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Part 3

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This is a pretty fancy Russian socket in the best hotel in Magadan – hence the gold coloured braiding around it. Most were much plainer but the lack of any earthing was the rule.

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A double switch from the same hotel room – much fancier that those in the field camp. There were no power sockets provided in the bathrooms which was probably just as well! A photo I have of the bathroom would raise interesting comments on a plumbing forum.

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Back to the field camp where this magnificent beast performed the job of outlet. Was it installed to cement Russian-American relationships? My US 100/240V power transformer fitted it beautifully. Outlets in Russia are nominally 220V but does this outlet allude back to earlier days when there was 127V phase to ground and 220V phase to phase? A bit like very old American double ‘T’ receptacles that can accept both 120V or 240 V plugs – 15 or 20 amps.

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At the only hotel in Senegoriye I found this interesting beastie that was gradually disappearing under layers cream coloured paint. At least something is being painted! When I took the photo I was sure that I had discovered a unique Russian configuration of a three pin grounding socket but alas when processing it prior to posting here I saw that one of the two fixing screws had fallen out of a standard two pin socket. Russia appears to have adopted the schuko plug for use when grounding is required …

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Above is a photograph of a Russian ‘grounded’ socket which supplies a computer at the Senegoriye power station. It is a standard schuko with a schuko plug inserted in it but look how this addition is wired. I can see only the standard two core ribbon cable feeding it. I don’t know if they jumpered the earth and neutral but I suspect the grounding contacts just float uselessly. I strongly suspect that all of the schuko sockets I observed in the Russian Far East could have been wired like this.




[This message has been edited by Trumpy (edited 06-24-2005).]