I am deeply interested in the statistics of this blog. For those who don't blog on blogspot, they keep track certain items of interest. I can look at the number of hits the blog gets right now at this moment in time, over the last twenty four hours, over the last week, over the last month or since I began the blog. It also gives me stats on which entries are being read, how many times blog entries have been read. It can tell me what kind of platforms are being used and the percentage of each to read the blog and the kind of browsers used and the percentage of those that are used to read my blog. It also tells me how people reach my blog by giving me details of search and referring sites, like Facebook, Google, Bling among others as well as the keywords that are used in the search engines that lead people to this blog. Pretty amazing and interesting stuff to satiate my massive curiosity.
The last statistic that they give me is where people are hitting the blog from by their respective country. I have been keeping track and so far my blog has been read in over one hundred countries. It also tells me how many times my blog has been read in each country. Since I started the blog in October of 2010, the most read country, of course, is the United States by far. Canada is well represented as are the west European countries like the UK, Germany, France along with some Scandinavian countries and far eastern countries.
A lot of hits have come from former Soviet Bloc countries, which isn't too surprising to me. The new freedoms that have been opened up since the USSR has been dismantled seem to me to be a natural curiosity of what goes on in the west from these relatively new users of the internet.
For the most part the hits from various countries have been pretty consistent. One trend that has changed is that when the blog began, Denmark was reading my blog a lot. For a long time they were number two of all the countries finding this blog somehow. Since that time though, the readership from Denmark has dropped off considerably. I am not sure why that happened and it kind of bothers me a little bit, but other countries have taken up the slack so the percentage of readers from foreign countries has stayed pretty steady. However it is in this category that a strange trend has popped up over the last several months.
Since the dismantling of the Soviet Union twenty one years ago, Russia has become a country unto itself once again. Boris Yeltsin took control of the Soviet Union on Christmas day of 1991 and immediately made the countries, that the day before had been a member of the USSR, independent sovereign states including Russia itself.
Several years ago Vladimir Putin came into power in Russia. He is from the old school of Russian history. It seems to me that ever since he took office he has been slowly clamping down on the Russian people. He has invented new offices for him to hold and retain his power. As each year goes by, it seems there is less and less freedom for the people of his country.
Now when I started the blog I would get a few hits from Russia every week. It seemed to range from between three to seven hits a week. I was pleased with that. My thinking is how do people from all over the world manage to find this little tiny blog and why on earth do they bother to read it? Even people in China have managed to stumble across this hodgepodge of writing and music. It just fascinates me on how they find it.
Well, several months ago, President (or whatever office he is holding right now) Putin started to crack down on the access to the internet that the Russian people could have. They began checking out sites and blocking them from being available in Russia. Most of the censorship were web sites from the western world, as you would expect.
Since that time, my readership from Russia has steadily grown. It was of little notice at first, but about three months ago the hits from Russia exploded with a great number of hits on my little blog. The hits I receive from Russia equals if not surpasses the hits I get from the United States now. Russia suddenly roared up the ranks of countries reading my blog. It soared quickly too. Right now Russia is the number two ranked country that reads my blog since it's beginning and surpasses number three Germany by over 600 hits. I have sat and watched the numbers from Russia climb every week and am truly astounded. So far this week, the hits from russia surpass the hits from the United States by ten. That isn't much but when you consider th over all numbers, any country reading my blog more than the United States is a quite a feat.
I have a couple of scenarios that I think might be happening. My first one is that there is this beautiful Russian lady over there and she accidentally stumbled on my blog. Seeing my picture on it, she instantly became fascinated with me and writing. I have become an obsession with her and she logs onto my blog several times a day just to look at the pictures or to read my writing, even if it is the fifth time she has read it. She dreams of one day coming to the States just to see me. She is too shy and unsure of herself to actually approach me, so she stalks me from a distance. Somehow I don't think that is the case.
There could be a group of anti-Putin rebels who are doing anything they can to deny Putin the joy of blocking their access to the western world. Since The Russian government would NEVER find my blog, they have latched onto it just to show the Putin regime that he can't stop them from hitting site in the States. They continue to visit my blog to raise numbers on the hits that the United States receives from Russia. They don't actually READ my blog, but just connect to it every day to make a protest against their government.
The third possibility is probably the most likely. Blogspot has a blogbug in it and it is inadvertently giving my blog hits from Russia without there actually being any hits from Russia. It probably takes at random hits from the States and moves the hit over to Russia so it looks like Russia has suddenly become VERY interested in this little blog.
Who knows? It could be a number of other things. I just find the timing of it and the massive numbers of hits from Russia as a little interesting to me. Who knows, I could be the unknown leader of a great uprising in Russia that is set to be let loose on their government on some future date, based solely on my writings. Now THAT would be neat.
mmmmmmm...........I say go with the stalker!
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