Congratulations on a really fascinating and unusual trip report full of massively understated asides and nuances -- one of the most interesting pieces I've read on any subject, anywhere, ever. I'm not sure why it hasn't gotten more attention.

What really grabs me is the contrast between the apparently casual trip out and then back into a live war zone and the weird matter-of-fact asides: 14 cm (or thereabouts) stiletto heels, linguistic acrobatics passed over with hardly a comment (Ukrainian, Polish, German, Russian and English), 200 km/hr as normal traffic flow (124.2 mph), air raid sirens, a private island, wild nightclubs and a deeply mysterious set of business circumstances lurking the whole while. Plus there are a couple of hostile border crossings thrown in. And who the heck writes a trip report where diving into an air raid shelter is so normal that it's barely even worth mentioning?