If my country is “third world”, yours is a “shit hole”. I can’t even shit in your public can without a citizen keycard. You all should get your heads checked.

— Salisa to Anton, March 30th, 2026

The information desk lady at the Kassa ticket office gave me the look when I asked if I could see my Pootookie. What the hell was that about?

— Salisa to Anton, March 27th, 2026

At some point, I’ll have to disengage to keep the sanity. But also: what a waste of time and resources, mine and yours. Yours especially. Tremendous efforts spanning years with no ultimate clincher or decisive end in sight. Just like the war in Ukraine.

— Salisa to Anton, March 29th, 2026

And why did you sic them drones on me again? Isn’t there supposed to be a no-fly zone in Moscow? Can anyone hijack them and run them all into a tree?

— Salisa to Anton, March 30th, 2026

---

RECAP !!

March 10th, to Henry

New haircut! Always go bob or go home. Reminds me of the time I was living in Khon Kaen and was feeling old so decided to sport a really short bob like philtrum-short Amélie style (is the movie any good?). I remember walking into the office and my colleague looked shocked, “Oh my god! Your hair is so short!” and I said to him wryly “I like to get my money’s worth”.

Or the time when I cut my own hair? You weren’t here to make fun of me. Was it during COVID or maybe I was trying to save money or was simply too lazy to get my ass out of the house. Who knows what goes on in my head at any given moment. So I took the scissors and sheared off the back of my head in one go. Having a mirror didn’t help. Probably a choppy look from behind. The only time someone said anything about it was when I realised I might have fucked up big time so went to see a hair dresser for a fix and the first thing she said to me side-eying the back of my head, “You cut your own hair didn’t you?”. Was it such a crime?

I think I did a bang-up self-job on my bang though if you look closely it’s a bit serrated and uneven. But hey if Dakota Johnson managed to get away with that awful bang of hers in fifty shades of grey then I think I can get away with anything.

March 11th, to Henry

Now I regret cutting my hair so short! That’s just gonna be weird…

March 18th

Salisa: Why did you say I should go to Russia? I don’t know what you’re saying with your last message…

Henry: I didn’t. I asked if you had a passport.

Salisa: Oh well. I see. You should type a proper sentence sweetie. Should I try to get a refund for my flights? Its hella expensive.

Henry: I’m asking you if you are worried that you aren’t thinking clearly sometimes

Salisa: What would be considered clearly? What do you suggest I do? Maybe I should fly to London instead. Let’s see how this thing blows up. I’ll be chilling with popcorn and all. I’ll be enjoying my new power.

Salisa: I know what my limits are. And I’m nearing my limits. Sometimes that includes not thinking clearly as a symptom.

March 18th, to Henry

My point is.. and I’ve said this before that I don’t mind being with both of them as long as they are both okay with it and I’m not going to be murdered by either of them. Anton’s threats have been getting more and more airtime since last week hence the emergency freak out and heading to Moscow.

And who knows if […]’s already got a few on the side as we speak […] and Anton occasionally acts like a sex addict so good if he can bugger off and go bother some girl. It’s becoming clear Anton is getting more unhinged the more I ignore him lately (don’t check his twitter in days). So I don’t know what’s going on on that side with the Russians. It’s not good this thing with me, you know. I’ve already brought calamity on them last year […]. This year the infighting made me sad, scared, irate, and a little pissed. I just want it all over with.

March 18th, to Henry

Sweetie the “I’m all yours” thing is called cushioning the blow if plan A falls apart. You cannot think on a purely sentimental or wishful term in this game you wouldn’t have lasted as long as I have. And you know that I’m smack-talking and spit-balling most of the time anyway. Ideally the best thing for me to consider/do if things don’t happen […] in Moscow is to take advantage of the fact that […] might be in the running […]. But I don’t want to just coldly scheme my way into a situation that’s best for me objectively without any input of feelings or considerations on the matter of the heart. That would be insulting to […] as well implying that he’s just an instrumental means to some end. Maybe I should be angling for some other siloviki member of the same rank or higher as Anton […] and some of those men might be in need of a sugar baby or an extra side piece. But that’s just sad even if I might end up better off preserving my dignity and integrity in the long run. At the end of the day, you have to balance the head with the heart. You cannot be all heart and wishful thinking or all head and careful maneuvering. But this kind of talk does inflate my importance and standing and free choice a bit. If […] or some other friend of Anton orders that I get picked up and delivered to their residence in Moscow there is not much I can do (but I take solace in the fact that the hostel I booked is right across the street from the Polish embassy and I can make a quick run for it if things get dicey.. do you think the Poles would be sympathetic to my plight? Probably not but you see it’s good to obsessively indulge in useless fantasies in my situation… Or yet a better way out in case of emergency is right across the street from the Kremlin which is the British ambassador’s private residence.. that or I track down where Steve Rosenberg lives I’m sure he can get me in touch with his MI6 contact but now I’m revealing all the hidden cards up my sleeves and spoiling an exciting plot point of a Hollywood thriller in the making). But it’s a gentleman’s game as much as the lady’s so I’m sure they won’t do that. More likely though they will just let me run around and do whatever I want over there and prank my ass to scare me for laughs. Maybe they will make me think I’m getting extracted and smuggled out by MI6 agents in an audacious escape attempt that grips the entire world like another real life Argo when they are in fact secretly taking me out to some penal colony in Siberia where I’ll have to sleep in a cell and work my freezing ass off for a few weeks until I learn my lessons. You see, now the Moscow trip starts to sound like fun when you lean into the humour of it all.

March 21st, to Anton

The plight we all collectively share.. it’s because of everything you did and did not do. What you said and did not say. No one stopped you either. No one thought of putting any stop to it over the course of a year. I’ve done my best in the way that I can. It could have been so simple. So neat. So easy. But instead you made it difficult, messy and painful. For me, for yourself, and for everyone involved. We could have been together months ago had you been stronger than me, smarter in how we went about it than me, and braver at the most scariest points than me. Your weakness and short-sightedness and penchant for destruction and chaos condemned us all to death and destruction. And everyone just sat back and let it happen. Maybe it’s time to admit we all share that fault. And if I am to be blamed for it all, then so should you.

[…]

How am I supposed to know anything about anyone? How am I supposed to navigate this with you when you’re not even trying. I am alone in all this, don’t you see? I don’t have sights or reports or analyses on you and what’s going on. I am talking into thin air like a mad woman because you are not really there. You don’t really exist except as a piece of fiction I will have forgotten as soon as this blows over.

You can type into the twitter space but not to me, why exactly? Does anyone know? Care? Bother to care? I think they did in the beginning, but because you’re so hopeless and insensate they don’t even try talking you into doing anything anymore. It just is. Things just are. Even if the world hinges on this most insignificant action. World, love, life… Why does it all matter anyway? You don’t like any of them anyway. You hate the world, you spit on love, you are sick of life. But why do I have to suffer for it? Why does anyone?

Say, I make it in Moscow, you won’t talk to me. If I don’t, you won’t either. So what’s the point to all this? Why would I want anything to do with you? Do you want anything to do with me? Answer honestly. Or do you still dread talking to girls? Habits die hard, huh? Do you know what separates nerds from dorks? Dorks know how to talk to a woman, nerds don’t and don’t even try. They are just so happy to be so miserable in their own little world. They are so pathetic I suggest we all breed them out of the gene pools.

[…]

This is why men your age keep falling for romance scams I believe. Tale as old as time. It’s not that they don’t have a good head screwed on right. It’s just that they like the idle fantasies. Keep them astir in their real everyday life full of disappointment and decline. They have no intention of having any of the fantasies come into fruition. That would just defeat the whole purpose of it. And of course most men are too poor to afford running the world into the ground over a piece of fantasy so instead they buy OnlyFans subscriptions. Why can’t you all just subscribe to OnlyFans?

[…]

So I guess this is what masculine ideals for your culture look like then. Opening a channel of communication and treating women with open ears and open heart are considered weak and unmanly and stupid. Wow, you guys really are weak and unmanly and stupid. Maybe that’s why you need to subjugate women so damn much under the guise of traditional values. So unintelligent and unintelligible. So weak and unmanly and stupid. Fragile masculinity as they say.

I’ve never been a yappy one in a relationship. But then again I don’t usually go out with silly weak men I have to mother and castigate so constantly and incessantly. But now I just like doing it for show. For the whole world, so to say. This is what the best specimen for their kind is like, ladies and gents. No wonder the world doesn’t take you guys seriously.

People with the weakest constitution require the strongest paternalistic institution to govern them. That’s the generic insight that rings true in this case.

Good behaviour, nope. Good judgement, nope. Good faith, still nope. What do you want with me?

Really, what do you want from me? Why does anything that goes on in your head have anything to do with me?

[…]

I don’t care for your attention honestly. I need to secure a safe exit for me. I need you to say “yes” to the question “will you leave me alone?” and actually mean it. I know you don’t like to lie and manipulate your way by lying. I admire that about you. Which is why it means the world to me if you promise me to stay the hell out of my life.

You know that a trip to Moscow is a variation of that question. I need two yes’s then I’m outta here.

But I know you won’t give me a yes. Or a no. Or anything for that matter. You just like to ruin beautiful things. To set them on fire. Because it’s antithetical to who you are. You are jealous of it and want to see it ruined. There is nothing more to you and nothing less.

Prove me wrong. Prove that you actually want me. You can certainly love someone or fall in love with someone without actually wanting them or being with them in person. For example, I love Danya. You know that which is precisely why you took him away from me. He loved to share anecdotes and would often say, “that’s the story I am going to tell my grandchildren one day.” Or “that’s something I’d like to teach my future grandchildren”. Grandchildren! He didn’t even get a chance at life to have children! So even if I like to glaze my eyes over him and hear him chat away or commentate, even if one day I have the means and the opportunity to go to Charlotte and sit in his lectures, I probably wouldn’t. Because we don’t actually mesh goals. And also I’d never do that to a man, let alone someone I like or love. And what if he doesn’t want me in person? What if I’ve spent all these years fancying him and fantasising about us and it turns out just a dud and a giant dumpster fire? That would hurt, wouldn’t it? It doesn’t matter if he rejects me or we fail organically. It will add up to failure and wasted years. And so you are procrastinating your life to avoid what could turn out to be a failure by wasting years. Yours and mine combined. Which is incredibly stupid and nonsensical if we all think about it. I won’t be able to leave you even if I want to. Just don’t let me leave then. So why is it bothering you so much? Why us being together finally bothers a great deal out of you? I don’t understand this.

Don’t paralyse yourself into inaction. At some point you will have to finally do something about this. About us. Why aren’t you doing anything? Why am I the one taking all the initiatives and proposing real-life solutions? Why are you spinning yarn with your words and poems and fictions online like a moody pillow princess on Tumblr? Why am I doing all the work for us while you just sit back and daydream? In what way are you a man in this “relationship” and me a woman? And I already said I don’t actually like gender reversal in a relationship. You pretty much preach the same thing! So there shouldn’t be any problem, should it? Live out your goddamn philosophy and act out on your principles. Be a man to your woman. Though in all honesty I don’t actually mind gender-reversed roles if you’re just out and about with what you need. Preference isn’t fixation and is malleable. If you admit to yourself that you need to be babied and treated like a spoiled princess while I need to man up, then I have no real problems. You just have to admit it to yourself so then we’re on the same page.

Though I am smack-talking you. Because if you ask me what I want to see most in any relationship, it’s just for people to be people. Screw gender roles, man. They are so stupid. Some men will be more effeminate than others and so what? Who cares? We no longer live in a world where men have to pick up swords and ammunition to fight tribal or world wars. Men are safe to be who they are these days. It’s this outdated philosophy trying to twist some poor mind and some poor soul into an ill-fitted ill-fated mold for no good reason just because some dead people say so. You have to be able to resist cultural dysfunction as much as female dysfunction. It takes a mere man to deal with women but a supreme one to denounce culture. And what’s necessarily bad about it if there are no gender roles? I can tell you we have none in my culture and people of both genders seem happier that way. And when people are at peace with themselves and have good happy relationships with others because there are no expectations to act in one relational way rather than other, then there is no social or interpersonal friction and men and women get together as themselves and couple up and breed just as or even more happily. There’s nothing inherently groundbreaking about it.

I like to mock you not being the “man” because it’s just hurtful rhetoric and I have very little ammunition to mount any offensive on you. I see that’s the wrong “strategy”. I should go on deconstructing and denouncing gender roles in an effort to make you feel better about yourself but what would be the fun in that? What am I left to prick you with?

At this point I’m just so sick and tired of indulging in all your romantic fictions and made-up fantasies. Whoever’s. Not necessary for me to entertain them anymore. What’s the point anyway? It’s not getting anyone anywhere. Completely of no use. And I am too young to be that delusional and destructive and dumb.. given the choice.

I am this close to getting on with life not caring about glitches and incidents that may befall me. If people die around me then whoops condolences. All because you are that useless and ineffectual. With all the hands and advantages gifted to you, you just don’t know what to do with them. Don’t know how to use them to further your own interests. Your own very personal interests. Your friends gifted pearls to a monkey. A very sensitive nonsensible one at that. You can never win at anything. You are hopeless at this game. You are incapable of thinking through even the simplest combinations or calculations or consequences of any real-world events and thus unable to tilt them in your favours. And instead of being upfront and honest and open-hearted about things, you close up and cling to your comfort branch tightly like a scared stubborn monkey. You don’t know how to make leaps and bounds. You are too scared to ever make anything happen. Even if everything and everyone tilts in your favours.

If you want me to feel bad about things going wrong in my life, troubles I bring on other people, which works both as a deterrent and a motivator, there must be a strong causal chain of cause -> effect, where I can be framed as the originator of cause. But now that chain is getting weaker and me as the link to any chain of events starts to feel very faint. It’s God’s will then. It’s God’s wrath. He does whatever he wants. He smites whoever and wherever. Who cares. There are no rhymes or reasons to anything you do. I have no power to affect any real changes. To put any stop to it. I’ve been trying to put a stop to things for as long as I could since last year but much to no avail. If I couldn’t make you pay any attention to me then, what’s the point of rallying for your attention now? I couldn’t even get you talking to me to cool things down when the heat was on everyone, so what chance do I have to get you talking to me now that nothing is really at stake? You are just going to keep coasting and covering up your eyes and ears. There will be no real punishment and no heat on me. Because there are no real causal links and no reprieve for mercy. All because you are so incapable. All reflecting that your mind is really empty and lacking. You cannot perceive causation within your own mind. Events happen so randomly and haphazardly and confusingly. So you manifest it outward. So there is no causation, no rhyme or reason, no behavioural chain and corollary to anything you do. If your friends and your men cannot perceive any of this, that you lack the most basic mental functioning in a healthy normal human mind, then so be it. Keep ruining my life and killing people for all I care. I don’t know how to make it stop. I hope someone elsewhere on the other side has a good sense to make the right call to put me down painlessly. Get me fentanyl. I will ask for it when the time comes.

Remember when I asked unenthusiastically, because in a way I already knew what response I was going to get, about what changed in your mind from then and now? You said you wanted to come to Bangkok when it all began, but by January you didn’t want to. So I asked “what changed?” and you started freaking out and stuttering and stumbling over your words. That’s because you really don’t know. That would require the inborn intuitive ability to perceive the cause of these feelings and the chain of events associated with it. It would require knowing your own mind and understanding the world. You lack the ability that comes so effortlessly to others in the most profound way. Feelings and things arise within you without prompting without any reason. That sounds scary and freaky, doesn’t it? Infants are overwhelmed by this in the same way you are but as they mature they develop the emotional and intellectual faculties that you never did. Normal adults can make sense of their own emotion if they could understand what brings it about. If they understand the nature of it, the context of it, the reason for it, the cause of it. If they can control it or quell it or affect meaningful changes outside themselves in order to make them go away. The latter would require you to deal with other people. But you lack the social skills too, because that’s just an extension to and another layer of the same lack. Anything remotely involving your own emotions or social dealing with other people, you are absolutely hindered. I understand this about you, so all I ask is for you to try to understand where I’m coming from and to work with me. That’s it. It’s pretty simple.

But maybe I’m wrong. Maybe now you will pay more attention to my needs as you have been doing by replying quickly to me because things aren’t so chaotic and stressful and you have gotten a hold of yourself. So I have to be grateful for your kindness and consideration so far.

You know, the more impoverished your thinking is, the more you’re supposed to compensate with action and honesty rather than inaction and feelings. You think I was too stupid to understand what you wanted from me, didn’t you? How does it feel to find out we’re not even on the same level of thought and of thinking and that you’re the stupid one in all this?

How complex are your thoughts really? Compared to mine? Like, dazzle me with how deep and precise and sophisticated and expansive your mind is. Reason out your actions and your plans. Enumerate all the possible courses of action and their respective likelihood. All the variables including me and you and everyone else in the equation. Tell me why you prefer this one path instead of all the others. Tell me the risks, the pitfalls, the benefits, the tradeoffs. What’s the philosophy governing your decision? On what principle is it based upon? What layers of reality and circles of interest does it concern? If you could think like this, then we should talk. But I’m not listening to or looking for your guidance anymore. And you don’t get to browbeat me like a dumb brute. If you do then I will indulge you to embarrass yourself in front of everyone some more. You are as impressive as people you surround yourself with. You like being the smartest guy in the smallest room with the smallest minds. That’s why you surrounded yourself with unintelligent women and low-minded men. And you were too unintelligent yourself to discern how that wouldn’t work out. You’ve been going about it for over a decade, right? Underneath your biggest most puzzling intractable life problems lies some very simple solutions. It takes a man of real acumen and intelligence to ferret them out. You have no capacity or ability for that. We all think it’s your emotions that’s the problem. Some very technically intelligent men can be so emotionally stupid. But its clear that your ability to think through and discern motives and actions is also impaired. It’s the thoughts and lack of overall behavioural efficacy that’s the problem. If you think badly, you act badly. If you act badly with no one willing to put a brake on it, you live badly. Then you die ignominiously.

March 22nd, to Anton

Anton: so you wanna be in a relationship with me, but you dont wanna talk to me. find the mistake…

Salisa: A relationship with someone from a piss poor nation where the best and brightest of men – the so-called intelligent and intellectual men, the most capable and ruthless and commanding – find their mind mates in girls who dance and bend their bodies for a living? That would be rather insulting to my intellectual stature and standing, don’t you think? Do you know any other prosperous nation where such is the standard for respectable individuals, let alone their men? And you guys do so bashfully and innocently too! No wonder they all think you guys are a joke and keep provoking you into a war-torn country. Weak constitution at the bottom, weak constitution at the top. Weak constitution as per letters of the law too! Like, we all make fun of Western men marrying third-world prostitutes, but are these women of yours even educated? And you find them all very satisfying in a relationship, huh? That would explain the entirety of our interaction and courtship actually! Remember when I asked you skeptically on the phone at the beginning, “is this how you talk to girls?” And you enthusiastically and naively replied with an affirmative? LOL. Maybe that’s how Russian men talk to their girls. My, my. Maybe I read too much into you as a man and not enough into your culture as a whole. What brain-dead duds you are, really. Aren’t you thoroughly ashamed of all your fine selves? I guess not… If this were the West, it’d be like talking to their garbage man. The low-quality and low-effort conversation. The nonexistent mutual meeting of the minds (and the nonexistence seems mutual). How I am unchallenged and bored out of my mind talking with you and so dreading it. How you don’t ever ask me any questions. How you never said anything interesting or curious. Like nothing actually ever transpired in any of the conversations. No wonder you moved countries to chat up Japanese girls. No qualitative difference between dancers in your country, or rather women in your country, and Japanese girls in terms of verbal exchanges or intellectual challenges. This must also be why you resent the academic strand of Western-leaning females. You are intimidated by the fact that they’ve actually got a brain. You, as a man, the best and brightest of your own proud nation, hold no candle to these women! That’s gotta be insulting both to your gender and to your culture, isn’t it? No wonder your attack was particularly vicious.

I remember Andre. He was such a fine young man. Full of thoughts. Highly intellectual. Composed German poetry. I remember his Russian ex wife and what she did for a living. Some sort of brainless visual or performance artist (that’s not what we called a real artist the same way software engineers aren’t actually engineers). Probably a daughter of some high-standing diplomat. Variation of the same theme. LOL. Okay this starts to make more sense to me now.

I don’t know what to do with this new information.

I mean profession isn’t everything, you know. Maybe my Asian upbringings and high standards for desirable women are acting up a little. But when people write or speak, I immediately notice the quality of their minds and the calibre of their persons. The way they present themselves and their thoughts. That, to me, is their person. I often notice how “thin” the statements are that people make. Saved me from reading pointless books from impoverished minds.

So let it be known that I’m not wholly generalising top-down, that the profession makes the person, but mathematically inducting bottom-up, that 4 women who wouldn’t attract even the third-tier bachelors from my own or Western culture, date the 3 highest-calibre most elite men from your nation.

Again, don’t know what to do with this new realisation.

Look down on the West all you like, but the best of their men keep me very challenged and un-bored. Two Ivy league PhDs and another genius Thai ex who grew up in the US. You, on the other hand, bore the hell out of me. Guys, do better. Is this the best male specimen you’ve got?

The problem isn’t the women, you know this? Intelligent, challenging, highly educated women everywhere. The problem is what Russian men value in a woman, that regardless of their intellect or education or personal leanings they edge out the dumb drinking wifebeaters in mate choice by a hair’s breadth. What silly little people you are. I find the very best of your men rather lacking.. and disappointing.

If I have to venture a damn guess (not that I care, but you make this my problem in your treatment of me), I’d probably say that Russian culture isn’t really a mental culture. I mean your best men are completely mental, but not mental in a way that I care for.

Being an isolated country that you are, you don’t realise that what you gleefully find desirable and unattainable in your culture can invite mocking scorn and contempt from people from other cultures. We just don’t say it to your face though. It’s called Western civility and politeness. There can be a lot of internal processing, highly sophisticated and complex, with little external output due to basic courtesy and social rules. Whereas your mental architecture.. I’d very much like to find out how complex or lacking it actually is.

[…]

So, yeah, I’d totally fuck Andre. But despite who he is and what he is endowed with as a person and as a mind, the woman he loved and cherished automatically disqualifies him for any serious relationship with me. He thought she was such a gem. In the West, she’d be a pebble. Such is my standard. Such is your culture.

And he’d have fucked me too by the way had he not figured you out and what it was all about.

Well actually not quite true. The Brits overpopulate themselves with highly educated and challenging women, so I bet their dancers can cite Shakespeare and explicate on Monet on cues. But that would be too formidable and intimidating for a mere Russian man.

Now do you understand why you have such a shallow dating culture? There isn’t anything genuine to orientate itself around. Once you subtract the mental, the emotional, and the intellectual, what are you left with? Nothing. Just an empty hole. That does chores around the house and has a pretty skin around it. So what good are you to me then? When you’ve habituated yourself your entire life in a romantic dalliance with non-entities? Like, I thought you like that kind of woman. But turns out all your men do. How am I supposed to deal with this?

I don’t care for your women, to be honest. I only care about how it affects me. And apparently a great deal. If you people are incapable of striking a genuine, mutually rewarding relationship where intellect and humour and curiosity and emotion are reciprocated, then I have no choice but to be lowered to your unspoken cultural etiquette and accept all things in cash.. and jewellery apparently 

That’s why all I am to you people is “a poor woman from a third world country”. That’s the entirety of your thought and the complexity of your being as a Russian man and how you see your women: in complete material and financial terms. If I have to venture the richness of mind and the virtue of character of a man who would say things like that in public and be considered worthy of their job: Western garbage man. Why? Are you threatened that the smartest and most honourable men of your country cannot think or act like I do? That they’re kinda weak scared wimps who are also kinda stupid? Did I sense some jealous resentment there? Misogyny and sexism perhaps? What an embarrassing fuck the whole outfit is.

It takes one Western man to make me kneel, but only the whole of the Russian state apparatus. What does that say about you?

[…]

It’s good to develop some moral taste and judgement. I know this is difficult in a nation that historically had no collective morals from state murders to proliferating organised crime. That can kill and punish and subjugate others so casually and carelessly without a second thought. Maybe that’s why you are all so weak and embarrassing and humourless and spineless. Subjugated men subjugate women. Poverty is a matter of geographical expanse? Standards of living? Cultural repertoires? GDP per capita? Oh my god, I am lecturing intellectual low-hanging fruits, aren’t I? I am going to stop. Waste of time and presence of mind. It’s like Nietzsche descending the cave and expatiating to the clueless unenlightened townsfolk. Not worth the spittle. Not worth the spit. I never had to deign myself to deliver such a stupid talk in the presence of my three Western boyfriends. The reason none of you shut me up is probably because I am a good example to be made as to why your women should be kept chastised and domesticated. I am hella fun but you guys are not. There are no essential benefits from having such an expansive female presence in your country. Pearls for the monkey, or pearl before the monkeys?

Here’s a thought: personal morals invite personal introspection. There’s the thought of you and other people and the sense of right and wrong. Moral questions are always considered in these three prongs. It always starts with considering the minds and experiences of others and then exploring your own feelings and judgements and reconciling them all with the help of or in an evaluation of the moral ethics. But when collective morals break down from widespread state or historical violence, the feeling of ambivalence is induced in forming your own personal morals. Demoralised personal morals then lead to fewer acts of personal introspection and consideration of other minds and exploration of other experiences. Hence, nasty, brutish, and short(sighted) you remain… Hence, our whole conversation is deeply challenged rather than challenging.

And so when it’s all too traumatising to be other-oriented or mind-oriented, the personal interaction becomes stunted as well as stilted and the intellectual interests in other societies and the wider world are stultified. And all you are left with is a stump of a man… With a boot stamping on its human face forever… Bonus point for any Russian who knows where the last line came from!

I am beginning to secretly nurse a fantasy that they will all come for you one day. Topple it all down and pillage every piece of land and drill baby drill for every last drop of oil and raze everything you guys have built to the fucking ground. Not sure if I’ll be alive to see that. But you cannot stand guard forever.

March 22nd, to Anton

This is why a man has to know his humour is callous and his mind is callow… The best of your men are fighting over “a poor girl from a third world country” because apparently a poor girl from a third world country is more desirable than any of the women in your country or all of them so combined. So the concubines of elite men in your piss poor nation can’t measure up to me? Thanks hun.

A man of low standing must be put in place by a woman of higher standing, don’t we agree? I bet no women in your nation talk to you this way. Sexual polarity bores men more than anything. Are you just too dimwitted to realise that? Raise the stock of your stupid shit women and we won’t have any problems. Got it?

Let me clarify. I know some men are a bit slow. If you raise your stock of stupid shit women, then your men won’t come harassing and raping women from other nations, then people won’t die over stupid shit. Got it?

If I can will anything in the world right now, I’d like a man who typed that out violently gang-raped and his loved ones beaten up in front of him. Maybe break a rib or two. Slice off his girlfriend’s nipples. Dislocate a pelvis. Bust in his mother’s tooth or two. Too much? Do you all think I will turn into Daenerys one day and go scorched earth on everyone who pisses me off?

Actually if you bring his family members in front of me right now, I will do so myself. I will anally rape him until his rectum perforates while I dole out the rest of it on his family and his wife and children while he watches helplessly. I will rape the women too. With all kinds of sticks and batons or even broken bottles. Young, old. Grandmother. A preschooler. You name it. I will rape them over and over until they die of internal bleedings on the floor.

Do you know Girard’s theory of sacrificial lamb? The cultural mechanism and cause for it? And you know I can’t go running around outside the country without any “protection” details. I will be stuck with you guys! So maybe I can take it out on some of the sickly members of your men who said the most sickly shit about me. Do you think anyone would object?

Now you all wonder, why being particularly vicious with the women? Well, why can’t your stupid shit women be any less stupid and less shit, huh? If it weren’t for them being stupid and shit, I wouldn’t be raped and we all wouldn’t be here. Isn’t my logic rather impeccable?

[…]

So brain is not big with you guys, huh? Neither is virtue? Character? And so your men and women all share that lack of brain and virtue and character. Hence you should tell your top brass to stay in their lane and leave me the fuck alone.

But maybe I don’t want to be left alone. Maybe I want to sidle up to my Pootookie so I can perpetrate all the trauma and insanity on you who made that sickly comment. A purge is a cleanse. And I feel some bloodletting coming on up.

It’s good to have a goal in mind amidst the dark doom of life. If I have nothing to live for, maybe I’ll live on for revenge. But of course I am not as callous or callow as to denounce my entire principle and ideology simply because of my feelings. You cannot let feelings run your mouth, don’t you know that dear boy? Did mother ever tell you that? Teach you that? Raise you up with good values? I guess not. Hence, I want to so bust her teeth in.

And you know I am only poor because of some men in my life who siphon off my money for concerts and operas and plane tickets and the like. And I know quite well I am not getting anything in return for this. But do I mouth off like a hysterical woman leaving sickly comments on Twitter? But maybe that account was female. Then do better and stop being so shit and stupid. If so, I look forward to busting some Russian girl an anal fistula that your crap goes out the wrong hole since it’s already coming out of the wrong hole. Your fucking loose mouth. Maybe spend less time taking in cocks, hun. The hole wouldn’t then be so loosened.

I’ll tell you what. Why don’t any of you men volunteer your precious beautiful girlfriend or wife or mistress and serve them up to all your high commanders as a tribute? Or even your daughters and cousins, why not? Maybe if we work together, we can make all of this stop? There’s obviously nothing wrong with that kind of volunteering because you all seem okay with my situation and some of you even take great pleasure in belittling the gravity of it all. Do you think your girls will satisfy them? Probably not so you have to coach them better. Do whatever it takes to make them less shit and stupid. Or at least appear less shit and stupid. That will hold off their attention for a while and I can regroup. What do you think?

I hate dealing with little bitches. That’s all I’m going to say.

March 22th, to Anton

Why did you threaten me three times with death threats in the past few weeks? I have yet to call you out on this. Why did your friend not care? Why is this all on me?

Very nice. Did you brick my macbook just now? You’d know that I won’t be able to learn your stupid shit language but then again no great loss for humanity.

I’m not going to ask you to unlock it. Until you start breeding better women and leave me in peace that is. You know, it isn’t just the lack of brain in the women you all date. Even Andre’s ex wife had a highly questionable character but I’m not going to dramatise his private woes in front of everyone here. Virtue or strength of character definitely isn’t one of the criteria. Neither is drive or ambition. Neither is brain. Neither is career or education. So what is it you all stick your wet dicks in? Pretty cocksleeves who know how to vacuum? (“Saugen” joke in there somewhere for the German speakers). So no wonder you all get tired of your women and have to start harassing my ass.

I’m going to have to do my taxes and print the travel details for an entry into your shit country. Will you knock it off?

March 24th, to Anton

Is that another death threat in my inbox this morning? It’s not my fault you Russian men literally have no standards in women and so fumble me. Recalling just now that Tanguy’s girlfriend in Khon Kaen was some receptionist of a beauty clinic across the street. Here we call them low-value chicks. Over there high-value apparently locking down men left and right. Should have seen Por’s pursed lips when she relayed that to me. Utter disgust, contempt, profound ick. Now you know how I feel! So seriously, what do you know about courting me? Why is it my fault none of it sticks? I don’t want to propose the elixir for all your societal and political ills but you guys need a strong dose of Western women. Would have made your lives less strenuously boring and more satisfyingly colourful and upbeat and fun. I honestly don’t know what to do with fuck boys. All your best men are just that.. fuck boy energy monkey yachting. Like, do you seriously think that a woman’s career choice doesn’t signal her inner character and ideals and virtues? Or in this case lack of character and shabby ideals and vices. That there is no difference in moral taste or standing or judgement between a girl choosing to become a veterinarian or a lawyer vs a receptionist or a fifth rate dancer or an air stewardess? We are rewarded with the same opportunities in life when given education, which is a levelling force that can lead to better career and then life choices. And some women choose the easiest and laziest path in life and all that goes on in your head is “Oh there she is!” or “let’s wife her!”. It’s called having no moral taste or standing or judgement yourself. It’s called male monkeys coupling up with female monkeys. This is why you guys need that smack dab moral and spiritual uplifting from the West.

“Tell me what a man finds sexually attractive and I will tell you his entire philosophy of life. Show me the woman he sleeps with and I will tell you his valuation of himself” – One of my favourite quotes. In the West, she would be a gem and is actually considered a gem. In her own birth country a pebble.

So that’s why you boasted idly about dating models. That’s why Tanguy was known in the office as a fuck boy. That’s why the moral paragon of your culture is someone who dated and married an air hostess who didn’t even like him let alone understand him. But here’s the thing.. fuck boys like to fuck women at the bottom of the barrel but not necessarily marry them. In your nation you actually marry them! Like the sleazebags of the West you date glorified prostitutes. In the West though they are considered barrel bottom worthy of scorn and snicker but in your nation barrel top worthy of praise and admiration. Hate to belabour the point but I get that you guys are slow. A woman can prostitute herself in various ways as we all know. By accepting jewellery at a closed-door private soiree thrown for a group of powerful men. Or simply by advertising her beauty and youth as mere transactional value to be bartered over for an access to her person. This is probably why conservative values are so foundational to your culture and much politically promoted and enforced. Because the foundation upon which the said matrimony is established is not only flimsy but morally rotten.

So to lower myself to a marriage the foundation of which is morally and culturally rotten would be an affront to my own inner compass. Not all marriages are equal. Western marriage is sometimes better than other marriages… So having said this, happy to be treated as a captive and a guest or even a sugar baby but nothing more. Don’t taint my purity with the dirt of your culture.

I wonder whether when I arrive I’m going to be penetrated finally with a phallus or a bullet. Ask me if I care. It’s called having no fear. You men should try it sometimes.

Let it be known here to everyone in the West that I do not voluntarily consent to a relationship with low-standard men. Love is the highest inner expression of the soul and I do not wish it to be with fuck boys who marry glorified prostitutes and even worse are too dumb or morally dim to see it. I’d rather be a groupie showpiece rather proudly than a secret bride who degrades her own internal values and principles just because. At the end of the day, we all gotta die from something. Better it be for, rather than of.

March 24th, to Anton

Apologies for being culturally insensitive. A prostitute never speaks back like I just did or cares if she lowers her standards or even likes you as long as you “provide”, be it lodging, sperm or cash upfront. Sorry for breaking character!

I’m sorry, sweetie pie. You are so rich and handsome. When are you going to fuck me?

I must learn how to be your woman. Who cares who you are. I like you. Let’s smooch then smash, yes?

A prostitute can quibble over small matters as long as she is cute and leads to hot sex. She is never “difficult”. She is there to “receive” and “cares for” you. That’s wifey material. Okay. I am a slow learner so you must teach me how to be your woman.

Anyone else interested? Who cares who the man is or what I like or what I hold to be my personal or moral standards. Who cares if I know you or understand you or like you as a person. Who cares if you know me or understand me or like me as a person. Who cares if you have personal or moral standards. You are a man and a provider and I am a gatekeeper ferreting out my best investment. I must be speaking to at least a hundred Russians here. I’m sure you guys are all packed and pumped. Who wants a piece of me? Here I am prostituting my look and my youth as per your cultural etiquette. My maiden hand is up for sale.

Get westernised, fuckers. You all are embarrassing me.

Or better yet go on as you do. Keep diluting your elite gene pools with female runts of the race. In a few generations or even less your country is going to fall. LOL.

You do know that Turandot hates men as they are whereas you men love women as they are. Hence both are equally rotten. What do I mean by that? By loving or hating someone for their mere gender. Everything pertaining to their person is “fluff”. Every unique quality that makes a man or a woman is besides the point. Hence, every man “lustful” and must be put to death and every woman “beautiful” and must be put up for marriage. Regardless of how good or rotten they are at core. Vice or virtue of character who cares. It’s all vapid and laughable.

Whoops breaking character again. I’m playing a glorified prostitute at the moment. Forgot.

March 25th, to Anton

Aww, did I hurt my Pootookie’s feelings? It’s called hazing rituals I dole out to all the men I fancy. Haven’t you got that from last year? Besides you don’t think I’d let you get away with slaughtering nearly 150 of my countrymen without a counter response, do you? And even more Europeans? What’s some dispensable human lives to be sacrificed so now we’re on the same page? Might is right indeed but the pen is mightier than the sword as they say.

I wasn’t really playing before but now I am. Are you rattled? Unnerved? Crossed? Upset? Do you want me to kiss it all better in Moscow now that I’ll be there?

Are you going to hurt your pookie? Why don’t you have fun with her before you off her? Get her off and then off her? What good is a dead woman to you? Especially one that doesn’t intend to be your glorified prostitute for life like your previous.

All’s fair in love and war? Nah. All’s fun in love and war.

Now boys, do you understand why all your commanders get bored of fucking your own women?

By the way, I’m not backpeddling this time. I meant every word I said and I want them engraved on my tombstone.

But still, I want to be licking your wound so it’s all better. Where would you have me lick?

I shaved my pussy for you, you must know that.

Whatever, man. I’m not even going to go out and do anymore sightseeing. What a waste of time. Going to kill time at Starbucks for the rest of the trip until my flight back.

— Salisa to Anton, March 29th, 2026

Oh, I think they came into my capsule today. Blanket sheet was pulled off the comforter. Good lord, after everything that has happened they think my psyche is still functioning normally. What a stupid idiotic bunch. Good riddance never having to deal with such stupidity again in my life.

Please don’t tell me to go to the Thai embassy or none of that bullshit. I’m actually quite insulted that they felt the need to warn me first. The threat is supposed to rattle, I guess. Like, has a psychological effect on me. As I’ve said, idiots.

— Salisa to Henry, March 29th, 2026

The Russian on the other hand kept insisting that I looked like a journalist. She was a woman of few words but mentioned that three times. In the end, I relented and just said that I work in “technology”. She shot me a blank innocuous look asking “that’s the same, no?”. I pursed my lips. She didn’t know anything in depth about me. Just a garden variety threat delivery mission. It was, in a way, disappointing. Just a mouthpiece to the wire in her ears.

— Salisa to Henry, March 30th, 2026

---

RECAP !!

March 26th, to Anton

Your friend’s not going to down a plane full of fellow Russians, is he? Never felt god darn safe boarding a plane before my entire life.

Just discovered you guys are not that much taller than me.

March 27th, to Anton

Just arrived. So tired. Can’t think. Will head to the Kremlin tomorrow and try to sneak into the Senate building to see Pootookie. Do you think it will work?

March 27th, to Anton

The information desk lady at the Kassa ticket office gave me the look when I asked if I could see my Pootookie. What the hell was that about?

If I go around asking people that, do you think they are going to arrest me?

March 27th, to Anton

Should I tour the Armoury Chamber? Will the Louvre loots from last year be there? If not, pussies.

March 28th, to Henry

Lifesaver! A complex I walked past a few times that looks like a furniture store turns out to be a food court full of Asian varieties! Parked at a stall called “Dee Thai” with shrimp Pad Thai on the menu and other vaguely Thai-looking dishes. Like you as a foreigner overwhelmed by illegible scripts did a pictorial ordering. As a Thai, I can honestly say this is not Thai food. Looks like a ramen dish with Thai shrimps. The soup is bland so definitely not Thai and more like Chinese. The fritter is Chinese-leaning. The lady owner blessed not with a smile but a Chinese scowl. But maybe she is Thai and just sick of having to deal with the Russians daily. I know what that’s like.

March 29th, to Anton

This whole thing is a recruitment, isn’t it? Do you even know? What for? […] I’m beginning to think it’s not pleasure/personal after all. Why went through all the trouble? Seriously, what the hell do you people want with me? Why am I even in your shit hole country? It’s so goddamn cold.

March 29th, to Anton

All you’re worried about is “what does she actually feel?”. Who does she actually want? I hope you’re all joking if you think that. I’m here, but it’s not good enough. I guess I need to buy more into the story or lean into it more consistently or express it more explicitly. Well, I’m here, aren’t I? So this would be the end of my journey with Pootookie. Told ya I’m just the fantasy girl. Nobody actually wants me. Or is wary of me as a girl who cries rape. Whatever. Give me a break. Don’t be so dumb.

It doesn’t matter what I do or say or think or feel anyway. What matters is how a man feels. How I make the man feel. That’s of utmost importance. Given the extraordinary circumstances surrounding us that’s the lynchpin to all this. Weak sauce, weak frame, weakling. You all expect me to fall in love with a personage I see in the news – with images and audios and videos – or even a disembodied voice of a person on my phone whose face I could barely recall. I get that men are visual creatures. Not necessarily emotional or interactive or psychological. I guess I’m not manly enough or even girly enough to actually fall for it long term.

Which means: you know so little about me or about women in general. Or as I’ve said before, I’m not one of your stupid shit women who will lap it all up over a mere show of wealth and power. Most Western women wouldn’t either so I’m no special case. As I’ve also said before, you people are completely lacking mentally and emotionally – the most basic and most important ingredient required to establish a genuine Western companionship. I guess all the secret police stuff and distrust thy neighbors and mad constant surveilling make you people incapable of trusting one another or having a genuine liking for another person, huh? Hence, the need to keep distance and follow all the cultural scripts. Formal but empty. Well, at the end of the day, it’s not my problem.

The mental disconnect required to survive in such a society would explain low compatibility romance. High quality men coupling up with low quality women, among other more pressing social ills. When you can’t have a genuine nourishing relationship with anyone, because you can never trust them, you fall back on acting out the most primitive basic idiotic cultural scripts. In this case: men with resources with women with beauty. And you justify it in all kinds of stupid ways. All mastery of skills require hard work and perseverance and drive, wouldn’t it? Chess, soccer, table tennis, marathon, triathlon, music, art, painting, programming. But because you are slow and insipid and shallow you have to focus on and defend the importance of feminine physicality and elevate it above all else. And you say that takes skills. Like, what doesn’t? But for a woman their beauty and physique is most paramount – you can disengage the rest. Because that’s all you guys are: mere forms with little to no content.

Hence you are flailing madly with me. You don’t trust me enough. You don’t see the best in people. You seem to all lack personalities or at least their full expressions. Not a good thing to stand out when political persecution is prevalent. So when I walk into a restaurant or a cafe, I see dull globs. Not vibrant dynamic social interactions of diverse colourful personalities. The Thais are collectivists too. But we are also fun and loud and strangely individualistic when hanging out with friends and partners and loved ones. Not subdued or muted. Emotionally or outwardly.

Enough of this pouring into the void. Whatever.

At some point, I’ll have to disengage to keep the sanity. But also: what a waste of time and resources, mine and yours. Yours especially. Tremendous efforts spanning years with no ultimate clincher or decisive end in sight. Just like the war in Ukraine.

March 29th, to Anton

But hey, if you’re renouncing your ambition, at least send some handsome Romeo to keep me company and entertain me in all kinds of ways. Best if he has a sense of humour and can manhandle me. I actually rather like that second guard stationed at the gate the other day. He was a friendly chap who walked right up to me when it looked like I was about to approach him. Probably thought I was going to ask for directions. When he saw the question on my phone, “Is it possible to see Mr. Putin?”, he stared at it for a full five seconds before breaking out into a radiant smile. Now, that’s an easily amused man with a sense of humour. He was cute and tall too. Is he single?

Best if he’s fully dressed in the guard uniform with a baton and whatever gun-looking thing swinging about his hips. Maybe he’s waiting by a patrol car just right outside and insists on “checking in” on me due to my suspicious behaviours the other day loitering about the highly guarded compound. Maybe he cuffs me and takes me into his car and frisks me thoroughly and gets naughty. You catch my drift, right?

March 29th, to Anton

Salisa: Look, it’s not anyone’s fault that cultures clash, you know? Over here, you fulfill the duty of a man to the best of your abilities towards a woman with whom you have no genuine connection. Likewise, the woman has no genuine interest in you as a person as long as you are a good provider. It’s performative and empty. There is superficial attraction and even affection that’s developed due to familiarity and physical closeness, sure, but no real enduring bond between two people. No affinity. No respect. No admiration. No interest. Hence your wife of ten years could walk into an embassy event marvelling at how her husband and the father of her two children could talk so eloquently on the issues of economics and politics. “I have no idea he knows all that stuff,” but I’m only paraphrasing. And for what would he be interested in her? Domestic chores for the day? What do they talk about? What common intellectual interests or shared physical activities or hobbies? When you spend your entire life shuffling between low effort relationships like that, you get what we see here. All cultural performances yet no genuine connection could be established.

I guess I’m supposed to be wholeheartedly in bliss and grateful for the investment of resources and attention being showered on me. It is colossally extraordinary after all. But then again, I’m not a colossally extraordinary whore like women from your culture. I know you expect me to act like one. But I don’t fall in love with abstract qualities or cultural performative nonsense. I’m really not playing hard to get. There is a real disconnect in romantic expectations and practices between the culture here and elsewhere. Here it’s all “show me what you’ve got” right at the start and everyday conversations and interests and activities are mere sprinkles on dessert; not that important or impressive or even pointless and stupid. In the West, if you’re not low-life bums marrying hookers then it’s the exact reverse. The substance of the relationship comes first and foremost, and all other qualities about a person mere accessories.

There has to be a paradigm shift in attitudes and personal conduct for this to work. I’m going to end up a glorified whore anyway so who cares. I can get out of it in a couple of years and move on with my life. Not my problem I find your men lacking and incapable.

You will all end up miserable and nihilistic and defeated due to how unfulfilling intimacy is for you. In the end, it’s not my problem that your culture is like this. And why would it be any concern for others?

If the West is undergoing the widespread moral decline due to unfettered sexual liberation and licentiousness, then it seems like yours never had a chance to develop to begin with. That’s probably even worse.

If love is the highest expression of the soul, what does that say about all your souls? No wonder Anton here is cynical about love. He is only enacting and perpetuating his cultural experiences and projecting them onto the world. Do you see any Western leaders or statesmen, both Europeans and Americans, who are in every way gifted and bright ever without a befitting highly estimable spouse by their side? Not just in terms of education or career but in moral qualities and virtues. So why can’t you find them here? Why are your last two presidents basically bachelors for the most part and not even trying? What is going on in this part of the world?

It seems all you do is to dabble in and dally with the female runts. So much for marriage as an institution.

Anton: [noise]

Salisa: And it’s not just your own lives you are basically ruining with this irresponsible act of yours, you know that right? What messages are you sending to boys and girls of your successive generations? In the U.S. for example, people look up to Michelle Obama and Hilary Clinton (this is not my area of interest so you will have to excuse me if I’m short on European examples) and they are role models for young girls everywhere. There are books on them and autobiographies and formal public attendances and they are known household names the world over. Highly celebrated and renowned women. And now that you put your own stooge in the White House we get a Melania. Import not just the man, but the woman too. Transplant the whole unit, so to say. That’s gotta be quite demoralising for young girls and women in America now, isn’t it? How is that different from your own country, may I ask? When you are the face of your country and represent the best of your nation, please act responsibly and deliberately. It’s never just your own lives when you’re highly visible. You project as much outwardly to the world as you do inwardly to your own people. Isn’t “moral values” the most important thing you once mentioned in one of your early interviews? Why are you setting a bad example for Anton or the promising young Tanguy here who we know will be mixing his genetics with more low-value chicks? Nothing happens in isolation. Everything affects everything else. “Women’s rights are human rights”? You know who popularised this saying right? Well, I’d say women’s stories are all our stories.

Salisa: I’m not finished giving my speech yet. Go away for now.

Anton: [more noise]

Salisa: Well, if something happens, at least I’d have done some good for the women and girls in your country. Don’t worry about it.

March 30th, to Anton

Let me lay it out for you one by one.

First off, you’re effectively threatening a suicidal person. Either you don’t know that I’m suicidal or that threatening a suicidal person is like shooting piss into the abyss… it simply doesn’t work. Most likely both. See the Russian incompetence and stupidity I mentioned earlier?

Secondly, of all the things I’ve thought out, you don’t think I’ve thought extensively about my death? You are insulting my intelligence and foresight.

Thirdly, what kind of tepid lukewarm response would my death inspire if it were self-delivered? As opposed to you killing me. As I’ve said before, if I go down I take you down with me.

Fourth, what is my dream? She asked me that twice. I gave her an almost contemptuous smile in the end. People have died because of me and you think I still have dreams? Not, say, nightmares? Maybe it wasn’t just Anton who is cognitively, mentally and psychologically challenged. Maybe it’s you lot.

And most of all, thanks for unsheathing my comforter. It’s much cooler without the outer sheet and I’ll sleep better tonight.

March 30th, to Anton

Salisa: And why did you sic them drones on me again? Isn’t there supposed to be a no-fly zone in Moscow? Can anyone hijack them and run them all into a tree?

Anton: you are totally nuts

Salisa: Thanks

Anton: you are welcome

March 30th, to Henry

She parked herself right at the entrance of the hostel and there was a Chinese girl there with her who was persistently and overtly evasive of all personal questions (how old are you? What do you do for a living? What did you study? Though I accused her in jest at one point for being a Chinese Spy only for her to childishly and cheerily brush off the accusation). Maybe Xi sent her here to make sure WW3 isn’t started on my behalf. That would really put a major dent in his global business investment. I honestly don’t think they are in the same camp. There is no faking genuine uncomfortableness that comes with being an object of excessive adulation and encroachment by a touchy, perky Chinese lesbo. Especially as a humourless dull glob of a woman (Russian).

I’m jesting about the Chinese lady. She was nice and scatterbrained and vivacious. Came across as one of those genuine people who don’t like to lie given the choice (although when we asked her what she wanted to be, she piped up loudly, “President! Russian President!”). She was the one who actually called on me to sit down with them and later kept pestering the Russian to meet up later. The Russian was as sturdy and contained as a fortress (or a brick) but I think she was truly unnerved by the Chinese’s attention and focus on her. When the Chinese excused herself from the group after awhile, noticing that I was shifting my attention to and locking in on the Russian (“Do Russian people actually support Pootookie?”), I had to jokingly say to her “I’ll return her to you in a moment” (there actually was a confusion in the beginning of the group conversation when the Russian thought the Chinese thought she was a “he” but the Chinese’s broken English garbled up the word “here” as “he” – as a woman witnessing this awkward real-time exchange between the two and the offense so taken you know they truly didn’t know each other beforehand). When the Russian and I walked up four flights of stairs to where the rooms were (after the threat had been delivered that is… I really wasn’t rattled just sad and pensive and kept staring at her – the way Andre stared at me after he figured shit out but couldn’t say more – and went on to keep her company on the way up and asked about Kaliningrad where she was supposedly from), the Chinese re-manifested herself right at the door just as we were about to enter henpecking the Russian to meet up again later.

In a way, it felt like the Chinese girl knew more about the situation than the Russian did. They were both young. Late 20s or early 30s. The Chinese mentioned she had been in Bangkok a few times, loved the street barbecues, and how she liked spending time at the J.J. mall near the Chatuchak market (there was nothing to do or see at the J.J. mall – as you know it was a dilapidated lacklustre building that Andre and I lunched there one time because it was convenient). I told her there was a recent earthquake there where a building collapsed with a hundred lives lost. She shook her head and said she didn’t remember or know about it. I elaborated more on it and how it took place just last year. Then she said the people who died were the Burmese, Laotians, etc. I did say in response to that “yes, they were foreign migrants”. But the Thais don’t hate them and almost consider them one of us in a way. We are not capitalists. We think of them as people, not labours. And we admire hard-working people regardless of their roots. We are not classist or racist (except maybe in a petty way against the Whites sometimes – they are not the most pleasant people around and possess no humility that we Asians value so deeply).

The Russian on the other hand kept insisting that I looked like a journalist. She was a woman of few words but mentioned that three times. In the end, I relented and just said that I work in “technology”. She shot me a blank innocuous look asking “that’s the same, no?”. I pursed my lips. She didn’t know anything in depth about me. Just a garden variety threat delivery mission. It was, in a way, disappointing. Just a mouthpiece to the wire in her ears.

She mentioned she had just returned from Bali and was staying at the hostel for a few days before having to head back to her hometown in Western Russia (she said she was “too tired” to take the train back right away and was staying here until Tuesday and I said probably with a smile, “me too.. I’m leaving on Tuesday”). There is no way in hell this dull Russian glob would ever head to somewhere fun like Bali, especially as someone who had never travelled internationally elsewhere before (Why Bali? Why not somewhere close like Belarus or Kazakhstan? Or even China or other mainstream touristy destinations?). Incidentally Bali was where Andre went before circling back to Thailand to meet up with me in Bangkok in 2020. On his now defunct Instagram, there was a photo of him with some Italian travel influencer/blogger who didn’t hold any real professional job. He mentioned her like a proud boy so cheerful and self-satisfied in an in-your-face kind of way that kinda looked like he wanted me envious. I frowned at him. His entire personality screamed the exact opposite of a fuck boy. It was weird, I thought. Why would I be envious of a trashy low-life girl with no real job? Why would a respectable woman like me anywhere, or literally a woman from anywhere else in the world, ever be jealous of a layabout OnlyFans model-adjacent? I was indeed missing one crucial information: his real ethnicity. I also didn’t know at the time that Russian men fangirl glorified trashy streetwalkers in disguise. That to them, I should strive to be more like a bikini-wearing sex-oozed hair-brained bimbo who has nothing real to offer to anyone except perky tits and nice frame. Can I pick up a placard and start a protest right here in Moscow to proselytise the international communities – the Asians, the Americans, the Europeans, the Arabs, the Africans, the Latinos – under the cultural banner of “Bimbos are women”? Or should it say “Bimbos are real women”? “Bimbos are wifeys”? “Make Bimbos Great Again”, “Bimbos First”, “Yes Bimbos can”, “I’m With Bimbo”,  “Bimbos We Can Believe In”, “Bimbo Lives Matter”,  “Give Me Bimbo Or Give Me Death!”, “One Man One Bimbo”, “No Such Thing As a Free Bimbo”, “Bimbos Of The World Unite!”.. ? 

So here’s to answer your earlier question about the insult. It was precisely and partly why I stared sadly at the Russian girl tasked with delivering the threat. It made it all the more bittersweet. Especially after she told me what she was doing for a living. Though to be fair, it probably wasn’t her real job, but even fake answers can be telling. What would be a reasonable thing for a person to hear if I were a female fake persona? Con artistry is never outside the immediate realm of cultural possibilities.

The job titles she told me were murky and various, from fitness trainer to class/event organizer/director to teaching acting to kids. She said she was a twenty years old drop-out considering “art” as a profession.

She mentioned how she participated in the 2022 protest against the war and was arrested and fined for a year’s worth of salary. She even typed out the salary to me on her phone calculator (I was looking up Russian salaries and cost of living in depth the day after I arrived). From there she segued quickly into her own classroom experience reading War and Peace. “War and Peace, that’s how it’s translated into English, yes?” She asked to make sure I was following. Then she said, “we raised our hands and asked what was going to happen to Pierre afterwards when he was thrown into prison.. whether he was going to live or die. She said he was going to die. It’s like fortune-telling.” That’s the gist of the threat content. Except it was slow and deliberate and emphatic in places, especially on the dying and fortune-telling part. “You remember what happened to Pierre?” (how did she know I’d read that book?), “He is going to die”, “It’s like going to a fortune teller.. it’s like fortune telling”, “It’s looking into the future to see what’s going to happen”.

No it wasn’t. She got thrown into jail and was released as soon as she managed to cough up 1.5 mil roubles to stuff Pootookie’s war coffers. There was no prophecy in Pierre’s story in relation to her.

She also mentioned out of nowhere that some people travelled here only to stay in hostel where there were so many interesting places to visit. She asked me outright if I went anywhere. The way she said it, it was almost an accusation. I didn’t want to engage with this kind of questioning. The “knowing” questions, insinuations, comments. Besides, what’s wrong with staring at the inside of a Starbucks for the entire afternoon? What’s the point when I’m never coming back here again and will forget ever making this trip as soon as I leave?

March 30th, to Anton

Of course my words drip with contempt. One of you cunts dared call me a poor girl from a third world country in public. You opened that Pandora’s Box. So now I’m showing you all the way words can hurt. In the process it seems I’m also lowering your moral standings as a bastion of conservative values. Whoops. The whole world will laugh at you now. But if you shoot that loose mouth dead in the face and snap a pic and send it to me, maybe I’ll let up. Because he didn’t just insult me or my country, he typed that out the day I went out to visit my family. My family, you hear me you cunt face? So… bullet in the face of that dumb ungrateful cunt, or I keep thinking up all the ways you people disgust me. You, your country, your men, your women, your family, your value, your religion, your history, your entire existence as a nation full of fucking cunts.

So just so you know, no real hard feelings between us. Simply excise that detritus of a human being from your rank and we’re friends again. Got it?

March 31st, to Anton

I’ve been rummaging through my bag all morning. You guys took my black turtleneck. Lame. Did you take any of my panties? I didn’t do the official counting and assortment when I packed. That would have been more thrilling for you and for me, no?

You also should have taken the famous red bra from my photo that one time. I packed it specifically for Pootookie for this trip. Still not too late to confiscate it at the airport security checkpoint. You could declare the item a hostile artifact of Western decadence and corruption.

April 1st, to Henry

Needs recoup. Just landed safely back in BKK woof. In the meantime, here’s a funny photo. Flew half-way across the world to visit a zoo and see… an elephant. This one is gigantic. He didn’t have any friend. Just a majestic loner. Poor elephant. We could have provided him with a friend on a diplomatic loan.

Saw a glimpse of a leopard in his enclosure. He was too lazy to make a public appearance. Glimpsed only his ass.

Meanwhile, the two polar bears were in hijinks. No jokes.

Also snapped a few photos of condensation trails streaking the sky. On the day I was on the Kremlin ground, there were about four or five of these overhead. They evaporated fast though.

But didn’t take a photo.