard the singing! Surely that was an angel. Shall we leave it there? It may have gotten hurt, it must have hit something!" Sasha murmured.
Sasha was my oldest friend and one of the boys who worked on the fields. He had always been very caring and had always tried to help where he could. His parents were long dead and the old lady who had raised him was no longer around, either. So, he struggled along, working the fields, but the rest of us looked out for him.
"Shouldn't we go and look for it, Ilya?", Sasha continued to urge me anxiously.
We thought about it for a long time but decided to leave the decision to the others in the village. Trusting the Lord to guide our actions, we quickly moved on in the direction of the woodcutters to complete our task.
We were not the only ones who had seen the glow. When we returned to the village square loaded with logs, everyone was in great excitement and full of joy that the Lord had sent us this sign of His greatness. Not everyone agreed whether it was an angel or a return of the poinsettia that had been witnessed, but everyone was sure that the Lord had sent us encouragement. So, we celebrated our first Christmas full of joy and pleasure, with good food, dancing and singing, full of happiness and under the protection of the Almighty Lord. I will always think back to those days, always keep in my heart how I glimpsed a part of the Lord in the sky.
We all talked about the event and even the older people were fascinated and inspired. Even my grandfather and the others who had witnessed the worst death and misery in the world seemed to slowly find a spiritual peace they would never have dreamed of otherwise. They were happy and strengthened in their faith. However, we were not sure if it had really been an angel who had come down and so we hesitated to go and look for the creature of God.
But in the night, after the light had shone in the sky, I was awakened by Zarina crying in her sleep. I straightened up and slowly paced over to her bed, where in the semi-darkness she began to squirm, shaken by spasms.
"No, no, no..." she moaned painfully.
I began to shake her to wake her up. Zarina did not respond to me. Her face was like a distorted mask hiding something bad underneath. Her breathing became shallow, and she began to whimper. I was terrified and began to pray. The Lord had to save her, He just had to save her!
Zarina twitched more and more, started coughing and whimpering louder and louder. Slowly, the rest of the family woke up and my parents and grandfather huddled tightly around her, praying for her to open her eyes.
"Please, don't take our child! She has only been in your world for fourteen years..." my father cried, as panicked and desperate as I had ever seen before.
His thick, black mustache trembled with fear.
Then, abruptly, Zarina stopped convulsing.
For a terrible moment she just lay there, her hair disheveled, her face pale in the glow of the candle my mother held over her.
"Mom, Dad, Ilya, Grandpa... what's wrong?" she suddenly asked sleepily.
For a moment it was as if nothing had happened, as if I hadn't just seen my sister almost die, but then she began to cry.
"What's wrong, dear?" my father asked, just as pale in the face as Zarina.
It took a while before she found some calm and was able to talk to us.
Finally, she croaked:
"I saw the angel. I was with him."
A revelation? Had the Lord touched my sister?
We all said another prayer and finally, filled with awe, I asked:
"Where did you see the angel? Is it here? With us?"
She looked at me briefly, seemed to hesitate for a little moment, and then reported:
"I was with it… in a dream. It was in a white village, a village made of angel dust. I saw it. It didn't have wings and that's why at first I wasn't sure if it was an angel. However, soon it spoke to me."
"What did it say, Zarina?", I asked tensely.
"It said it was not God, but 'the Witness'. It sounded like a man and a woman and a child and a baby and... It felt peaceful. Calm and carefree. Then I woke up."
"An angel. Angels are the witnesses of God, that's how it must be!" my father said enthusiastically.
Suddenly, everyone seemed to be talking at once.
No one knew what Zarina's words meant, but we were sure that they contained something incomprehensible that we, as ordinary people, could not understand. But everyone was delighted. Everyone was caught in a beautiful dream.
The next day, the adults sat together in the large barn near the edge of the village, which was used for community events. Most of them found seats on the lined up wooden benches and the rest stood crowded against the old walls, some of which were already rotten. Dimitri, probably the closest thing to a mayor, sat at a heavy pine table at the end of the room, staring at the crowd, while my parents and Zarina sat on old chairs in front of him. Tensely, the crowd looked at them, waiting for someone to say something. Finally, Dimitri cleared his throat thoughtfully.
"You... all saw or heard about the falling star. It was brighter than the others that keep crossing our sky and much more... melodic. Some even heard the singing. Whoever still doubted that the Lord sent us his messenger... doubts are now useless. Zarina has received a vision. She has seen how the angel, who was sent by God, walked on our earth, and visited a village and consecrated it with its grace. She has seen the angel marching to spread holiness in these lands..."
"Are we sure?"
Mary, the dressmaker, had stood up. She was still young, my age and Sasha's, and she always wore her blond hair carefully braided, her dresses self-made, blood red and flashy, with silver embroidery. As always, she wore makeup - a luxury not many could afford. In other places she would have been considered a lady, but she was also a skeptical person, and I had not liked her very much since childhood, because she often made insinuations that seemed to go against the Lord. Also, she had never played with us outside and had always thought of herself as someone… better. I was shocked that she now so obviously doubted the Lord's actions.
"Mary. Zarina has seen a vision. The Lord spoke to her through her dreams! An angel has joined us. How can you deny it?" my father asked coldly.
"I'm not denying it, I'm just saying, what if there is something dark that the angel was sent to fight? What if it is going into battle against some unknown evil? The angel may be spreading sanctities, but we have no idea if it is trying to redeem us or defend us..."
"It said it was a witness of God," I noted.
"That's what Zarina said when she woke up."
"Then it is benevolent to us! We must find it!" someone shouted from one of the back rows.
An excited murmur began to spread through the room.
"Silence!" Dimitri thundered.
His face looked hard but determined.
"We have to get to it! If it is a message from heaven that the angel wants to bring us, we must hear it! How many can we spare? Who would even want to voluntarily leave the village? We don't know how long the journey will be, and you yourselves know how dangerous this area can be..."
A loud commotion broke out. Everyone shouted at once and volunteered. I also jumped up and loudly offered to go out to look for it.
The angel. The Witness of the Lord.
I imagined meeting it in a clearing, under a full moon. Hearing its bright voice, gaze in awe at its graceful form, and fall to my knees in prayer before it.
"SILENCE!" Dimitri shouted.
"You can't all go. The kids wouldn't make it in the deadly cold out there. Let seven go. Seven is the Lord's number, there must be seven! Seven workers from the fields! We can't spare any more!"
"You can't be serious!" I cried out.
Cold anger boiled up inside me.
"I want to go, too. We all want to. You can't just stand there and make a decision like that!"
Others joined in.
"SILENCE," Alexeij now thundered, the master blacksmith.
"We need you! Daniil, Ilya, Nikita, you have a job to do! We can't get by without you! You can't go, be reasonable!"
"But if the Lord wills it, he will make sure that everything here will work out. That nothing will happen!", I tried to argue, still boiling with anger.
"No. Winter is tugging at our huts, we need you," my father said slowly.
"So do the others. Without you, it's going to be tight. The fields lie under the snow, but everything else will be weakened by time and storms. We can only spare the field hands. Besides, they're the ones most likely to withstand the cold and the wilderness; after all, they're constantly out on the Fields of Death, toiling in the wind and rain. They'll all make the trip!"
I tried to change his mind, and several came to my aid, all those who were also forced to stay.
"You can manage without a dressmaker! I want to go too!" Mary cried defiantly, her cheeks red with anger, her nose wrinkled.
This young woman really believed she deserved the sight of the angel! She really believed her hypocrisies would deceive the Lord, despite her obvious doubts about His divinity!
Others also complained, young and old, many who didn't deserve to go and even those who did.
But it didn't help.
Dimitri was in charge. Everyone knew that. If we started to contradict him, our village would soon end up in chaos. And deep down I knew that I had to stay. That I had to take care of my sister, who would not survive a trip in the snow. That I had to repair the huts that the storms would eat away at.
Sasha was a field worker, he was allowed to go. Sasha and Sofia, Anatoly and old Igor, Ivan and Yulia and Mikhail. When the decision was made, a decision many of us accepted only with heavy hearts and which brought out deep envy in several faces, some of the chosen ones began to cry. They were happy, fulfilled... satisfied. They would see the messenger of the Lord, hear its melodious voice, sing its hymns.
Why wasn't I allowed to go? Why was the world so unfair? I had always believed in the Lord, prayed to Him, been subject to Him and lived according to His will. Why hadn't he chosen me to see his messenger? I had been so proud back when I had been allowed to learn the carpenter's trade and thus had not to go to the Fields of Death to toil there. At that time, I had felt like someone better when I saw Sasha and Sofia setting out early in the morning with all the other workers, with their old-fashioned plows and thick, shabby clothes.
Was this the punishment for my arrogance?
The Lord knew everything. He had seen what repulsive thoughts I had had, how superior I had felt to the others. Perhaps it was my punishment that I was not allowed to go. Perhaps the Lord was no longer favorable to me and I would have to prove myself to Him.
The next day, the seven set out north. They were seen off with singing and dancing; they were the center of the village’s attention. Envy threatened to drown me.
Why not me? Why wasn't I allowed to go? Why did I have to stay here?
And I knew: it was because of these thoughts. I wasn't pure enough. I had to get better, work on myself.
As the others disappeared from sight, as the small group seemed to be swallowed up by a patch of forest between distant trees, an icy chill ran down my spine.
What if they really did encounter evil? What if Mary had been right?
I prayed to the Lord that they would return home safely: Even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you.
He would bring them home safely, our pilgrims. I did not begrudge them their happiness. I was not a selfish person, was not complacent like Mary or some others in the village. I lived by the word of the Lord and I would not begrudge them.
They would all return home safely.
I continued to stare into the distance for a long time as my suppressed envy sought to consume me. But I was winning.
For darkness is as light to you.
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Even though the days and weeks passed, I never forgot to think of all those who had set out to witness the glory of the Lord. The cold winter had passed and frost and cold left the land, so that soon we could begin to prepare the fields for sowing. Since the sighting of the angel had caused us to let some of the farm workers leave, and they stayed away longer than we had expected, I had to join others in helping to plow the Fields of Death. The work was exhausting and made me physically very tired, since I still had to work in the carpenter's shop as well. We could not afford tractors, so we still had to resort to older tools. So, it happened that one day I was driving one of the hand plows through the dirty ground and was lost in my thoughts and full of sweat.
I was quite far away from the village, as the nearby surroundings had been worked shortly after the beginning of the thaw. The fields were extensive, partly reaching further than the eye could see. Only in one direction the dense forest extended, which introduced the beginning of a dark hilly landscape, that finally merged northward into high, alien mountains, whose white peaks rose high into the sky and, like once the tower of Babel, blasphemously tried to penetrate the heavens. But next to these distant giants there was only the plain, the vast plain that had to be tilled.
I hated the field work. And I hated the fields.
Every time I even thought about this piece of hell that had become reality long ago, my stomach turned. All the events that clung to this dark place, all the human lives and suffering that had sown the ground with death and blood here many years ago....
It was even worse when you stood in the fields yourself, truly being there on your own. It was as if I could smell it in the air, the rot of the starving and the hot blood that had watered the soil. It was as if I could still hear in the air the cries and wailing of the people who had met their end here, who had pleaded for their lives and the lives of their children and friends. It was as if I could see them in the early morning fog banks that lay on the Fields of Death, the shadows of people past, crawling and cowering, weak and starved. I had to pull myself together and look away, into the forest. A place does not forget, a place always remembers the days gone by and the cries that had been.
The plow pulled through the ground, ripping a furrow behind it. It was almost a bit comforting to imagine I was gutting this place of horror with my labor, inflicting deep wounds. Hypnotized, I stared down over and over again, watching the ground swirl to one side, smelling the fresh earth being pushed to the surface. But never could I escape my terrible feelings and the forebodings, never could I forget what kind of place I was at.
The few times I looked to the forest beside me, my thoughts wandered enviously to all those who had set out to find the angel. Had they reached it yet? Had they already learned from it what needed to be done for God's power on earth to be strengthened so that false prophets and promises could be swept away? How to drown the selfishness of the state? What needed to be done to serve the Lord?
Oh, how I would have loved to be there! How I would have loved to go with them, but I also understood the decision not to send everyone, and I understood my family's objections. I was needed here. I could serve the Lord here by tilling the fields and taking care of the soil and the sowing. I had to care for my sister.
I had already made several furrows when noon came. The sun was almost not visible, just a murky spot behind the clouds, and the fog had not lifted either. The world looked pale and apathetic. But amongst all the desolation I could suddenly hear something, something that seemed to come out of the forest.
It was at first just like a rustling in the wind that sounded a bit too regular, such that it triggered a natural uneasiness in me. I looked into the forest, but could hardly make out anything through the dense plants and the still lingering fog. That is why it was left to my own thoughts to imagine what was there, what was producing this strange noise.
I could not remember any animal that made similar sounds, was at a loss.
Suddenly, a bang echoed through the forest, accompanied by a panicked scream that broke inhumanly from the trees and spread across the fields.
Then, something new joined the sounds in the air.
The trees and bushes rustled, almost seemed to be torn apart.
Something was running through the forest, something seemed to be... coming right at me.
Was it perhaps a startled bear, an elk, or a wild boar?
Had one of the hunters from the village accidentally startled an animal, scared it in the wrong direction and now wanted to warn us with their cry? But then, why this panicked sound...?
I paused, took my hands off the rusty handles of the plow, and turned toward the forest. Still, I could only see fog, I could only hear rustling, but slowly I could also make out grunts and groans coming to me from the fog. It sounded heavy and panic-stricken.
Was I in danger? I began to pray to the Lord and ask him for assistance. I was not a fighter and so I had to hope that nothing would reach me from the depths between the trees that could easily tear me apart.
Even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you.
My baptismal motto gave me courage. The Lord saw me, even in my darkness, and would be with me.
For darkness is as light to you.
Then, someone burst out of the bushes and the fog and rushed toward me.
It was Sasha.
I almost didn't recognize him. His skin was pale, almost snow-white. His black hair stuck to his sweaty face. His pants and jacket were almost completely torn, so I could see his dirty shirt and his cut and bruised legs through the holes. There were also some small cuts on his face that worried me. Sasha's eyes twitched searchingly, panicked, and in his hand, he held the rifle that he had taken with him when he had once set out. Apparently, he had run through brush and thorns, had gotten scrapes and wounds from stones and branches.
When he saw me and looked at me with his big, panic-filled eyes, I became horridly afraid.
It was as if… behind his eyes there was no Sasha anymore, but only an animal. As if instinct had taken over his thoughts when an unnamable terror had entered his world. An animal inside him, which had enabled him to escape from... something.
Sasha staggered out of the forest, it was almost as if all strength left him now that he was back home. The rifle fell from his hand and dug into the mud beneath his feet. He limped slowly toward me, not taking his eyes off me. Then, suddenly, he wheeled around and looked back into the forest and the mist.
Only for a moment.
Again, he let out a shrill scream and sprinted the last few meters. When I looked into the forest myself, I saw nothing, only the fog.
But, didn't I feel a presence there, in the bushes? Between the trees?
I didn't see anything.
Sasha had reached me and collapsed. I quickly knelt down next to him and called for help. But the other field workers had already rushed over, obviously attracted by the rifle shot. I was in a trance, seeing only Sasha lying there, supporting his head. His eyes were still twitching around and despite my proximity he didn't seem to recognize me. He looked at me, confused.
"Sasha, what happened?", I asked, feeling his forehead.
Despite his paleness, he was uncomfortably hot.
A fever raged in his body. Who knew how long he had been running around there among the trees, his protective, warming jacket torn? With wounds that had not been tended and some of which were still bleeding?
Then another horrible thought occurred to me.
"Sasha, where are the others? Sasha, where are the others?"
This question apparently brought back some clarity that his gaze had not possessed before.
"They... they took them. Took all of them... All of them. All our brothers, all our sisters... all of them," he gurgled.
*********
So, this is the first part of what I found. I will hurry to translate the rest! But I will definitely stay out of the woods for now... They are still as creepy as described by Ilya in this document and fog ist still around every morning... Also, I don't know what to make of Ilya himself as well, is he just a religious nut and that is the explanation? I just don't know...
submitted by haroldkebba to nosleep [link] [comments]
The houses here had all been far below average in price. Almost everyone who lives here has moved here recently.
But, there are crazy rumors about this village that people tell each other. It was found abandoned in the mid-nineties. Where everyone went, no one knows. They say that no signs of people were found at all, nothing. But... everywhere in and around the village… strange patches of earth had been discovered, circular and smooth. Not only in the forest or on the road, but also in the dilapidated wooden houses. At our new neighbors' house, one of the mysterious spots had supposedly been found right in the living room floor, where the floorboards had been just cut away.
These rumors scare me. I am afraid of this village. But yesterday... I was redoing the floor in my room with my father and there... I found a notebook under the old boards. I hid it from my father, I don't know why... Someone must have left it there.
Last night... that's when I read it. I read it and now I'm incredibly afraid of this house and this village. Of the fields and the woods that surround me. The notebook apparently belonged to someone called Ilya Vasiliev. I have tried to translate what he wrote, hoping that someone here can help me find an explanation for the rumors. For this uneasy feeling that I have since I moved here...
***********
I am fine. I want that to be clear from the beginning. My story is strange and in huge parts troubling, but I am still in the best state of mental health.
I am fine!
My story begins seven months ago, in December 1979, when deep winter was upon our village. We were preparing for Christmas, the first Christmas to be celebrated publicly throughout the village, after years of having to practice our faith in secret because the Soviet government did not allow religions. Only in the last few years did the Reds' view loosen and they allowed small islands of faith. One of them was my village, which finally dared to celebrate and praise the Lord.
I have been a believer all twenty years of my life, an exemplary Christian, just like my parents. Faith had kept our family line alive in times of terror and misery. Death had always been close to us, as the fields where most of the population of our village had worked for generations had once brought the end of hundreds of people. Many years ago, on those fields, atrocities had occurred that had finally given them their present name: The Fields of Death.
I myself had not been born back then, not by a long shot, but my grandparents had spent their childhood there, a childhood full of hunger and depravity. My grandfather Fomenko often told me and my sister the stories he had experienced and how faith had saved everyone. There had been a long, cold winter and the grain had been confiscated by the government to be taken to the cities for distribution. After all, the grain belonged to all the people, not just those on the farms who planted it, tended to it, and harvested it. And so, the only food of that time left my grandfather's village and never came back. Some of his neighbors had once tried to hold back some grain, to hide some sacks, but when they were caught, a hail of bullets determined their fate. People lived in fear, not daring to stop working, not daring to keep for themselves the food that was destined for the common good. In those days, horrors happened in my village that I cannot truly picture today, not even when I hear my grandfather's usually clear voice begin to tremble. When I see in his eyes that he would rather forget, in order to experience a peaceful sleep once again… someday.
He told us about those horrors to warn us of how quickly life can plunge from safety into infinite terror. Winter had reigned. The grain was being hauled away. They still shot all those who tried to keep back pieces of it, be it a sack or some husks that had fallen from a cart. In time, hunger began to drive people in our village insane. Parents locked up their children so they wouldn't be taken by neighbors to feed their hunger. Friends turned their backs on each other and killed each other in fights for the last livestock that was still breathing. The streets reeked of decay and death, of misery and suffering. One day, my grandfather told us, he had hidden in the back room of his house while his parents dragged themselves, emaciated, to the fields to pick the last scraps of grain from the furrows with their dirty, half-frozen fingers. He had come across a book there, a book that had saved his life.
The word of God. An old Bible.
My grandfather had learned to read at an early age, one of the sad advantages of living in the Soviet Union.
It was in the room I now live in that Grandfather Fomenko had found the dusty book. Actually, he had been looking for something to eat, the days before he had found some sawdust. But despite his hunger and the grumbling in his stomach, eating the book was out of the question. Books were sacred, and no book as sacred as this one. He had begun to read and learned about the greatness of the Lord. Of the miracles his Son had performed. And of the magic of faith. His stomach had growled, but he had ignored it. The words gave him comfort.
The next day he immersed himself in the book again, disappearing into better worlds and times, hearing wisdom and encouragement. But around noon there was a knock at the door. My grandfather emphasized each time that he had not been afraid, that he had known that the Lord would protect him, when the old neighbor gained entrance to our house armed with a cleaver. It was clear what he wanted: Meat. My grandfather told us each time about how the neighbor had looked more undead than human, stinking and with sunken eyes, smelling like death from his mouth, the cleaver trembling in his hand.
"I'm sorry, boy," was all the man could get out.
My grandfather tried to mimic this poor man’s voice at the end of his wits, to express his pain through words so that we understood that poor fellow a little.
The Lord's words had given courage to my grandfather in his most terrible moments. He had stood up and firmly said:
"Away with you, the Lord protects the inhabitants of this house!"
But the intruder did not care, coming closer. And so, my grandfather again sought comfort and prayed. He prayed for mercy and peace and for his life. He would serve the Lord for the rest of his days. Trust Him blindly.
Suddenly, like a gruesome miracle, the famished intruder let out an inhuman groan and collapsed, lifeless and debilitated. There had been no hunger for my grandfather and his family for a week after that. My grandfather had been praying to the Lord since that day, thanking Him for His mercy. The story spread around the village and out of desperation or hope, in the next few days everyone secretly knelt in front of small wooden crosses they had made themselves and prayed to the Lord. A week later, like a miracle, the long-awaited delivery of grain arrived, along with spring. There had not been another bad time since then.
These events are the reason for the faith in our village... and our family. The psalm my grandfather had prayed as the hungry neighbor attacked had become the guiding psalm of our faith. All these years we had not been able to celebrate Christmas with the other families, but since the restrictions on faith communities had been relaxed, we had all finally decided to celebrate the holy festival in the village square. And so, we started the preparations.
There, in those evening hours, my part of the story begins. I and my younger sister Zarina, together with other youths and young adults, were fetching wood for the fire that was to burn in the center of our village. So, we went out into the night, dressed with thick pelts, to fetch logs from the edge of the fields that some men had prepared.
My breath could be seen as an icy breeze in the dawning darkness and I was already looking forward to dancing around the fire with everyone later, drinking good drinks and eating sumptuously. I was glad that we didn't have to walk across the fields themselves, but could stroll along their edge to get the logs.
You can feel death when it has hit a place. I was glad that I didn't have to work the fields myself, and had learned the carpentry trade. Therefore, I was spared from having to wander around there every day, among the echoes of past atrocities and sadness.
We were all in good spirits, strolling over the muddy ground, when all at once Zarina pointed up and into the clear night sky.
"Look, an angel is descending!" she exclaimed excitedly.
We all looked to where her outstretched hand pointed. A round light glowed in the night sky, glaring yellowish and shining strangely cold.
"It's singing! At Christmas! The Lord puts our feast under his sign!" Zarina cried.
We stopped and listened into the silence of the night. At first, I could hear nothing, at first, everything remained quiet, and only the distant beating of axes and the rustling of the wind in the treetops were audible.
But then, there in the wind, I could hear it, briefly but clearly. It was a kind of melodic whisper, joyful, yet also strange and otherworldly. It was heard only very briefly, and soon died away as the glow flew out of sight and disappeared somewhere far away.
"Let's go find the angel! Let's..." Zarina cried, continuing excitedly, but I interrupted her.
"We have to get the wood. We can report back to the village later, if it hasn't already been noticed there too," I said.
"You heard the singing! Surely that was an angel. Shall we leave it there? It may have gotten hurt, it must have hit something!" Sasha murmured.
Sasha was my oldest friend and one of the boys who worked on the fields. He had always been very caring and had always tried to help where he could. His parents were long dead and the old lady who had raised him was no longer around, either. So, he struggled along, working the fields, but the rest of us looked out for him.
"Shouldn't we go and look for it, Ilya?", Sasha continued to urge me anxiously.
We thought about it for a long time but decided to leave the decision to the others in the village. Trusting the Lord to guide our actions, we quickly moved on in the direction of the woodcutters to complete our task.
We were not the only ones who had seen the glow. When we returned to the village square loaded with logs, everyone was in great excitement and full of joy that the Lord had sent us this sign of His greatness. Not everyone agreed whether it was an angel or a return of the poinsettia that had been witnessed, but everyone was sure that the Lord had sent us encouragement. So, we celebrated our first Christmas full of joy and pleasure, with good food, dancing and singing, full of happiness and under the protection of the Almighty Lord. I will always think back to those days, always keep in my heart how I glimpsed a part of the Lord in the sky.
We all talked about the event and even the older people were fascinated and inspired. Even my grandfather and the others who had witnessed the worst death and misery in the world seemed to slowly find a spiritual peace they would never have dreamed of otherwise. They were happy and strengthened in their faith. However, we were not sure if it had really been an angel who had come down and so we hesitated to go and look for the creature of God.
But in the night, after the light had shone in the sky, I was awakened by Zarina crying in her sleep. I straightened up and slowly paced over to her bed, where in the semi-darkness she began to squirm, shaken by spasms.
"No, no, no..." she moaned painfully.
I began to shake her to wake her up. Zarina did not respond to me. Her face was like a distorted mask hiding something bad underneath. Her breathing became shallow, and she began to whimper. I was terrified and began to pray. The Lord had to save her, He just had to save her!
Zarina twitched more and more, started coughing and whimpering louder and louder. Slowly, the rest of the family woke up and my parents and grandfather huddled tightly around her, praying for her to open her eyes.
"Please, don't take our child! She has only been in your world for fourteen years..." my father cried, as panicked and desperate as I had ever seen before.
His thick, black mustache trembled with fear.
Then, abruptly, Zarina stopped convulsing.
For a terrible moment she just lay there, her hair disheveled, her face pale in the glow of the candle my mother held over her.
"Mom, Dad, Ilya, Grandpa... what's wrong?" she suddenly asked sleepily.
For a moment it was as if nothing had happened, as if I hadn't just seen my sister almost die, but then she began to cry.
"What's wrong, dear?" my father asked, just as pale in the face as Zarina.
It took a while before she found some calm and was able to talk to us.
Finally, she croaked:
"I saw the angel. I was with him."
A revelation? Had the Lord touched my sister?
We all said another prayer and finally, filled with awe, I asked:
"Where did you see the angel? Is it here? With us?"
She looked at me briefly, seemed to hesitate for a little moment, and then reported:
"I was with it… in a dream. It was in a white village, a village made of angel dust. I saw it. It didn't have wings and that's why at first I wasn't sure if it was an angel. However, soon it spoke to me."
"What did it say, Zarina?", I asked tensely.
"It said it was not God, but 'the Witness'. It sounded like a man and a woman and a child and a baby and... It felt peaceful. Calm and carefree. Then I woke up."
"An angel. Angels are the witnesses of God, that's how it must be!" my father said enthusiastically.
Suddenly, everyone seemed to be talking at once.
No one knew what Zarina's words meant, but we were sure that they contained something incomprehensible that we, as ordinary people, could not understand. But everyone was delighted. Everyone was caught in a beautiful dream.
The next day, the adults sat together in the large barn near the edge of the village, which was used for community events. Most of them found seats on the lined up wooden benches and the rest stood crowded against the old walls, some of which were already rotten. Dimitri, probably the closest thing to a mayor, sat at a heavy pine table at the end of the room, staring at the crowd, while my parents and Zarina sat on old chairs in front of him. Tensely, the crowd looked at them, waiting for someone to say something. Finally, Dimitri cleared his throat thoughtfully.
"You... all saw or heard about the falling star. It was brighter than the others that keep crossing our sky and much more... melodic. Some even heard the singing. Whoever still doubted that the Lord sent us his messenger... doubts are now useless. Zarina has received a vision. She has seen how the angel, who was sent by God, walked on our earth, and visited a village and consecrated it with its grace. She has seen the angel marching to spread holiness in these lands..."
"Are we sure?"
Mary, the dressmaker, had stood up. She was still young, my age and Sasha's, and she always wore her blond hair carefully braided, her dresses self-made, blood red and flashy, with silver embroidery. As always, she wore makeup - a luxury not many could afford. In other places she would have been considered a lady, but she was also a skeptical person, and I had not liked her very much since childhood, because she often made insinuations that seemed to go against the Lord. Also, she had never played with us outside and had always thought of herself as someone… better. I was shocked that she now so obviously doubted the Lord's actions.
"Mary. Zarina has seen a vision. The Lord spoke to her through her dreams! An angel has joined us. How can you deny it?" my father asked coldly.
"I'm not denying it, I'm just saying, what if there is something dark that the angel was sent to fight? What if it is going into battle against some unknown evil? The angel may be spreading sanctities, but we have no idea if it is trying to redeem us or defend us..."
"It said it was a witness of God," I noted.
"That's what Zarina said when she woke up."
"Then it is benevolent to us! We must find it!" someone shouted from one of the back rows.
An excited murmur began to spread through the room.
"Silence!" Dimitri thundered.
His face looked hard but determined.
"We have to get to it! If it is a message from heaven that the angel wants to bring us, we must hear it! How many can we spare? Who would even want to voluntarily leave the village? We don't know how long the journey will be, and you yourselves know how dangerous this area can be..."
A loud commotion broke out. Everyone shouted at once and volunteered. I also jumped up and loudly offered to go out to look for it.
The angel. The Witness of the Lord.
I imagined meeting it in a clearing, under a full moon. Hearing its bright voice, gaze in awe at its graceful form, and fall to my knees in prayer before it.
"SILENCE!" Dimitri shouted.
"You can't all go. The kids wouldn't make it in the deadly cold out there. Let seven go. Seven is the Lord's number, there must be seven! Seven workers from the fields! We can't spare any more!"
"You can't be serious!" I cried out.
Cold anger boiled up inside me.
"I want to go, too. We all want to. You can't just stand there and make a decision like that!"
Others joined in.
"SILENCE," Alexeij now thundered, the master blacksmith.
"We need you! Daniil, Ilya, Nikita, you have a job to do! We can't get by without you! You can't go, be reasonable!"
"But if the Lord wills it, he will make sure that everything here will work out. That nothing will happen!", I tried to argue, still boiling with anger.
"No. Winter is tugging at our huts, we need you," my father said slowly.
"So do the others. Without you, it's going to be tight. The fields lie under the snow, but everything else will be weakened by time and storms. We can only spare the field hands. Besides, they're the ones most likely to withstand the cold and the wilderness; after all, they're constantly out on the Fields of Death, toiling in the wind and rain. They'll all make the trip!"
I tried to change his mind, and several came to my aid, all those who were also forced to stay.
"You can manage without a dressmaker! I want to go too!" Mary cried defiantly, her cheeks red with anger, her nose wrinkled.
This young woman really believed she deserved the sight of the angel! She really believed her hypocrisies would deceive the Lord, despite her obvious doubts about His divinity!
Others also complained, young and old, many who didn't deserve to go and even those who did.
But it didn't help.
Dimitri was in charge. Everyone knew that. If we started to contradict him, our village would soon end up in chaos. And deep down I knew that I had to stay. That I had to take care of my sister, who would not survive a trip in the snow. That I had to repair the huts that the storms would eat away at.
Sasha was a field worker, he was allowed to go. Sasha and Sofia, Anatoly and old Igor, Ivan and Yulia and Mikhail. When the decision was made, a decision many of us accepted only with heavy hearts and which brought out deep envy in several faces, some of the chosen ones began to cry. They were happy, fulfilled... satisfied. They would see the messenger of the Lord, hear its melodious voice, sing its hymns.
Why wasn't I allowed to go? Why was the world so unfair? I had always believed in the Lord, prayed to Him, been subject to Him and lived according to His will. Why hadn't he chosen me to see his messenger? I had been so proud back when I had been allowed to learn the carpenter's trade and thus had not to go to the Fields of Death to toil there. At that time, I had felt like someone better when I saw Sasha and Sofia setting out early in the morning with all the other workers, with their old-fashioned plows and thick, shabby clothes.
Was this the punishment for my arrogance?
The Lord knew everything. He had seen what repulsive thoughts I had had, how superior I had felt to the others. Perhaps it was my punishment that I was not allowed to go. Perhaps the Lord was no longer favorable to me and I would have to prove myself to Him.
The next day, the seven set out north. They were seen off with singing and dancing; they were the center of the village’s attention. Envy threatened to drown me.
Why not me? Why wasn't I allowed to go? Why did I have to stay here?
And I knew: it was because of these thoughts. I wasn't pure enough. I had to get better, work on myself.
As the others disappeared from sight, as the small group seemed to be swallowed up by a patch of forest between distant trees, an icy chill ran down my spine.
What if they really did encounter evil? What if Mary had been right?
I prayed to the Lord that they would return home safely: Even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you.
He would bring them home safely, our pilgrims. I did not begrudge them their happiness. I was not a selfish person, was not complacent like Mary or some others in the village. I lived by the word of the Lord and I would not begrudge them.
They would all return home safely.
I continued to stare into the distance for a long time as my suppressed envy sought to consume me. But I was winning.
For darkness is as light to you.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Even though the days and weeks passed, I never forgot to think of all those who had set out to witness the glory of the Lord. The cold winter had passed and frost and cold left the land, so that soon we could begin to prepare the fields for sowing. Since the sighting of the angel had caused us to let some of the farm workers leave, and they stayed away longer than we had expected, I had to join others in helping to plow the Fields of Death. The work was exhausting and made me physically very tired, since I still had to work in the carpenter's shop as well. We could not afford tractors, so we still had to resort to older tools. So, it happened that one day I was driving one of the hand plows through the dirty ground and was lost in my thoughts and full of sweat.
I was quite far away from the village, as the nearby surroundings had been worked shortly after the beginning of the thaw. The fields were extensive, partly reaching further than the eye could see. Only in one direction the dense forest extended, which introduced the beginning of a dark hilly landscape, that finally merged northward into high, alien mountains, whose white peaks rose high into the sky and, like once the tower of Babel, blasphemously tried to penetrate the heavens. But next to these distant giants there was only the plain, the vast plain that had to be tilled.
I hated the field work. And I hated the fields.
Every time I even thought about this piece of hell that had become reality long ago, my stomach turned. All the events that clung to this dark place, all the human lives and suffering that had sown the ground with death and blood here many years ago....
It was even worse when you stood in the fields yourself, truly being there on your own. It was as if I could smell it in the air, the rot of the starving and the hot blood that had watered the soil. It was as if I could still hear in the air the cries and wailing of the people who had met their end here, who had pleaded for their lives and the lives of their children and friends. It was as if I could see them in the early morning fog banks that lay on the Fields of Death, the shadows of people past, crawling and cowering, weak and starved. I had to pull myself together and look away, into the forest. A place does not forget, a place always remembers the days gone by and the cries that had been.
The plow pulled through the ground, ripping a furrow behind it. It was almost a bit comforting to imagine I was gutting this place of horror with my labor, inflicting deep wounds. Hypnotized, I stared down over and over again, watching the ground swirl to one side, smelling the fresh earth being pushed to the surface. But never could I escape my terrible feelings and the forebodings, never could I forget what kind of place I was at.
The few times I looked to the forest beside me, my thoughts wandered enviously to all those who had set out to find the angel. Had they reached it yet? Had they already learned from it what needed to be done for God's power on earth to be strengthened so that false prophets and promises could be swept away? How to drown the selfishness of the state? What needed to be done to serve the Lord?
Oh, how I would have loved to be there! How I would have loved to go with them, but I also understood the decision not to send everyone, and I understood my family's objections. I was needed here. I could serve the Lord here by tilling the fields and taking care of the soil and the sowing. I had to care for my sister.
I had already made several furrows when noon came. The sun was almost not visible, just a murky spot behind the clouds, and the fog had not lifted either. The world looked pale and apathetic. But amongst all the desolation I could suddenly hear something, something that seemed to come out of the forest.
It was at first just like a rustling in the wind that sounded a bit too regular, such that it triggered a natural uneasiness in me. I looked into the forest, but could hardly make out anything through the dense plants and the still lingering fog. That is why it was left to my own thoughts to imagine what was there, what was producing this strange noise.
I could not remember any animal that made similar sounds, was at a loss.
Suddenly, a bang echoed through the forest, accompanied by a panicked scream that broke inhumanly from the trees and spread across the fields.
Then, something new joined the sounds in the air.
The trees and bushes rustled, almost seemed to be torn apart.
Something was running through the forest, something seemed to be... coming right at me.
Was it perhaps a startled bear, an elk, or a wild boar?
Had one of the hunters from the village accidentally startled an animal, scared it in the wrong direction and now wanted to warn us with their cry? But then, why this panicked sound...?
I paused, took my hands off the rusty handles of the plow, and turned toward the forest. Still, I could only see fog, I could only hear rustling, but slowly I could also make out grunts and groans coming to me from the fog. It sounded heavy and panic-stricken.
Was I in danger? I began to pray to the Lord and ask him for assistance. I was not a fighter and so I had to hope that nothing would reach me from the depths between the trees that could easily tear me apart.
Even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you.
My baptismal motto gave me courage. The Lord saw me, even in my darkness, and would be with me.
For darkness is as light to you.
Then, someone burst out of the bushes and the fog and rushed toward me.
It was Sasha.
I almost didn't recognize him. His skin was pale, almost snow-white. His black hair stuck to his sweaty face. His pants and jacket were almost completely torn, so I could see his dirty shirt and his cut and bruised legs through the holes. There were also some small cuts on his face that worried me. Sasha's eyes twitched searchingly, panicked, and in his hand, he held the rifle that he had taken with him when he had once set out. Apparently, he had run through brush and thorns, had gotten scrapes and wounds from stones and branches.
When he saw me and looked at me with his big, panic-filled eyes, I became horridly afraid.
It was as if… behind his eyes there was no Sasha anymore, but only an animal. As if instinct had taken over his thoughts when an unnamable terror had entered his world. An animal inside him, which had enabled him to escape from... something.
Sasha staggered out of the forest, it was almost as if all strength left him now that he was back home. The rifle fell from his hand and dug into the mud beneath his feet. He limped slowly toward me, not taking his eyes off me. Then, suddenly, he wheeled around and looked back into the forest and the mist.
Only for a moment.
Again, he let out a shrill scream and sprinted the last few meters. When I looked into the forest myself, I saw nothing, only the fog.
But, didn't I feel a presence there, in the bushes? Between the trees?
I didn't see anything.
Sasha had reached me and collapsed. I quickly knelt down next to him and called for help. But the other field workers had already rushed over, obviously attracted by the rifle shot. I was in a trance, seeing only Sasha lying there, supporting his head. His eyes were still twitching around and despite my proximity he didn't seem to recognize me. He looked at me, confused.
"Sasha, what happened?", I asked, feeling his forehead.
Despite his paleness, he was uncomfortably hot.
A fever raged in his body. Who knew how long he had been running around there among the trees, his protective, warming jacket torn? With wounds that had not been tended and some of which were still bleeding?
Then another horrible thought occurred to me.
"Sasha, where are the others? Sasha, where are the others?"
This question apparently brought back some clarity that his gaze had not possessed before.
"They... they took them. Took all of them... All of them. All our brothers, all our sisters... all of them," he gurgled.
*********
So, this is the first part of what I found. I will hurry to translate the rest! But I will definitely stay out of the woods for now... They are still as creepy as described by Ilya in this document and fog ist still around every morning... Also, I don't know what to make of Ilya himself as well, is he just a religious nut and that is the explanation? I just don't know...
2023.06.05 15:11 Jd0266 Chinese boyfriend filling white teen in hotel
 | submitted by Jd0266 to Ghvu [link] [comments] |
2023.06.05 15:11 debrisaway If Volume 4 is greenlighted as an international only season, which episodes are you putting forward?
Claudia Lawrence (UK) Highway of Tears (Canada) Tylong North (New Zealand) The Beaumont Children (Australia) Isdal Woman (Norway) Bella in the Wych Elm (UK)
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2023.06.05 15:11 SinfulAbsorption Best Shoes For Travel
 | Good quality travel shoes are essential for comfortable and safe traveling. When you’re on the go, whether you’re exploring a new city or hiking in the mountains, your feet are your primary mode of transportation. Wearing the wrong shoes can lead to blisters, soreness, and even injuries. submitted by SinfulAbsorption to markforcart [link] [comments] Why Good Quality Travel Shoes Are Important:
Best Travel ShoesMerrell Men’s Moab 2https://preview.redd.it/wdl23qv6np3b1.png?width=500&format=png&auto=webp&s=07646f42316c8afca04ed612b7a29e129335c081Merrell Men’s Moab 2 Waterproof Hiking Shoe is a reliable and durable footwear option for outdoor enthusiasts who enjoy hiking in challenging terrain. This shoe has been designed to withstand the toughest conditions, and its performance is outstanding. In this review. Read More Below FitVille Men's Rebound Core Shoeshttps://preview.redd.it/o22xjwddnp3b1.png?width=180&format=png&auto=webp&s=088664f9999cabd67ca19d7148079142edd6abc1FitVille Men’s Rebound Core Shoes are designed to provide optimal comfort and support for the wearer. These shoes have become increasingly popular due to their unique design, build quality, and performance. In this review, we will examine the key features of these shoes, as well as their pros and cons. Read More Below Salomon Men's X Ultra Pioneerhttps://preview.redd.it/oaamfjwjnp3b1.png?width=500&format=png&auto=webp&s=adc82d90f1d8b676324c2c56e50ab4fa04f0ac7cSalomon Men’s X Ultra Pioneer is a popular hiking shoe that has been designed to provide maximum comfort and durability on the toughest of terrains. In this review, we will evaluate its design and build quality, performance, and the pros and cons of using these shoes. Read More Below KEEN Men’s-Targhee 3https://preview.redd.it/6q1msw9qnp3b1.png?width=500&format=png&auto=webp&s=72aa07334493a61f2b5a93f9f5a467fda9d7f8c2KEEN Men’s Targhee 3 is an exceptional hiking shoe that has quickly become one of the top choices for avid hikers and outdoor enthusiasts. The shoe boasts a sturdy design and offers excellent performance on even the toughest of terrain. In this review, we’ll delve into the design and build quality, performance, pros and cons, and conclusion of the KEEN Men’s Targhee 3. Read More Below North Face Ultra 111 WPhttps://preview.redd.it/qf7liwstnp3b1.png?width=499&format=png&auto=webp&s=b070faf0ba9e8f470ca78254ea32197988d06d5dNorth Face is a well-known brand that has been producing high-quality outdoor gear for decades. One of their most popular products is the Ultra 111 WP, which is designed to provide excellent performance in wet and slippery conditions. In this review, we will take a closer look at the Design and Build Quality, Performance, Pros and Cons, and Conclusion of the North Face Ultra 111 WP. Read More Below |
2023.06.05 15:11 autotldr Saudi Arabia warns Snapchat users that ‘insulting’ regime is a criminal offense
This is the best tl;dr I could make, original reduced by 73%. (I'm a bot)
Summary Source FAQ Feedback Top keywords: Saudi#1 Snapchat#2 kingdom#3 media#4 case#5
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Saudi state media issued an explicit warning that it is a criminal offense to "Insult" authorities using social media apps such as Snapchat, the California-based messaging app whose chief executive recently forged a new "Cooperation" deal with the kingdom's culture ministry.
Saudi court documents examined by the Guardian suggest that at least one Saudi Snapchat user, Manahel al-Otaibi, was arrested late last year after posting a picture privately on Snapchat that showed her not wearing an abaya, leading to charges that she was dressed indecently.
In another case, Saudi Snapchat influencer Mansour Al-Raqiba, who has more than 2 million followers, was arrested in May 2022 in connection to his social media posts in which he suggested he had previously criticised Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's Vision 2030 economic plan for the kingdom and had been blackmailed as a result.
In another recent case, Snapchat influencer Rahaf Al-Qahtani's was reportedly arrested after posting comments that were deemed offensive to the people of the Maldives, allegedly running afoul of a Saudi law that prohibits individuals from damaging Saudi relations with its allies.
Some Saudi dissidents have privately expressed concerns about the privacy of Snapchat content in the kingdom.
Saudi director of the Freedom Initiative, which advocates for the rights of detainees in the Middle East and north Africa, said he believed the Biden administration's lack of attention to the issue helps explain the worsening human rights situation in Saudi Arabia, including "Unprecedented level of executions and arrest of people over social media use".
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2023.06.05 15:10 Local_Albatross1250 Could she survive in this little north facing window and about 6ft from a west facing window
 | She was in a west facing window but I'm moving to a different room and would prefer if she came with me. submitted by Local_Albatross1250 to houseplants [link] [comments] |
2023.06.05 15:10 achrafelh22 Germany(North Rhine-Westphalia) and netherlands
Hello, I am currently planning to travel during my semester break(from 9 July to 16 July). and I am searching for a travel partner. The precise details of the journey, i am still figuring them out, if i you are interesting we could plan them together. The primary destinations of the trip in my mind right now are: the Netherlands, and maybe some cities in North Rhine-Westphalia. this is still just idea, maybe we could go some other places. General information about me: my name is Achraf, i am 22 years old. I live in wuppertal. I am mostly not a chatty person, but easy to talk to. I have a lot of interest, which makes me really interested in others. My main hobbies are: Movies, Chess, reading, Walking, and going for a run. I have been in Germany for 2 months now, but I am preparing to stay for a long time. I am currently studying a language preparatory course for 6 months in Wuppertal uni, after that I will start my Bachelor in Economics Mathematics. I want to make the most of this break, because I know after Language preparatory couse I will not have a life for a long time 😂😂😂😂. Send me a message if you are interested or you want to ask me any personal question. If you are not sure about travelling with a stranger, I am too. This is my first time trying something like this. Just send me a message and we will talk first to check if neither of us is a serial killer 😂😂😂😂.
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2023.06.05 15:10 AutoModerator [Download Course] Csaba Borzasi – Breakthrough Conversions Academy (Genkicourses.site)
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2023.06.05 15:09 Naedobeansz Ik this type drawn niggas prolly gon bid but Anyone got som zaps in north northeast my primary Doc cut me off cold turkey 2 days ago on some bs I ain’t know they could do that nut shit these Drs don’t give a fuck about u🤦🏿♂️
submitted by Naedobeansz to PhillyWiki [link] [comments]
2023.06.05 15:07 eaknotes Fierce vs. Soft interior & exterior
In my experience it seems like the conventional image of Scorpio is a hard, intimidating, or fierce exterior with a soft, emotional interior.
I have 6 Scorpio placements (Sun, Mercury, Venus, Jupiter, Pluto, and North Node) but I've always felt like the opposite. I definitely have/show many common scorp traits, but I've always been more kind and soft outwardly with a fierce, honestly turbulent inner world that's much harder to express and few people see.
I know there's so much nuance in the chart that impacts how we show up in the world, but was just curious if anyone else relates 🙂 Any other scorps more comfortable with their soft side and working to integrate their fiercer side?
submitted by eaknotes to Scorpio [link] [comments]
I have 6 Scorpio placements (Sun, Mercury, Venus, Jupiter, Pluto, and North Node) but I've always felt like the opposite. I definitely have/show many common scorp traits, but I've always been more kind and soft outwardly with a fierce, honestly turbulent inner world that's much harder to express and few people see.
I know there's so much nuance in the chart that impacts how we show up in the world, but was just curious if anyone else relates 🙂 Any other scorps more comfortable with their soft side and working to integrate their fiercer side?
2023.06.05 15:07 Dry-Gold9524 Golden nugget or Downtown Grand Las Vegas?
I’m pretty set on staying in downtown Vegas during edc weekend but I want to hear your guys opinions on which hotel I should book! Feel free to give me other options in the downtown area too(preferably close to shuttle stop)
submitted by Dry-Gold9524 to electricdaisycarnival [link] [comments]
2023.06.05 15:06 AutoModerator How to Watch Spider-Man Across the Spider Verse Movie Online On Reddit
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WATCH Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse Online Free
WATCH Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse Online Free
Now Is Spider-Man: Across Spider-Verse available to stream? Is watching Spider-Man: Across Spider-Verse on Disney Plus, HBO Max, Netflix, or Amazon Prime? Yes, we have found an authentic streaming option/service. A 1950s housewife living with her husband in a utopian experimental community begins to worry that his glamorous company could be hiding disturbing secrets.
Showcase Cinema Warwick you'll want to make sure you're one of the first people to see it! So mark your calendars and get ready for a Spider-Man: Across Spider-Verse movie experience like never before. of our other Marvel movies available to watch online. We're sure you'll find something to your liking. Thanks for reading, and we'll see you soon! Spider-Man: Across Spider-Verse is available on our website for free streaming. Details on how you can watch Spider-Man: Across Spider-Verse for free throughout the year are described
If you're a fan of the comics, you won't want to miss this one! The storyline follows Spider-Man: Across Spider-Verse as he tries to find his way home after being stranded on an alien Spider-Man: Across Spider-Verset. Spider-Man: Across Spider-Verse is definitely a Spider-Man: Across Spider-Verse movie you don't want to miss with stunning visuals and an action-packed plot! Plus, Spider-Man: Across Spider-Verse online streaming is available on our website. Spider-Man: Across Spider-Verse online is free, which includes streaming options such as 123movies, Reddit, or TV shows from HBO Max or Netflix!
Spider-Man: Across Spider-Verse Release in the US
Spider-Man: Across Spider-Verse hits theaters on January 20, 2023. Tickets to see the film at your local movie theater are available online here. The film is being released in a wide release so you can watch it in person.
How to Watch Spider-Man: Across Spider-Verse for Free?release on a platform that offers a free trial. Our readers to always pay for the content they wish to consume online and refrain from using illegal means.
Where to Watch Spider-Man: Across Spider-Verse?
There are currently no platforms that have the rights to Watch Spider-Man: Across Spider-Verse Movie Online.MAPPA has decided to air the movie only in theaters because it has been a huge success.The studio , on the other hand, does not wish to divert revenue Streaming the movie would only slash the profits, not increase them.
As a result, no streaming services are authorized to offer Spider-Man: Across Spider-Verse Movie for free. The film would, however, very definitely be acquired by services like Funimation , Netflix, and Crunchyroll. As a last consideration, which of these outlets will likely distribute the film worldwide?
Is Spider-Man: Across Spider-Verse on Netflix?
The streaming giant has a massive catalog of television shows and movies, but it does not include 'Spider-Man: Across Spider-Verse.' We recommend our readers watch other dark fantasy films like 'The Witcher: Nightmare of the Wolf.'
Is Spider-Man: Across Spider-Verse on Crunchyroll?
Crunchyroll, along with Funimation, has acquired the rights to the film and will be responsible for its distribution in North America.Therefore, we recommend our readers to look for the movie on the streamer in the coming months. subscribers can also watch dark fantasy shows like 'Jujutsu Kaisen.'
Is Spider-Man: Across Spider-Verse on Hulu?
No, 'Spider-Man: Across Spider-Verse' is unavailable on Hulu. People who have a subscription to the platform can enjoy 'Afro Samurai Resurrection' or 'Ninja Scroll.'
Is Spider-Man: Across Spider-Verse on Amazon Prime?
Amazon Prime's current catalog does not include 'Spider-Man: Across Spider-Verse.' However, the film may eventually release on the platform as video-on-demand in the coming months.fantasy movies on Amazon Prime's official website. Viewers who are looking for something similar can watch the original show 'Dororo.'
When Will Spider-Man: Across Spider-Verse Be on Disney+?
Spider-Man: Across Spider-Verse, the latest installment in the Spider-Man: Across Spider-Verse franchise, is coming to Disney+ on July 8th! This new movie promises to be just as exciting as the previous ones, with plenty of action and adventure to keep viewers entertained. you're looking forward to watching it, you may be wondering when it will be available for your Disney+ subscription. Here's an answer to that question!
Is Spider-Man: Across Spider-Verse on Funimation?
Crunchyroll, its official website may include the movie in its catalog in the near future. Meanwhile, people who wish to watch something similar can stream 'Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba – The Movie: Mugen Train.'
Spider-Man: Across Spider-Verse Online In The US?
Most Viewed, Most Favorite, Top Rating, Top IMDb movies online. Here we can download and watch 123movies movies offline. 123Movies website is the best alternative to Spider-Man: Across Spider-Verse's (2021) free online. We will recommend 123Movies as the best Solarmovie alternative There are a
few ways to watch Spider-Man: Across Spider-Verse online in the US You can use a streaming service such as Netflix, Hulu, or Amazon Prime Video. You can also rent or buy the movie on iTunes or Google Play. watch it on-demand or on a streaming app available on your TV or streaming device if you have cable.
What is Spider-Man: Across Spider-Verse About?
It features an ensemble cast that includes Florence Pugh, Harry Styles, Wilde, Gemma Chan, KiKi Layne, Nick Kroll, and Chris Pine. In the film, a young wife living in a 2250s company town begins to believe there is a sinister secret being kept from her by the man who runs it.Thank You.
submitted by AutoModerator to SpiderVersehdq [link] [comments]
WATCH Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse Online Free
WATCH Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse Online Free
Now Is Spider-Man: Across Spider-Verse available to stream? Is watching Spider-Man: Across Spider-Verse on Disney Plus, HBO Max, Netflix, or Amazon Prime? Yes, we have found an authentic streaming option/service. A 1950s housewife living with her husband in a utopian experimental community begins to worry that his glamorous company could be hiding disturbing secrets.
Showcase Cinema Warwick you'll want to make sure you're one of the first people to see it! So mark your calendars and get ready for a Spider-Man: Across Spider-Verse movie experience like never before. of our other Marvel movies available to watch online. We're sure you'll find something to your liking. Thanks for reading, and we'll see you soon! Spider-Man: Across Spider-Verse is available on our website for free streaming. Details on how you can watch Spider-Man: Across Spider-Verse for free throughout the year are described
If you're a fan of the comics, you won't want to miss this one! The storyline follows Spider-Man: Across Spider-Verse as he tries to find his way home after being stranded on an alien Spider-Man: Across Spider-Verset. Spider-Man: Across Spider-Verse is definitely a Spider-Man: Across Spider-Verse movie you don't want to miss with stunning visuals and an action-packed plot! Plus, Spider-Man: Across Spider-Verse online streaming is available on our website. Spider-Man: Across Spider-Verse online is free, which includes streaming options such as 123movies, Reddit, or TV shows from HBO Max or Netflix!
Spider-Man: Across Spider-Verse Release in the US
Spider-Man: Across Spider-Verse hits theaters on January 20, 2023. Tickets to see the film at your local movie theater are available online here. The film is being released in a wide release so you can watch it in person.
How to Watch Spider-Man: Across Spider-Verse for Free?release on a platform that offers a free trial. Our readers to always pay for the content they wish to consume online and refrain from using illegal means.
Where to Watch Spider-Man: Across Spider-Verse?
There are currently no platforms that have the rights to Watch Spider-Man: Across Spider-Verse Movie Online.MAPPA has decided to air the movie only in theaters because it has been a huge success.The studio , on the other hand, does not wish to divert revenue Streaming the movie would only slash the profits, not increase them.
As a result, no streaming services are authorized to offer Spider-Man: Across Spider-Verse Movie for free. The film would, however, very definitely be acquired by services like Funimation , Netflix, and Crunchyroll. As a last consideration, which of these outlets will likely distribute the film worldwide?
Is Spider-Man: Across Spider-Verse on Netflix?
The streaming giant has a massive catalog of television shows and movies, but it does not include 'Spider-Man: Across Spider-Verse.' We recommend our readers watch other dark fantasy films like 'The Witcher: Nightmare of the Wolf.'
Is Spider-Man: Across Spider-Verse on Crunchyroll?
Crunchyroll, along with Funimation, has acquired the rights to the film and will be responsible for its distribution in North America.Therefore, we recommend our readers to look for the movie on the streamer in the coming months. subscribers can also watch dark fantasy shows like 'Jujutsu Kaisen.'
Is Spider-Man: Across Spider-Verse on Hulu?
No, 'Spider-Man: Across Spider-Verse' is unavailable on Hulu. People who have a subscription to the platform can enjoy 'Afro Samurai Resurrection' or 'Ninja Scroll.'
Is Spider-Man: Across Spider-Verse on Amazon Prime?
Amazon Prime's current catalog does not include 'Spider-Man: Across Spider-Verse.' However, the film may eventually release on the platform as video-on-demand in the coming months.fantasy movies on Amazon Prime's official website. Viewers who are looking for something similar can watch the original show 'Dororo.'
When Will Spider-Man: Across Spider-Verse Be on Disney+?
Spider-Man: Across Spider-Verse, the latest installment in the Spider-Man: Across Spider-Verse franchise, is coming to Disney+ on July 8th! This new movie promises to be just as exciting as the previous ones, with plenty of action and adventure to keep viewers entertained. you're looking forward to watching it, you may be wondering when it will be available for your Disney+ subscription. Here's an answer to that question!
Is Spider-Man: Across Spider-Verse on Funimation?
Crunchyroll, its official website may include the movie in its catalog in the near future. Meanwhile, people who wish to watch something similar can stream 'Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba – The Movie: Mugen Train.'
Spider-Man: Across Spider-Verse Online In The US?
Most Viewed, Most Favorite, Top Rating, Top IMDb movies online. Here we can download and watch 123movies movies offline. 123Movies website is the best alternative to Spider-Man: Across Spider-Verse's (2021) free online. We will recommend 123Movies as the best Solarmovie alternative There are a
few ways to watch Spider-Man: Across Spider-Verse online in the US You can use a streaming service such as Netflix, Hulu, or Amazon Prime Video. You can also rent or buy the movie on iTunes or Google Play. watch it on-demand or on a streaming app available on your TV or streaming device if you have cable.
What is Spider-Man: Across Spider-Verse About?
It features an ensemble cast that includes Florence Pugh, Harry Styles, Wilde, Gemma Chan, KiKi Layne, Nick Kroll, and Chris Pine. In the film, a young wife living in a 2250s company town begins to believe there is a sinister secret being kept from her by the man who runs it.Thank You.
2023.06.05 15:06 Tomlolzzz Hi, I’m looking for a recommendation for a gay novel set or partially set in an Arabic country (Middle East, North Africa kind of area). Thanks
submitted by Tomlolzzz to LGBTBooks [link] [comments]
2023.06.05 15:06 ThisIsTheNewSleeve I made my third bookmark for the Expanse series! I present the Razorback!
 | submitted by ThisIsTheNewSleeve to 3Dprinting [link] [comments] |