Having a wonderful time reminiscing about all my past travel (and other) adventures. Hope you’ll share them with me in my blog, “All Roads Led to Russia.”
It’s fantasy. It was always fantasy. It could never be anything but fantasy. But it made us feel good.
Do you remember walking out of the movie theater, smiling at the Seven Dwarfs singing “Hi-ho, hi-ho,” as off to work they went?
“It’s off to work we go . . .”
Or the antics of Robin Williams’ irrepressible Genie in Disney’s “Aladdin”?
“Phenomenal cosmic power! Itty bitty living space.”
Or Cinderella finally trading in her mop and bucket for a castle and a handsome prince?
“Someday my prince will come.”
Maybe you didn’t actually think for one minute that any of that could ever be possible. But didn’t you feel, at least for a little while, that there was good in the world, and that if you believed — really, really believed with all your heart — then something lovely could happen?
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And don’t you wish today’s generation, and the next, and the one after that could all experience what we did as kids: that innocent, accepting, all-believing wonderment of Disney’s fantasy world?
And not this crap:
Sweet dreams, kiddies.
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We were raised on Mozart, not Metal. On respect, not rebellion. On Disney, not Death. And we were happy. We didn’t have child protective services, or shrinks, or probation officers, because we didn’t need them.
We had parents and teachers who taught us right from wrong, and looked after us, and made sure we were okay. And we had Disney.
Happily, this is a “Hostage Sunday” to celebrate. Three of our American hostages — Evan Gershkovich, Alsu Kurmasheva, and Paul Whelan — as well as dual British-Russian citizen Vladimir Kara-Murza, have been released and are safely back in the land of the free.
On the way home
In addition, the complex, multi-nation exchange included the release of twelve Russian and German political prisoners . . . all of whom were immediately deported and flown to Germany, where the Russian members of the group await uncertain futures. Some, understandably, have said they had hoped to remain in their homeland with their families and friends, despite the obvious dangers.
But the Russian government had other ideas, which did not include housing “traitors,” as they called them. The twelve now in Germany are:
Lilia Chanysheva Ksenia Fadeyeva Oleg Orlov Ilya Yashin Kevin Lik Rico Krieger Dieter Voronin Patrick Schobel German Moyzhes Vadim Ostanin Andrei Pivovarov Aleksandra Skochilenko
Three of the most vocal dissidents — Vladimir Kara-Murza, Ilya Yashin and Andrei Pivovarov — have already expressed their intention to continue fighting the Putin regime until the Russian people are able to live in a free and peaceful society . . . even though they will probably have to work from outside the country. No surprise there, and best of luck to them.
Left to right: Vladimir Kara-Murza, Andrei Pivovarov, Ilya Yashin
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But while we were able to free a total of sixteen wrongfully-detained political prisoners, there remain hundreds of others throughout Russia’s prison system . . . including eight additional American citizens. And they must not be forgotten.
So who are these eight people still locked away, who now comprise our much-reduced HOSTAGE list?
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Marc Fogel, a schoolteacher from Pennsylvania, was arrested in August of 2021 for possession of 0.6 ounce of legally-prescribed (in the U.S.) medical marijuana. In June of 2022 he was sentenced to 14 years in prison.
Marc Fogel
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Robert Romanov Woodland, a dual US-Russian citizen, was teaching English in Russia when he was arrested in January of 2024 for allegedly attempting to sell drugs. In July, he was sentenced to 12-1/2 years in a maximum security prison.
Robert Romanov Woodland
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U.S. Army Staff Sergeant Gordon Black was stationed in South Korea when he fell into a Russian “honey trap.” He was on his way back to his home in Texas, on two weeks’ leave, when he was lured to Vladivostok by the Russian girlfriend he had met in Korea. He was arrested in May of 2024 on charges of alleged larceny and murder threat, and sentenced the following month to a prison term of three years and nine months.
Staff Sergeant Gordon Black
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Robert Gilman, already in jail in Russia serving a 4-1/2-year sentence (later reduced to 3-1/2 years on appeal) for kicking a police officer in 2022, found himself facing added charges in 2023 of punching prison staff in the head, and later also attacking a criminal investigator and another prison guard.
Robert Gilman
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Ksenia Karelina is a dual US-Russian citizen. A resident of Los Angeles, she was visiting family in Yekaterinburg, Russia, in February of this year, when she was arrested for treason . . . for having donated $50 — while in the United States — to a charity that offered assistance to Ukrainian war victims.
Ksenia Karelina
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David Barnes, an American citizen and resident of Texas, was arrested in January of 2022 while visiting his children, who had been taken to Russia from Texas by his Russian wife. He was charged and sentenced in the fall of that year to 21 years in prison for child abuse (allegedly occurring while in Texas), on his wife’s accusation. I really wish I knew more of this story!
David Barnes
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Eugene Spector, a dual US-Russian citizen already serving a four-year sentence handed down in June of 2021 on a bribery conviction, received additional charges of suspicion of espionage in August of 2023. No other details have been found, as the evidence is labelled “classified.”
Eugene Spector
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Michael Travis Leake, a rock musician and former paratrooper, was sentenced in July of this year to 13 years in prison on drug charges — specifically, suspicion of selling mephedrone, and organizing a drug trafficking business “involving young people.”
Michael Travis Leake
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Are any of these prisoners actually guilty of the charges leveled against them? I don’t know. But I do know that the recent timing of a number of the arrests, and the speed with which they were brought to trial, is a clear indication of Russia’s intentional roundup of American citizens to be used as (what I call) Putin’s Pawns.
What they are, quite simply, are HOSTAGES. And they will not — MUST not — be forgotten. Let’s shorten this list to zero.
I happened to stumble across an article today about an American man from Kansas, Joe Schutzman, who “decided to move his family from Kansas to the Moscow region because of his frustration with LGBTQ+ ‘propaganda’ in the US.” [Daniel Zuidijk, Bloomberg, June 12, 2024.]
Joe and Ann Schutzman (apparently in Kansas)Four of the Schutzman children: Embracing a Russia that no longer exists
No need to go into detail here. Suffice it to say, I think Mr. Schutzman is certifiable, and his wife should have had him committed rather than follow him, with their six young children, halfway around the world to Putin’s Paradise. But maybe she’s as far off the reservation as he is. In any event, good luck to them in their search for the perfect life.
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What this article reminded me of, though, is the Feenstra family from Canada. Remember them? Back in February, I wrote about their nearly identical journey: heading for a “better life” in Russia in order to escape the new “wokeness” of their Canadian home, dragging eight of their nine children (the smart one stayed behind voluntarily) into the unknown of a country that . . . well, it’s Russia, for crying out loud.
And I realized I hadn’t heard any more about those eight youngsters and their wacko parents for many months. So I did what everyone does these days: I Googled them. And I came up with their YouTube channel, “Feenstra Faith and Family.” Disturbingly, the last entry seems to have been made four months ago, when it was announced that they had been “kicked out of Russia.”
Oh, dear . . . what had they done?
Well, it’s still not clear. When they first moved there, they said it was to be a permanent arrangement, and that they had been promised all the help they needed to get settled. Aden Feenstra was a beet farmer in Canada, and he said before leaving that he had been assured they would be able to acquire a home and land to farm in Russia. And he believed it. But in this video, and in other similarly dated reports, it is said that they had only been given “visitor” visas, which expired in three months.
Aden’s videos of five to six months ago show him out strolling through the snow in Nizhny Novgorod. There is no sign of a farm. His wife, Anneesa, is busy with the eight children and “editing [their] YouTube channel.” But later (four months ago), he speaks of the problems involved in leaving the country for the required three months before being permitted to reenter, and the cost (an estimated $10,000 each way) of moving ten people back and forth. What their destination would be, he doesn’t say.
What the hell is wrong with these people??!!!
“What now?”
Didn’t they stop to think of these things before they packed up, sold the farm in Canada, and went traipsing off in search of Utopia in one of the most repressive societies in the entire world? Didn’t they do their due diligence?
Obviously not. And I worry about those eight innocent children, who had no say in any of the decision-making of their delusional parents, as well as for the Schutzmans’ six little ones.
Unfortunately, they’re most likely not eligible for a hostage exchange . . . unless they’re found to have been “wrongfully detained.”
There seems to be some major controversy at the Olympics in France this week. It’s not about who should have won gold in a specific event, or whether the Russians should have been there at all, or about suspected doping issues. No, this one is about clothing.
First it was the U.S. uniforms for the opening ceremony. As an American, I’m sorry to say this, but they were seriously ugly. It may be time for Ralph Lauren to retire and write a book, or start a school for . . . oh, I don’t know . . . ex-convicts who have always yearned to be dress designers. Anything but this.
What an embarrassment!
Then there was the skimpiness — actually, the near non-existence — of some of those female volleyball teams’ outfits. Not only did they look supremely uncomfortable (ever hear of a wedgie?), but I kept waiting for the first costume malfunction to occur.
“No! Not the bikini!”
And let us not forget the men’s swim trunks — if you can even call them trunks. What on earth were the designers thinking? Was the IOC awarding points for size? Maybe the water in the pool should have been colder.
Uh . . . nice abs, guys.
And now it’s this: too much coverage. Really? If a young Muslim woman is more comfortable in her traditional garb, and it doesn’t interfere with the performance of her sport, then we should all get over it.
Hijab vs. Bikini
Frankly, I’d rather look at her Hijab than at those male swimmers’ . . . uh . . .
So could we just concentrate on the sports, please? That is, after all, what the Olympics are supposed to be about.
Thanks to Russian journalist Aleksei Venediktov for posting (on Facebook) this heartwarming picture of Vladimir Kara-Murza, who just days ago was languishing, near death, in a “punishment” cell in Russian penal colony IK-7 near Omsk, Siberia. And now, thanks to years of unrelenting, incredibly complex, seven-nation negotiations, he — and 15 other former hostages — are finally breathing the fresh air of freedom.
Vladimir Kara-Murza
That is the most beautiful smile I have ever seen!
Sometimes there are just too many interesting news items circulating at one time, and as I bounce from headline to headline, reading one after another, they form a cacophony in my mind that won’t quiet down until I’ve written something about each one.
AI Depiction of the Inside of My Head
But — while fascinating to me — I have to admit that they’re not all earthshakingly important to everyone. And there are just so many hours in a day, and so many megabytes in an iPad, and I wind up playing the “Eenie, Meenie, Miney” game I wrote about yesterday. And the result is . . .
“This one? No, that one! Or the first one? HELP ME!!”
Well, it’s taken me a while — and a good bit of therapeutic Haagen-Dazs — but I’ve finally convinced myself that there may be a way to break this self-destructive pattern. So, welcome to:
“Bits ‘n’ Pieces”
. . . wherein I toss some headlines at you, with a brief — very brief — descriptor, and let you decide which ones are of sufficient interest to you to delve further into the news for the details on your own.
Can I do it? Well, that remains to be seen, doesn’t it? I mean, I am known to be rather verbose at times.
Oh, who am I kidding? I don’t know when to shut up (or to stop writing). Words are my friends. But sometimes more is just more, and . . .
And there I go again. So now, it’s on to the first “Bits ‘n’ Pieces.” Let’s see how it works out.
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Secret Service detains man for incident involving security detail for Harris’ stepdaughter. Actually, just someone who got caught doing damage to license plates on two parked Secret Service vehicles. The Vice President’s stepdaughter wasn’t in either car, no one was hurt, the perp was caught. No story here.
See? This is working out really well. Next . . .
Scientists reveal new details about ‘screaming’ Egyptian mummy’s life and death. Interesting story with lots of details about the process of mummification in ancient Egypt, and some theories but no conclusion as to why she appeared to have been screaming. So, not really a story here either.
This is great. Onward and upward . . .
No reason I shouldn’t still include pictures . . . right?
Russia pulled back weapons shipment to Houthis amid US and Saudi pressure. Great ending to earlier post on “Putin and the Houthis.” Enough said.
That’s three. We’re on a roll!
EU warns Hungary over easing of visa rules for Russians. Hmm . . . Viktor Orban again. Might actually want to do a little follow-up on this one.
Oh, well, that won’t take long. No problem.
Who were the Russian prisoners released in swap for Paul Whelan, Evan Gershkovich? Now, that’s a very good question. I’d really like to know more about them, so will probably leave this for tomorrow.
Oh-oh. I’m beginning to sense trouble here . . .
Children of undercover Russian spy couple only learned their nationality on flight to Moscow. Oh, this is a good one! It seems the young girl — she appears to be a pre-teen — didn’t even know who Vladimir Putin was when he greeted them at the airport, and . . .
Look at Putin’s face. What do you suppose he was thinking?
Oh, crap! I need to look into this. And the Wall Street Journal had a fantastic article on Evan Gershkovich, but it’s quite long and will take some time to digest. So I’d better get started.
Yes, I know . . . I’m hopeless!
Well, can I help it if things just keep happening?!! I think I did pretty well for the first time: three out of six. Most baseball players don’t bat .500.
Seriously, I don’t know the answer. I’m not talking about the political, religious, or ethical issues involved — just the legal rationalization for holding them all these years without trial. Can anyone clarify this?
This blog is many things for me. It is exercise for the brain. It is a filler of all those free hours I never had before I retired. It is educational as a result of the reading I have to do before I can even start writing. And it is just plain fun.
But it can also be frustrating because, as you know if you’ve been following me for a while, the majority of my posts are based on the news of the day — mostly world news. And mostly about Russia. And there has been a hell of a lot of that lately. Actually, too much, even for me. The world is set at warp speed, and I’m . . . well, just a little bit slower.
Help!
A word, if I may, about method: I try to write ahead. What you are reading today may have been written, at least partially, yesterday or even the day before. But then there will invariably be a current news flash (or several) that will take precedence, and what I’ve originally written for today will have to be re-dated and delayed. And sometimes they get pushed back so far, they become obsolete and never get published at all. News is only news when it’s . . . well . . . new.
Right now, I have — by actual count — nine draft posts lined up with titles and not much more. You can imagine what yesterday’s prisoner exchange — as exciting and joyous as that has been — has done to my list. (And by the way, being able to watch the live broadcast of the arrival of the American hostages at Andrews AFB last night was phenomenal.) But that story obviously knocked everything else out of sight and thus out of my mind. So draft titles like “The Inmates Are Running the Asylum,” “And Another One Bites the Dust,” or “The Ghost of Yevgeny Prigozhin” may no longer be au courant.
The Gershkovich Family
Okay, full disclosure: Some of them go back so far, I no longer remember why I was going to write about them in the first place. I could review my notes, I suppose; but they seem to have grown a covering of mold while waiting in line, and all I can think of when I scan down the list is . . .
“No, thank you!”
So I plan to spend the rest of today trying to come up with something new, interesting, maybe even amusing. Wish me luck.
Because now I need the world to cooperate. Could we just slow it down a little, please. Are you hearing me, Russia? China? Iran? Anybody out there??!!!
Wait a second . . . what’s this? Two children involved in the prisoner exchange? What’s their story? And Viktor Orban’s in trouble with the EU again? What did Dmitry Peskov say now? Oh, crap!
Gotta read some more. ‘Bye for now, I guess . . .
Well, what can I do? I’m a glutton for punishment.
Yesterday was indeed a day for celebration. The hostages — sixteen of them — had been released and were safely back in the U.S. or in Germany, reuniting with family and friends at last.
Evan Gershkovich, Alsu Kurmasheva, Paul Whelan
But that was yesterday. Today, for the rest of the world at least, life goes on. And so it does for the hostage-prisoners remaining in Putin’s prisons. In addition to an unknown number of Russian citizens being charged daily with “crimes” ranging from “insulting the military” to “spreading false information” to full-fledged treason, there are, at last count, eight Americans remaining in prison in Russia on similarly imaginary charges. They are:
Marc Fogel Robert Romanov Woodland Staff Sergeant Gordon Black Robert Gilman Ksenia Karelina David Barnes Eugene Spector Michael Travis Leake
While it is heart-warming indeed to see my list shrunk to this level, it is still eight names too long. And I shall continue to publish their names weekly, at the same time hoping that they, too, are or soon will be the subjects of behind-the-scenes negotiations for their release.
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But when will we stop playing games with human lives? The so-called “lower” species of animals would never do this to their own.
Last night I had a Klondike bar and some Haagen-Dazs, to celebrate. Then, having lined my stomach with an adequate amount of cream, I reached into the freezer once more . . . for the vodka bottle. I may be old, but I have’t forgotten how to party.
The one thing Russia gets right.
The celebration, of course, is for the now former hostages: Evan Gershkovich, Vladimir Kara-Murza, Alsu Kurmasheva, Paul Whelan, and all the others who have finally made it back to freedom. Welcome home, each and every one of you. May your family reunions be joyous, and your healing be swift.
Needless to say, those families will be staging their own celebrations today, perhaps some quietly and others less so, depending on their returning loved ones’ wishes. And whether they choose to celebrate initially with or without outside friends, with or without food and drink, with or without singing and dancing, I’d bet on one thing: there’ll be a whole lotta huggin’ goin’ on!
But every happy event has to have one wet blanket, and this one is no exception. His name, of course, is Donald J. Trump. Even at a momentous occasion such as this, he finds it impossible to see one ray of sunshine, or to offer an iota of praise to those who made it possible. Instead, he sulks because someone else — his customary punching bag Joe Biden, at that — accomplished what he could not. Because the spotlight is not focused on him. And if he has to prevaricate to make his twisted point, so be it. As always, his own words are the best indicator of his character; and I will let those words (posted on his ironically-named Truth Social site) speak for him:
“So when are they going to release the details of the prisoner swap with Russia? How many people do we get versus them? Are we also paying them cash? Our ‘negotiators’ are always an embarrassment to us! I got back many hostages, and gave the opposing Country NOTHING — and never any cash.” [Alex Leary, Wall Street Journal, August 1, 2024.]
Narcissism “trumps” decency, every single time.
Gracious to the core, Donnie is. Now let’s try a bit of fact-checking:
1) White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan confirmed that no money had been exchanged and no sanctions eased to facilitate the exchange. (Whether there was any other consideration involved, we will probably never know. Some things need to remain classified.)
2) We released eight criminals, including an FSB assassin, and got back sixteen innocent political prisoners. In terms that even Trump will easily understand, that’s like doubling your money.
3) While the Trump administration did participate in prisoner swaps, there were not “many” hostages involved, as he claimed; and those few were exchanged for prisoners from our side. In 2019, one American and one Australian were freed by the Taliban in return for three high-profile Taliban members released by the Afghan government. And in 2020, American Michael White was released by Iran in exchange for dual U.S.-Iranian citizen Matteo Taerri. [WSJ, id.]
So yes, there were swaps on Trump’s watch — just not a lot of them, and not for “nothing,” as Trump claims. As usual, gross exaggeration is proven to be just what it is: a lot of self-serving b.s.
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But enough about that. This is a day to rejoice, to welcome the hostages home, and to congratulate all those who made it possible. Tomorrow may be back to business as usual for the world, but today we celebrate.
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