Part 4

Just a couple of oddities to finish this odyssey.

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Every schuko socket at the poshest hotel in Vladivostok looked like this with the bottom grounding contact bent up and flat. I couldn’t work out if this was done on the install or if everyone of them had been systematically damaged by inserting a non-schuko plug in them. Maybe someone from the schuko world could comment. The reason this one is marked ‘220V’ is that it is intended for general purpose use. There are other schuko sockets in the room powering the TV and table/bedside lamps but these are worked from a relay activated by inserting your credit card style room key into a pocket by the door. In English(!) these sockets are marked ‘Warning-not for general use. DC only’ The lamps were standard Edison screw with no voltage markings on them and the TV was plugged into the same socket. It was a South Korean based hotel chain and I’ve seen similar installations in Australia and North America. Would any installers be able to comment on the ‘DC’ remark?

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Back at the hotel in Senegoriye was this interesting receptacle marked ‘RADIO’ in Cyrillic letters. It fed a small wall-mounted speaker unit with only a volume control/on-off switch. I assume that both power and signal was derived from the outlet that was a standard Russian two pin in size. I never tried plugging anything else into it so I have no idea what the voltage was.

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And finally, the only way to travel he says with tongue pressed firmly in his cheek. The orange backed truck was our transport around the district. We traveled 1000 miles in it, often without being able to see out of the windows due to mud being thrown up by the rear pair of wheels. It is a 6x6 KAMAZ and goes anywhere. That thing went places where I wouldn’t take a jeep and I driven some pretty rough terrains in my time. At times it felt like we were doing 120km/h but it turned out to be more like 65 km/h flat-out. I now know what a FedEx Ground parcel feels like!




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