The Safety Doc Podcast

Untold Stories From Former Soviet Cyclist Nikolai Razouvaev

Nikolai Razouvaev was part of the Soviet national team between 1984 and 1990. He won a gold medal in a team time trial at the UCI junior world championships in 1984. Nikolai was cycling in Kiev just days following the April 26, 1986, Chernobyl nuclear plant disaster. Kiev, with a population of 2 million, is 100 km (62 miles) from Chernobyl. Nikolai recently returned to road racing in Australia, where he also coaches other cyclists. He works with a company involved with clinical trials for persons experiencing depression or cognitive decline. Nikolai is the author of The Renegade: A Memoir of a Soviet Cyclist. Read the full blog post for episode #144 at safetyphd.com. CYCLING NEAR CHERNOBYL - WHAT NIKOLAI SAW AND HEARD. The Peace Race, dating back to 1948 and known as the “Tour de France of the East”, was a prestigious cycling event attended not only by communist bloc states but also guest cyclists from the West. It was on a high sporting level but it also played an important political and ideological role. Its traditional participants were from Czechoslovakia, Poland and East Germany. In 1986 the Soviet Union joined in and it was decided the race should start from Kiev. Cyclists from the West immediately returned home when informed about the Chernobyl accident. Only 64 cyclists entered the race; less than half of the usual number. LEAD COVERED BUSES. Nikolai saw hundreds of evacuation buses covered with lead sheets, similar to plywood, just outside of Kiev. A driver had tipped him off to the Chernobyl accident just 62 miles away. More information came in over the airwaves from radio stations in Germany - despite the Soviet government jamming foreign radio frequencies. Nikolai recalled other foreboding signs in Kiev, such as near-empty streets during the race and a routine of large water trucks and workers washing radiation from the pavement. RED WINE AND ALL IS FINE. Red wine, vodka and other alcohol were difficult to find in Kiev. Popular belief was that alcohol protected the body from radiation. “Weird times,” per Nikolai. HOW TO GET TRUTHFUL INFORMATION IN THE 1980s SOVIET UNION. Nikolai explained that by the 1980s, most people living in Russia dismissed the constant stream of state-run media and propaganda. Surprisingly, people placed much trust into the accuracy of rumors and Nikolai shared that people would discuss rumors, but there wasn’t a practice, or need, to verify rumors. INFORMATION DURING PERESTROIKA AND GLASNOST. The 1980s policies of perestroika and glasnost changed the perspective of the citizens of the Soviet Union. As perestroika focused on reviving the economy and empowering it, glasnost focused on openness. It is during openness that most weaknesses of communism and end of the Soviet Union were brought across. Nikolai noted that this explosion of new information was more overwhelming than the Chernobyl accident. HOW DID SAMIZDAT DESTROY THE SOVIET UNION? Samizdat (self-publishing) was a form of dissident activity across the Eastern Bloc in which individuals reproduced censored and underground makeshift publications, often by hand, and passed the documents from reader to reader.  “A strange world of lies.” Nikolai noted that in the later 1980s, a flurry of small independent newspapers could be legally produced and sold in Russia. They were very expensive, costing twenty times the price of a state newspaper. For that reason, a single copy was often shared with many people. Although some of these new publications were disguised propaganda, most were suppressed truths that aligned to documents kept in “libraries” and other government archives that were not open to the public. CRAZY STORIES FROM NIKOLAI’S YOUTH. Go ahead and jump to the final 20 minutes of the show! Nikolai shares two jaw-dropping stories. One involves a bag packed with BIG money dropped at his feet and the other involves a thug pressing a gun to his head and telling him to make right with his maker. INTERNET SEARCHES SOAR FOR DEPRESSION REMEDIES. Nikolai works in the marketing department for a company that conducts clinical trials for depression and Alzheimer’s treatments. He’s observed a sharp increase in people searching for variants of depression therapy and noted that his company is inundated with people requesting to participate in trials for depression treatments. He attributes this behavior to the pandemic. FOLLOW DR. PERRODIN: Twitter @SafetyPhD and subscribe to The Safety Doc YouTube channel & Apple Podcasts. SAFETY DOC WEBSITE & BLOG: www.safetyphd.com. The Safety Doc Podcast is hosted & produced by David Perrodin, PhD. ENDORSEMENTS. Opinions are those of the host & guests. The show seeks to bring forward productive discourse on topics relevant to personal or community safety. This is episode 144 of The Safety Doc Podcast published on 7-24-2020.

• Purchase Dr. Perrodin’s Book: School of Errors – Rethinking School Safety in America. www.schooloferrors.com.
• Nikolai Razouvaev's website:  https://www.nikolai.com.au/

Clay Martin | Author of Concrete Jungle: A Green Beret’s Guide to Urban Survival | LIVESTREAM 7-18-2020

Retired Recon Marine Clay Martin leverages his bonafide credentials and experience to provide listeners with fact-based, authentic concepts regarding the application of survival techniques in their homes, neighborhoods, and any environment that spins into chaos. Clay shares captivating personal stories, including a time when a momentary fatigue of his situational awareness resulted in juggling a hot potato tear gas canister decoyed as a Dr. Pepper bottle. Read the full blog post for episode #143 at safetyphd.com. ABOUT CLAY MARTIN. Clay Martin is a former USMC Infantryman, Reconnaissance Marine, and Scout Sniper. He crossed deck to the US Army and spent the rest of his career in Special Forces, because he is a glutton for punishment. Medically retired at 15 years of service, he wandered the Earth like Caine from Kung Fu, before remembering he could type and starting a career as a gun review monkey and novelist. He is the author of Last Son of the War God and the Sword of the Caliphate, fictional works. CONCRETE JUNGLE - AMAZON BEST SELLER / SEVERAL REVIEWS. Written in 2019 and released in June 2020, Concrete Jungle: A Green Berets guide to Urban Survival, is unfortunately a non-fiction book appropriate to the times we live in. As cultural war clouds gather, cities are becoming the flashpoint. In this volume, retired Special Forces soldier Clay Martin teaches you how to survive it. A multi tour GWOT veteran and Special Forces Advanced Urban Combat instructor, as well as long time prepper and competitive shooter, Clay brings a different type of skill set to the party. From laying in supplies to siege proofing your apartment building, this volume answers the questions other experts cannot. HOUSE BURNED DOWN, MEDICAL EVENT, AND THEN COVID19. Clay and his family were out of town when their house caught fire and was destroyed at the end of January. A week later, Clay was hospitalized with an unexpected blog clot in his right arm that extended into his lungs, and by the time he was released in February, the COVID19 pandemic became something that couldn’t be ignored by Americans - so his family prepared for the pandemic, without many of their possessions, while living in a rental house - and as Clay was a medically-compromised person due to the recent hospitalization. Conditioned for chaotic times, Clay rolled with the situation and stated, “We have water bottles and a backpack, we’ll be fine”, but also found his young children asking, “where are our toys, why are we living in BRBs, …?” SITUATION AWARENESS - YOU CAN LEARN IT. Clay wrote that the American civilian population has been largely insulated and comfortable since 1941. People in America wake up expecting and experiencing a predictable, safe day. He believes that most people are deficient in situational awareness skills unless they’ve grown up in a volatile area, such as a big city - in which situational awareness and survival skills are an evolved process. SNIPER SCHOOL. Clay shared that sniper school focused on identifying nuanced things through binoculars or being able to recall what you passed while walking to lunch. The more you observe your environment, the more you automatically attend to what’s happening around you and also apply a filter of, “What can hurt me right now?” David built on this with an example of taking his family to a baseball game last summer. He taught his daughters to watch the position of the infielders and outfielders in order to predict what might happen next. HOW CLAY BUILT HIS PROXY NETWORK. Clay notes that different people have different abilities to handle things - so learn people’s strengths and play to those strengths when building your information network. If someone’s a spreadsheet fanatic, give him an assignment of aggregating data from members in the field. Clay describes how he built his information network similar to a phone tree - and have the primary people be the ones that live close to you. Remember that your connections in other parts of the country are likely to have their own regional networks. PREDICTORS OF THINGS TO COME. Clay identified alarming patterns of behavior last year including some states and cities choosing to selectively enforce the law and dropping charges - and a trend toward a more lawless society. Clay feels we might be 6-8 months out from hyperinflation and an economic collapse. FOLLOW DR. PERRODIN: Twitter @SafetyPhD and subscribe to The Safety Doc YouTube channel & Apple Podcasts. SAFETY DOC WEBSITE & BLOG: www.safetyphd.com. The Safety Doc Podcast is hosted & produced by David Perrodin, PhD. ENDORSEMENTS. Opinions are those of the host & guests. The show seeks to bring forward productive discourse on topics relevant to personal or community safety. This is episode 143 of The Safety Doc Podcast published on 7-18-2020.

• Purchase Dr. Perrodin’s Book: School of Errors – Rethinking School Safety in America. www.schooloferrors.com.
• Clay Martin's website:  http://off-the-reservation.com/

Joe Dolio | Assessing the Situation | Body Cams | Mustering Member Checks | LIVESTREAM 7-6-2020

Joe Dolio is a USMC Veteran with over 20 years in corporate security investigations as a Certified Fraud Examiner and Certified Forensic Interviewer. He is a KyoSaNim (Instructor) and Second Degree Black Belt in Tang Soo Do. Joe is adept in situational awareness and successfully negotiating exits from chaotic environments. He curates the website tactical-wisdom.com which is a repository for his posts about personal safety and grounded wisdom. Read the full blog post for episode #142 at safetyphd.com. SITUATIONAL AWARENESS. Joe distinguishes between intelligence and information. People tend to source information from rumors or from the media instead of getting out and verifying things for themselves. “My cousin’s friend knows a guy…” is information - it is NOT intelligence. What did you do to verify that information? Joe heard that Detroit area hospitals were crowded with COVID19 patients - TV images suggested jammed parking lots and M*A*S*H-like field hospitals popping up across the city. Questioning this information, he drove to the hospitals and found that the parking lots weren’t overflowing as depicted by the media or embellished in personal stories. Grocery stores were also among the places visited by Joe at the onset of the coronavirus as he observed human behavior - how people were “feeling” about the pandemic - calm, nervous, totally panicked! He found that people’s behaviors weren’t necessarily matched to what was authentically happening with the supply chain. MUSTERING YOUR MEMBER CHECK NETWORK - AN APP TO VERIFY INFO. Face validity (face validity is a simple test of asking if what I’m observing makes sense - think of a thermometer that reports 80 degrees during a snowstorm - that’s an error in face validity) is amplified by building a carefully vetted, trained, and coached group of like-minded people who are able to authentically observe and report what they experience in their environments. Joe noted that members of his network used the Solocator app which allowed them to take photos that were automatically tagged with time stamps and GPS coordinates. His network debriefed daily and used Google documents to aggregate data and identify trends. OPTIONS IF TRAPPED IN CAR DURING PROTEST. It’s on everyone’s mind...what if I’m in my car and inadvertently get caught in a protest? It might be an inconvenience - or it might escalate into a dangerous situation. First, Joe advises to check for scheduled protests if traveling and to steer clear of those areas. If you are in your vehicle and caught within a group of protesters, he reminds people of their options to: (1) keep moving (not to collide with people); (2) reverse course - even if it means driving the wrong way or skipping the median; or, in extreme situations, (3) abandon your vehicle if the protests have become violent and you judge your life is in peril and that you have time to get to a safer location. HOW TO GO STEALTH. Joe attended [peaceful] protests as an observer and noted the security teams deployed by protest groups (not the government) to monitor vehicles and people that appeared to be watching the protesters instead of participating in the protest. Joe dressed in jeans, a hoodie, and a baseball cap and kept a change of clothes in his backpack. He shared this information to help people learn how to blend in and get away from impromptu crowds - and noted protests were happening in grocery store parking lots across his city. Have the ability to quickly change your profile. SHOULD I WEAR A BODY CAM? Joe wears a body cam for his professional work and notes that a decent body cam with video and audio costs less than $100. His recommendation is Mini Gadgets Camstick1080p which clips into a pocket. He believes that gun owners should absolutely have a body cam to provide contextual evidence if they decide to use deadly force. Additionally, automotive dash cams are affordable and invaluable during a disputed accident. Check your state’s laws regarding one or two party consent to record. WHAT TO HAVE IN YOUR FIRST AID - DUCT TAPE. Joe insists that duct tape is a staple of every first aid kit. For more on this topic, read his blog post at https://tactical-wisdom.com/2020/07/07/first-aid-skills/ LEARN BASIC SELF DEFENSE. Check out your local dojo for martial arts courses. Get a gym membership and learn to spar and box. Could you defend yourself if someone attempted to tackle you? FOLLOW DR. PERRODIN: Twitter @SafetyPhD and subscribe to The Safety Doc YouTube channel & Apple Podcasts. SAFETY DOC WEBSITE & BLOG: www.safetyphd.com. The Safety Doc Podcast is hosted & produced by David Perrodin, PhD. ENDORSEMENTS. Opinions are those of the host & guests. The show seeks to bring forward productive discourse on topics relevant to personal or community safety. This is episode 142 of The Safety Doc Podcast published on 7-6-2020.

• Purchase Dr. Perrodin’s Book: School of Errors – Rethinking School Safety in America. www.schooloferrors.com
• Joe Dolio's website:  https://tactical-wisdom.com/