Q: What made you choose Russia even though the hassle was more compared to going to Latin America for example?

A: I come from a Slavic stock, I am second generation American, and there are physical similarities between many Americans and Eastern European or European stock. I would be much less interested in going to South America or Asia – it’s much easier to talk to people with common origins. In the case of Russia – I had a unique interest in Russia for many years, after all, Russia – the Soviet Union as an empire – was the opposite pole with democracy, and as soon as that changed, as soon as the process of change began it was interesting to be able to come over here and see whether in fact we could be friends – part of this was very much to establish friendship.