just wanted to say I also enjoyed - or maybe that isn't the right word, was very interested by I guess - your Gulnara expose. it reminds me of something out of the middle ages, the way a despot (or despot's child, whatever) can exercise great power and commit all kinds of atrocities and still move in the most fashionable social circles. or like Louis XIV crossed with a Vanderbilt or Carnegie, any of those elite university namesake robber barons, who cutthroat their way to the top and then bought respectability...it puts me mind of that part in Chinatown where John Huston says politicians + whores both get respectable if they live long enough, since I reckon Gulnara is more than a bit of both. anyway, I reckon it all says more about the world we live in now than Gulnara who, while not to excuse any of her/her family's personal responsibility or heinous acts, is mainly a cipher for that, like she's at the very end of this chain of evolution, this ultimate post-modern capitalist beast just gobbling up everything in sight while producing nothing of value. or maybe just Central Asian gangster Imelda Marcos on steroids. anyway I'm rambling but I liked it. you're a good writer.
(+ just in case that wasn't clear, eff Gulnara, her sister, dad and brutal shitty dictators everywhere + forever. especially ones who brutalize + impoverish their own people for the sake of making fucking couture. although the celebrity parasites she attracts are arguably even worse. as if there weren't enough reasons to loathe Sting. also, did you know she has a Masters from fucking Harvard? they must be really proud of that one at the Kennedy School of Govt...)