"Welcome to Russia..." "That's how cold it is, look." "...the largest country on Earth, and home to nearly 150 million people." "Growing up as a kid in the '80s in London," "Russia was painted as this weird big baddie." "Now with Vladimir Putin well into his third term as president, it's starting to feel like that again." "Pro-Russian rebels in eastern Ukraine..." " Vladimir Putin has ignored the dark warnings from the West." " There's going to have to be a very different relationship between Britain and Russia." "The West has imposed tough sanctions against Russia." "Russia is responsible for the violence..." "And relations are the frostiest since the cold war." "But this hasn't stopped an army of young Siberian models invading the West." "And while the catwalkOctober 28, 2012

It was a luminous autumn day, cloudless, in late September. It must have been one of thelast weekends before the school year started in earnest, one of the last lazy weekends thatTom and I, both of us eighth graders, were to spend at the cabin. I was going to say thatit was one I’d never forget. But I did forget. For decades, I had forgotten. I thought ofTom this morning for the first time in years. The cabin, surrounded by miles of Michigan wilderness, was a nice piece of familyweekend and summer real estate, outings to which I divided amongst my three closestfriends, Barry, Ken, and Tom, according to a metric that is lost to me now, most likelyTom’s availability. Of the three Tom was the