Come To The Cabaret, Old Chum

By Eric Le Roy

Content 18+ The gray days turn now to early darkness – light-swallowing afternoons that have me leaving the apartment with my dogs when it is still daylight and returning 30 minutes later to sudden winds and the pitch black of precocious night. These afternoons end quicker than friendships when talking about places like Russia and Ukraine, Israel and Palestine. Believe me, I know.

In the morning, … Read the rest

Hopper

By Eric Le Roy

Content 18+ I remember walking through the streets of Martinsburg, West Virginia when I was a kid. There was one main street and a couple of fairly busy ones shooting off in different directions on each side. But it was Queen Street, the ‘hub’ of Martinsburg, so to speak, where the busy shops were. I was very young at the time, maybe 6 or 7, and … Read the rest

Die, Old Man!

Content 18+

Back in Moscow -- and also now in Bulgaria, as I continue to work with Russians via Skype and Zoom -- it has been my business to have close connections with Russian professionals. Because of that, I know a lot of 50-something guys who were living the good life until they lost their jobs. A lot of them were in the banking industry, some dealt in software, others … Read the rest

The Long, Long, LONG road to Varna

Content 18+

My wife Liuba is from Omsk, and many hard, frozen, poverty-stricken years there did nothing to damage her health.But all it took was four winters amid the belching smokestacks and poisoned atmosphere of Moscow for her to contract a chronic bronchial infection. During her last two years in the megapolis, often amid endless bleak rains that more and more prevail there because of climate change, our apartment was … Read the rest