"What about the news that Russia 's Interpol is looking for you?" the Los Angles Times reporter asked her. "Oh that's pure black PR. Come spring it will all melt away like the snow. Really it's funny... if Interpol were really searching for me, then I would be going to press conferences in a big black coat and thick fake beard, and all of you would have had to come visit me blindfolded."
***
I was meeting with my Odesa friend today - she spoke of how easy it may be to ignite "the masses" and ruin everything. Tiraspol, the capital of Transnistria is some 70 km from Odesa, and she remembers how her Transnistrian classmates quit university back in the early 1990s and went off to fight for what they thought was their freedom from Moldovans - who knows where they are now. (Transnistria used to be the richest part of Moldova; now it's all gone and the rich ones are those who trade arms illegally.) Then there's Abkhazia - my friend used to go there regularly as a child; instead of making money from tourism all these years, they destroyed all they could and are yet to begin the recovery process. And there is also Chechnya, where no one could have predicted in 1994 what it would look like a decade later. Russia, of course, is very invloved in these three regions. Hopefully, they'll stay away from Donetsk and Luhansk.
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