I am quite sure I will never forget this 24th February 2022. Like I will know what I did on 9/11. These special days in your life. I have been at the Offroad History Museum in Sharjah, United Arab Emirates, when I needed a break and scanned the news. Even though my flight flew along the Ukrainian border (instead of crossing the country’s airspace), I was shocked. I did not expect that to happen. The evening before, I told a Ukrainian friend that this scenario will not happen. I was wrong. An offensive war with a vague justification by Putin’s Russia. I still cannot believe that it happened.

War is never the right Option
I am not at all a political expert, so I may be wrong. But on the other hand, I don’t neglect the longer story behind all that. I do believe that both sides, the NATO and Russia, made mistakes. But I also believe that invading the Ukraine is not an appropriate reaction. It is unacceptable in my point of view. If you disagree, that’s fine to me.
The Trip I did the Day Before
Interestingly, my trip to the Emirates suits so well to what I am thinking. It was not planned like this, but Covid-19 cancellation forced me to alter my plans so that I finally flew through four countries. I started in Germany, continued to Sweden, headed on to Finland and finally flew to Dubai Airport. I have friends in all four countries. Wonderful people – I told a few ones that I think of them when I have been at “their” airport. Just because it felt so good to be closer to them. Even in Dubai, I just needed to show my Covid-19 test, scan my passport and was in that country. We are one world. You may prefer German democracy over the Emirate system – or vice versa. But we respect each other. And finally, it is not that important where you are coming from.
Okay, unfortunately, the last point is not really true. I see more and more that we lack to have good discussions. I feel that it is more important how you look alike than what you are saying. Even when you try to sell some overpriced and maybe even low quality fashion. You gave your community a discount code, so they love you. We accept this kind of lie – and we accepted lies in general. And if there are opposing opinions, the other party is bad, criminal. We tend to become more aggressive, more extreme. Not only on that 24th February 2022.
The Mission of Flyctory.com – and why I feel it should go on
You are on my blog, so for whatever reason you consume my source of truth. Not only about the war in the Ukraine, but majorly in other topics. Travel, music, sports. In a hotel review, for example, I am very keen on good services, good processes. I hate small work desks and too few power sockets. Maybe for you a good hotel needs a great beach and a nice hotel bar. You are still welcome to enjoy the world as I see it. You are very welcome to discuss with me (in a non-offending manner). And even if you disagree to my way of thinking, I might have given you an idea if that could be a place which is worth visiting for you. Regardless what I thought about it.
Flyctory.com is about showing you the world. Not in a travel sense only. You run into music from different countries, different genres. I just had a full rating jazz album, even though I hate jazz typically. I want to show you more sports than I did so far. I am still gifted that I can take you to so many places, melodies and sportive competitions, which I personally feel are worth having a listen. I take you to churches and temples even though I am atheist. The world is great – even even though cultures may be different, we should enjoy that. Not fight against each other.
Let’s Travel Together
I want you to enjoy the world wherever you go. And I would love you to take some (virtual trips) with Flyctory.com. After a weekend like the one of 24th February 2022. I feel it is more important than ever. And this is why I felt I should continue posting and take you on these trips. Regardless what is just happening. Let’s enjoy being different.
And finally, as I have also a few Ukrainian friends and beloved contacts, I just pick out one of them to close this posting. The video below is by Furia Roha. An Ukrainian DJ I am in contact with since quite a while (even before she has become a DJ). She is doing electronic music. I cannot relate to that too much – but I feel she is doing great in it. And I am proud of her doing it:
Title picture by the amazing Claudio Schwarz on Unsplash
Postings about Flyctory.com
I sometimes write about the development of this blog, upgrades and other internal topics:
It all started in August 2019 - and it has become a key delivery of Flyctory.com since then. The Country ...
has come to an end - and my Best of posting is the one which is "traditionally" concluding the year. The ...
Like I did in 2023, I will kick off my looking back to the year 2024 with some travel facts ...
is coming to an end, and my series of year-end reviews are already in the making. I felt to do ...
Last Thursday has been a very special moment in the history of my blog Flyctory.com. I a sure most of ...
Since a couple of years, I have a group of so-called Featured Artists - musicians, which are in a special ...
In early April 2023, I gave you an insight into my loyalty program strategy for 2023. The posting Thumbs up ...
The seizure of operation by Everynoise.com made it necessary to reform my country music playlists. I already mentioned this one ...
Is it really New Year's Eve already again? The last day of the year? I am posting this one in ...
Let's try out something new: in addition to the Best of postings I present you at the end of the year, I ...
When I wanted to work on 8th December 2023, preparing the base data for my two country music playlists, I ...
And then, it were three. I already shared Christmas songs by country artists twice as a playlist. For the Flyctory.com ...
Home is where the heart is - I had the idea to this posting about my favorite cities of the ...
A major part of optimizing your travel portfolio is to determine the loyalty program which suits best to you. Thereby, ...
Damn, it is already four years... And it is more than 2,750 postings since then. On 25th February 2018, I ...
The last posting of the year - Best Ones 2022 is introducing you to my best experience last years (as ...
While the music market is more and more focusing on singles and even writes weird stories like Taylor Swift's "Top ...
Since I started working with Flyctory.com, I present you a list of my favorite songs at the end of every ...
Just some ten days left until Christmas. Instead of my typical album preview, I this time go for a preview ...
After I rolled out the Country Christmas Playlist 2021 in late November that year, I am this time a bit ...
Especially for tourists, Dubai rather means entertainment, luxury and posh shopping. Thus, having a boat ride in a swan-shaped pedal ...
It is time for the final posting of the years, simply named The Best Ones 2021. After looking into my ...
2021 definitely lifted Flyctory.com to another level. The community is steadily increasing - days with less than 2,000 page hits ...
Year-end is the time to look back to all the stuff what happened to you. Ideally you rather remind the ...
Even though I do have a couple of airport reviews on Flyctory.com, I so far missed a lot of the ...
Okay, I give in. In the world of country music, Christmas starts in early September. That's when the first song ...
Summer feels to be over - Fall 2021 is coming. Finally, I had much more - and better - trips ...
This is a posting I am aiming to write since ages somehow. I visited so many hotels - not just ...
During the later phases of the Covid-19 lock-downs in Germany, I had the idea to that posting. Maybe just because ...
I studied maths. This almost certainly means that I am weird. Or, at least, that I tend to have weird ...
It started on 27th July 2018 with Talk of This Town by Catherine McGrath. Last weekend, I reached another milestone: with Immortal ...
After praising my favorite songs of 2020 and the favorite albums and EPs in 2020, the final posting to do ...
292 Media Review postings - looking into new music (and a few other) releases was definitely some sort of core ...
2020 is about to come to an end - and the last three posting of the years re about to ...
Just about one month left until we are facing our very first socially distanced Christmas. Especially after hard times in ...
Starting Flyctory.com as a travel and sports blog some 30 months ago, I wouldn't have imagined at its beginning how ...
A friend of mine recently asked me how the current Covid-19 situation is affecting myself personally and of course also ...
My Country Music Playlists on Amazon Music and Spotify are one of the most popular elements of the Flyctory.com music ...
While I am writing this blog posting, I am sitting in London. The C2C: Country to Country has been cancelled ...
While I so far made an semi-annual look back in time, the "Very Important Postings", I decided something with my ...
I decided to split the "Best music" postings of 2019 into two parts: while I already published my personal Best ...
2019 has come to an end - and music has been one of the key topics of Flyctory.com in 2019 ...
You may have visited Flyctory.com the last days hoping to have some coverage of the Neuchatel World Floorball Championships this ...
I am constantly aiming to improve your user experience on the website. I always felt that drilling down the list ...
Some ten weeks weeks ago, I added another feature to Flyctory.com: the Country Music Playlists on Amazon and Spotify allows ...
I try to improve Flyctory.com steadily and enlarge your visitor's experience. I felt that there is so much music on ...
June 2019, time for the third semiannual summary of the website. Quite a lot has changed and improved compared to ...
Another six months have passed - the first full half year of Flyctory.com's existance. After I did the Very Important ...
1st July 2018 - we start counting down the days to christmas already. In this posting I resume about what ...
Some of you may ask: Why did I choose Wordpress for this site? First of all, my wife Sarah had ...
Ukraine
Here are postings related to the Ukraine:
I have really been looking forward to the weekend of 22nd and 23rd June 2024 for a while. Even though ...
This week, I am in Munich, watching a couple of Rock of Ages shows. The week is more busy and demanding ...
I still feel that in many athletics meetings, the track events are somehow still more in focus than the field ...
In general, I plan to increase the frequency of my athletics coverage during 2024. The first event of that sports ...
I have to give in: the song leading this week's Songs of the Week might also be a candidate for the ...
After Christmas break, 13th January 2023 featured the first major set of new releases in the new year. One of ...
October is quite a busy time for me. Private and business trips take most of my time. My Songs of the ...
While I had to process quite a lot of country music new releases this week, the list of non-country songs ...
The week after the 2022 Easter Bunny features some really interesting music. The heading song comes with a touch of ...
Not really sure why the release calendars are so seasonal (apart from major holidays like Christmas) - but I generally ...
The Russian offensive war in the Ukraine hit me mentally very strongly. I have some lovely people and contacts over ...
The Opportunity District, which is having the orange color coding on the map of the Expo 2020 grounds, is not ...