"Joker"

[Victor Steinbok]

[posted last night but did not go through]

This roughly parallels my observations as well. As I mentioned earlier,
the father repeatedly referred to his own family as "family of lawyers",
so it would not be surprising if the uncle indeed received "dynamite
education".

I also made a comment earlier about the "Tsarnaev" vs. "Tsarni"
distinction, which seems to be the point of de-Russification of the
name. Just recall that most Chechen families suffered at least some
period in exile and Tsarnaevs in particular spent considerable time in
Kyrgyzstan, with a number of family members still there, their ancestors
having been exiled there by Stalin. The father was initially in
Chechnya, but ended up in Kyrgyzstan, then Turkish Kurdistan, before
arriving as a refugee to the US. Now he "returned" to Dagestan
(Makhachkala) after having been treated for a brain tumor in Germany. I
have no idea which path the uncle (paternal) and the aunt (maternal--in
Canada) followed. But the uncle (with the name Ruslan that crosses
Russo-Islamic boundaries, which probably goes back to Mongols) is indeed
a 1998 Duke Law School graduate and a well-connected 42-years-old
international oil industry lawyer and lobbyist (and executive, although
it's not clear how many of his directorships are with shell companies)
who lives in a half-million-dollar house http://goo.gl/QlenN not far
from DC. So, yes, it's a family of lawyers. (Ruslan also worked, at one
point, for USAID, which has already spawned conspiracy theorists who
think he's a CIA agent.)

     VS-)

On 4/24/2013 6:48 PM, Wilson Gray wrote:
> ...
> Did anyone else see the interview with the uncle now living in Maryland?
> His command of English was, IMO, impressively near-native, making me think
> that he had been important enough to have received a dynamite education,
> back in the old country. He pronounced his version of the family name
> as ['tsarni] and spelled it out for reporters as T-S-A-R-N-I. As to whether
> this is closer to the true Chechen pronunciation, further deponent sayeth
> not, knowing nothing about the Chechens other beyond the fact that the
> Russians have been shitting on the Chechens for centuries, since the days
> of the tsars, and that various well-known Russians, including Pushkin, were
> exiled thither as punishment, like unto getting  shipped out to the old
> United States Colored Troops (out)post, Fort Huachuca, Arizona, from
> Frankfurt, Germany.
>
> If the uncle spoke the names of his nephews, I missed it. But he did
> emphasize that neither of them had ever set foot into Chechnya.

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