Russian wilderness...?

[McShane]

guys, i found out there is a russian skiboarding site www.skiboards.ru (cool graphics) - i posted on their forum. i'll see what their response is...

[Greco]

i see they are representing trix on stix in their gallery. actually i think it's just a copy of skiboards.com's gallery. anyone speak russian? tell 'em to get those pics outta there for god's sake.

-g

[McShane]

yeah, true. before i tell 'em, i want them to replay to my "introductory" post...

actually, i scanned through all their threads and it all seems pretty lame - still sorting out what the sport is about. but we can expect some quick progress from russians, as it happened with snowboarding in russia (many in the western world still do not know much about it, but it is kickin ass)

[allz]

heh, they have get to K2 fattys so far! nothing seems to me that they have there sumtin from real good skiboards! but yeah, like McShane said, they can progress realy fast! it is possible! They r Russians ;)

[CrazyDave]

http://babelfish.altavista.com/babelfish/urltrurl?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.polimerbit.ru%2FSnor ter%2Fskiboards%2Fstat.htm&lp=ru_en&tt=url

crudely translated but...

[McShane]

so, i got some response from a dude who said he was hosting the forum. i will try to recap his story:

"things still suck in Russia but there is some progress! the other year you could meet a skiboarder only once a week; this year things become better. I think there's a future! And with that I think that skiboards will beat snowboard on the popularity
it is a matter of advertise and publicity to masses... people simply do not know it yet...
many looks follow me on the slope when I ride, sometimes people ask what are these short skis ...
we will survive..."

thats about it. for several times i invited them to visit this very forum (sbol), we'll see if they show up.. ;)

[allz]

Greco, is there possible shipping to Russia??? i think u will get some order soon! i just think so! ;)

[Greco]

yeah, it's an option in the shopping cart.

g

[allz]

so, have u any skb shipping expierence with Russians?

[Greco]

no, i don't think anyone has ever ordered from russia before from sbol. but i'm sure the post office can handle it. :D

[McShane]

if their postal horses get to the village through the snow :D just kiddin...

[Kirill]

Hi! :)

I can tell you the truth about russian skiboarding :) Actually it's getting more popular among the rollers who have no place to skate during winter. You can rent a pair of Solomon Minimax in every ski rental place. But the problem is that we don't have any skiboards except K2s and Salomons . Or you can seldom find saome rare Carvelino (smth like that) or Fischer XXLs. But there are no Canons, BG, Snowjams and other stuff. On the other hand, there are no special snowparks with rails, halfpipes and thing for doing tricks. Now some are being constructed (hope so).

I really want to have some Canon M7 :) If I manage to overcome all shipping difficulties I'll be definitely the only owner of Canons in Moscow :)

The skiboards.ru is not working. But in other skiing forums the skiboards are discussed a lot.

If we had a shop selling normal skiboards, they would have become really popular. Same thing happened with rollersport. 3 years ago only 5-10 rollers used to come to roller-nights and recent summer there were 100s of newbies.

WBR,
Kirill

[allz]

hi Kiril , glad to see u here!

in Latvia is sumtin like in Russia, but here that progress is not seen ..i just dont see it! hmm, maybe the only progress is that here in Latvia we have 2 pairs of Canon M7, owners = McShane and me! so, a liitle progression will be...i hope!!!

c u later Kiril...

[allz]

ohh... one more thing..maybe you can tell in which forums those skiboard discussions are!!!! ok!

[McShane]

Çäàðîâà, Kirill!
finally we have a Russian joined this forum. ;) Are you the one i was communicating to on skiboards.borda.ru???
anyways... you said you don't have any snow parks in russia, moscow surroundings. but what about snowboarders??? don't russian snowboarders do slope-stylin'???

what are these other skiing sites/forums, where skiboards are discussed?

ok, take care!

[Kirill]

I am not the one you talked to on the forum :) Personally I discovered many topics about skiboards(snowblades :) by using yandex.ru (search site) while looking for russian shops selling Canon M7 or at least Salomon SB10 (no result :( )
For example:

http://ski.spb.ru/forum/read.php?f=1&i=326&t=326&c=1#CURRENT

You can find a lot of discussions here: http://www.auto.ru/wwwboards/ski/ if you search for "ñêèáîðäû", "áëåéäû", "ñíîóáëåéäû" among the posts.

I think you can look through www.rollerclub.ru and www.roller.ru forums. That's where most rollers are :)
Recently I've found skiboards.narod.ru site with some info, but it's terribly slow.

I don't snowboard (is there such a verb? :), so I don't know the full information. We do have some small parks with rails and halfpipes for snowboarders (1 or 2 for 14 million population of Moscow!), but they are usually overcrowded :(

Believe me or not, we sometimes don't get enough snow :D (in Moscow!!!) So only parks with artificial snow can help, but who will pay for it? Our skiing resorts (situated outside moscow) do have all the appliances, but they don't usually build halfpipes and funboxes for snowboarders. As the snowboarders dont want to pay for it :) Well, it seems that 2 parks are enough to have high quality riders ("park" for me means a place with halfpipes, funboxes, springboars(?) (the thing for getting you into air :)

But we had 10 or even 20 parks, the situation would be much more interesting :)


P.S.

I've just noticed the update in the list of bindings. Are the spruce riser bindings with brake better than same with leashes? Aren't they heavier?

[allz]

Kirill, but how u find SBOL ??? from that skiboards.ru forum? or sumtin else ways???

[Kirill]

2allz

www.google.com and type in "skiboards" :)

[allz]

hehe , yes, thats the same way i make my way here some 2 years ago! ;)..:) !!! but good to know that we r more international and more wider....its progression..good!

[McShane]

seeing Kirill is on again, just wanted to turn back to this discussion...

any updates about skiboarding in russia? i just checked the skiboards.ru forum - it is dead! :( and skiboard.ru is selling wakeboards

what about all the rollers/rollersites out there? has the movement kicked off, do you see it happening soon?

PS i noticed you said you have 2 parks for the 14million of moscow. we have some 50 for 2.3million latvians... just something to think about...

[Kirill]

The skiboards.ru is totally inactive and the forum is dead.

Whereas the number of rollerskater is increasing, skiboards are not really popular. Problems are always the same: not so many places to ride, narrow choice of equipment, not so many riders. M ost ppl choose skis or snowboards cause they know what it is. As for the skiboards not so many ppl want to "buy and try" something they have never seen in action. But nevertheless we shall see what will happen this winter. Now it is not the time to make any conclusions about russian skiboarding :) Waiting for winter :)

[Greco]

позвольте нам надежду для лучшего

-G

[McShane]

kirill: i totally see your point there! it's about the same here. i just was bold enought to "buy and try" :D

greco: you are striking! (on using babel :)) but i guess you can get the point - we should find channels to introduce the sport...

[Greco]

you guys are the channels. russian skiboarding is in your hands.

one idea, find the most talented inline skaters and get them to try skiboards, once they are good, then have competitions or demonstrations. the only way for it to grow is for people to see it and want to try it.

g


визуализируйте ваше будущее. будет ваше будущее.

[Kirill]

we'll see what we can do :)

[McShane]

i've been thinking on this greco ;)
but i don't really know the local skater society (allz - maybe you know?) since i'm more from skier/snowboarder world...

[allz]

sorry McShane, i didnt tell ya about it, but i already talked to some of INLINE skaters (aggressive) , latvian PRO riders, and some of them are in interest abou skiboard try out this winter!!!

will see...

[McShane]

kewl! you've got some grooves to let them try ;)

[allz]

i havent them yet, still waiting for!!!