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.