Bulat Bayminov's WRIT-340 Blog

Micro loans. Sounds pretty simple to you? But it's not that simple for some people. As I've told you before, I come from a Russia, but to be more specific a small town of Ulan-Ude. The city that has a population of roughly half a million people and is located in cold Southern Siberia on the border of Mongolia. To put into perspective, life for a typical resident of Ulan-Ude goes in a different manner than for someone from Los Angeles. It's not just the deep Russian winters that I'm talking about, but the financial abilities of the big proportion of my city's residents. The average monthly wage in my town falls around $250 range. Yet it is not rare by any means to see someone with one of the latest iPhones, which, in modern Russia, shows that you know the current fashion trends. You would ask me how is that possible that someone with a very moderate monthly income has one of the latest Apple products? Well, there are two usual explanations. In the first case, (let

In her book The Blue Sweater , Ms. Novogratz, takes on many contemporary and viral topics, ranging from inequality to lack of education. In one of the excerpt from her book, she explains how "all mean are created equal to every human being on the planet." Ms. Novogratz believes that it is our responsibility as humans to challenge world problems and look further than our own neighborhood or city. I completely agree with her point that people need to grow closer to each other rather than separating themselves by gentrifying neighborhoods and building private residential areas. It sure makes sense, when a country's government first thinks of its own problems and the security of its own citizens. However, the notion of citizenship came about not that long ago, but it has already put a lot of meaning whether a person is a citizen of one or another country. From the fundamental perspective, people are equal, no matter their ethnicity and definitely their citizenship status. I a

In the Fall of 2017, my parents gave me a call explaining that they would love to visit me here in the United States. I thought that for them to make a long trip that consists of two flights, one over the whole country of Russia and another over the Atlantic Ocean, would be too much to ask for my short Thanksgiving break. Instead, I proposed a trip to Japan, a country that I had not travelled to before, but a country that my parents had visited 25 years ago, before I was even born. Japan it was then, I thought. I sat down to create an extensive itinerary, while also asking some of good friends for recommendations. While the city of Tokyo has an endless list of things to offer, there was one part in particular that drew my attention. It was a branch of the Rapha Cycling Club (RCC) that I am a member of here in Los Angeles. Rapha allows its members to rent its extensive fleet of top of the line road bikes for at an affordable price. I immediately signed up for a two day bike rental to

The author of Born on Third Base: A One Percenter Makes the Case for Tackling Inequality, Bringing Wealth Home, and Committing to the Common Good , Chuck Collins makes a rather rare argument by someone, who comes from a rich family to "prove the wealth by giving out the wealth." Throughout his book, Collins describes many personal anecdotes about how big of a difference does a birth to a rich white family in the U.S. really is. He brings out interesting and compelling stories supporting his argument. For example, Collins describes how two seemingly same college students could have vastly different experience throughout their undergraduate careers. As a comparison, he looks at a one student from a wealthy family, who has to mainly focus on academic and professional experience. In the very contrast, another student, who comes from a much more humble background has to work a few part-time jobs throughout his college career, which leaves him with a long, but unimpressive and comp

A beginner’s guide to Blockchain I wonder why many of my friends and acquaintances still have problems understanding what  Blockchain  technology really is. At the same I wonder why I myself didn’t. If I look back at it, it was two months ago, this past December, when I got struck with the value of the mysterious technology. What is Blockchain?   Bitcoin and the other cryptocurrencies were the major headlines during the past few months. And even though, they received the popularity, few people truly understand what the whole talk is about. It all starts with one thing.  Blockchain. There are two parts: a block and a chain. The blocks are connected to each other with (you guessed it right) chains in a digital format. There is an important piece that every block has called a hash. A hash is a set of characters that is derived from the information contained in the block. For example, the block of Group 1 has would have the hash that keeps the information on the first l