Blogger award

Good day, dear visitors of my blog about cooking (and other) recipes!

Thank you for your support! All through February there was a tense fight for the title of best blog as judged by the online community I love so much — that is, by you, dear readers. The gods know I've been lucky with my audience, as the first places in two categories confirm.

The awards were presented at the ceremony of the Regional Blogger Award; photos can be seen on Andrey Donskikh's blog, thanks to whom the award took place at all.

You may be wondering why I became a blogger and took part in this award. The details are here (press space or use the arrow keys to move through the slides), or you can watch the video version of that presentation, made specially for the contest (it was shown while I was hurrying up to collect the prize):

Very often the road to success in anything runs through understanding what you're actually doing. And if I want to become a good blogger, it would be worth understanding why I do it.

I keep this blog because I want to share some ideas and experience with others. I like fixing my thoughts as a post, and seeing how readers react to it. A blog is a "fixative" for thoughts. Of course, I could keep a paper diary, but that's not quite the same — the presence of other people is a pretty good motivator for me. The blog helps me improve myself: a book I've read, a new recipe or an unexpected idea doesn't vanish without a trace.

Besides, I keep the blog because I enjoy it. I don't write just for the sake of writing, and I only write about things that interest me. There was a time when I wrote nonsense on topics that in truth hardly concerned me. Chasing the mainstream led nowhere good: one day I realised the blog was slowly turning into a dump. A blog is also about talking to people, actively looking for interesting company and interesting thoughts.

As you may have noticed, I made this blog minimalist. I tried to focus the potential reader on the posts and cut everything else down to a minimum. I think that's right: why distract myself and other people from what really matters? Readers should not scatter their attention on trifles but focus on the main thing. I took this principle from Leo Babauta's book "Focus", which I recommend to absolutely everyone.

Quite a few useful ideas came up while writing this post. So blogging is a useful activity in every sense. And that is why I am a blogger.

The award was established by the Donskikh Consulting Group with the support of the Ministry of Youth Affairs of the Udmurt Republic and the Faculty of Journalism of Udmurt State University. Voting runs until 29 February 2012 inclusive. Then comes the third stage — the jury's work during March — and on 13 April the prizes are presented to the winners.