In the past I used own harvested European oak,after af few weeks it was dry,and I gave it a heat treament in the oven, some got a extra treadment with the gas torch for char,however it was not as good as I expected.
My barrels from Hungary give a way better taste.
Looking on you tube I noticed the Russions ad a extra treament to fresh wood,they cook it twice,and than it gets the oven treadment.,and or char.
Reason is that normaly the wood should stay in the open for some years to mellow out the hard tastes
and tannins,so maybe they do this treament to cover that.
See here below a movie ,one of them as there are a lot more posted.
some of them cook the wood into red wine.
I will give it a try,meanwhile I found Amerikan oak nearby.