Alexander Lapshin is a well-known Russian blogger and traveler who came up with his nickname Puerto. We will talk about him in our article.
Alexander Lapshin. Biography
Our hero was born in Yekaterinburg (Sverdlovsk) in 1976. Sasha’s father is Russian, her mother is Jewish. When the boy was 13 years old, his family moved to a permanent residence in Israel. After graduating from school there, Alexander Lapshin served in the Israeli army for 3 years, even fought in hot spots and managed to get 2 higher educations. From 2003 to 2008, he again moved to Russia, but already to Moscow. There he went into business, namely, the resale of real estate and shares. This allowed him to purchase his own apartment in Moscow.
After the financial crisis that erupted in 2008 in Russia, he returned to Israel again. There he lives in a small quiet place near the border with Lebanon and works as an editor of Russian travel-related websites. He has never been married. Sasha has no children.
Occupation and Interests
As noted earlier, Alexander Lapshin is a blogger, a very famous and avid traveler. He keeps his online diary in LiveJournal. His page on this site has collected more than ten thousand subscriptions and is the most visited among travel enthusiasts. Alexander has already visited more than 100 countries of the world, and some of them several times.
I would like to note that he carefully thinks out and plans all his trips, starting from buying tickets for flights and ending with booking rooms in hotels, actively using special offers, last-minute tours and discounts on tickets. Lapshin will never go on a trip if it will cost him dearly. And on his trips, he always uses a rented car.
Alexander Lapshin is pleased to share his impressions with the large army of readers of his rather interesting blog.
Another of Sasha’s hobbies is the desire to obtain citizenship of various countries. Interesting hobby. He already received Russian citizenship at birth, as he was born in the Russian Federation. Israeli citizenship was issued by him upon arrival in Israel at a young age.
A little later, Lapshin received Ukrainian citizenship. Although our hero did not live a single day in this country. But he was soon deprived of it by the Ukrainian authorities. In addition, he applied for Georgian citizenship, but to no avail.
Citizenship and Worldview
Alexander Lapshin's blog is replete not only with travel impressions. He often criticizes a lot of officials of all stripes and representatives of power structures of different countries of the world. Particular emphasis is placed on the creation of all kinds of obstacles for travel and non-compliance with prescribed laws. For this reason, he sued the Ukrainian Ministry of Internal Affairs because of the deprivation of his citizenship. Also, there was a debate with the Russian Consulate of Israel because of the numerous requisitions for obtaining passports. To top it off, he sued the Israeli Ministry of Security for his arrest.
In a conversation with officials, according to Lapshin, it is imperative to have a recording device with you, information from which can be used in the future as a means of exposure and pressure on them.
Alexander Lapshin almost never appears at secular and other public events, despite numerous interviews with the press and active journalistic activities.
International scandal around the figure of Lapshin
In mid-December 2016, Sasha was arrested in Minsk at the request of Azerbaijan. Prior to these events, he visited Nagorno-Karabakh in 2011 and 2012. After that, the authorities prohibited him from entering the country and put him on the black list. But in 2015, he crossed Azerbaijan from Georgia with a Ukrainian passport, in which “Alexander” was written instead of “Alexander”. At the border control, he was freely allowed in without recognizing the very Lapshin from the black list. In addition, our hero twice called for recognition of the independence of Nagorno-Karabakh. As a result, the Azerbaijani prosecutor’s office accused Alexander of illegally entering the country and put him on the international wanted list, initiating 2 criminal cases.
Representatives of Russia and Israel, of which Alexander is a citizen of the countries, actively participated in the fate of the blogger. They tried to prevent his extradition to Azerbaijan, since he was shining from five to eight years in prison.
As a result, diplomats and officials of 5 countries were drawn into and involved in an international conflict. An international scandal erupted around Lapshin: having gone to a demonstrative conflict, Belarus ruined relations with Russia, Israel and Armenia.