2023-08-16 03:03:54
The town of Petrushovo, located in the Russian region of Ryazan, about 350 kilometers southeast of Moscow, has a population of 43 people (according to data from Wikipedia in Russia), which has increased in the last month with the arrival of a new resident, Karin Kneissl. The newly incorporated neighbor speaks a little Russian and has become the star of the local summer parties. It is not for less. Kneissl, born in Austria, was the highest diplomatic representative of her country between 2017 and 2019.
Videos recently published on various Russian websites show the new inhabitant of the place during a celebration greeting some of her new neighbors. She doesn’t speak Russian, but she’s on it. She hopes that the classes she receives will soon bear fruit for her, as she integrates into her new place of residence. “This is my world,” Kneissl tells a group of local children, stating that the differences between Petrushovo and the Austrian town where she lived are actually few.
«I like being here, this town is very beautiful. I started working, to continue teaching and learning, to write my books, to learn the language. I had to leave my old life, start over, and at 60 it is not easy,” he told a local newspaper, without revealing how long he plans to stay in that bucolic landscape of deep Russia that reminds him so much of his town in Austria. Her former life in the Austrian government led her to be one of the most important people in her country, taking the helm of international relations. At that stage, she met Vladimir Putin, whom she did not hesitate to invite to her wedding, held exactly five years ago in Gamlitz.
The Russian president took advantage of the route that was taking him at that time to a meeting with the then German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, and made a stop along the way to attend the wedding banquet and congratulate the couple, giving Kneissl some earrings valued at 50,000 euros, according to the Austrian newspaper Kronen Zeitung. Images of the moment showed Putin dancing with the protagonist, who responded to the head of the Kremlin with a bow, highly criticized due to the position that Kneissl held at that time and the accusations that the West launched at the Russian leader by considering him responsible for Russian interference in the US elections.
Since then the relationship between the minister and the Russian president has remained unchanged. After the motion of no confidence that overthrew the government of the Austrian Prime Minister, Sebastian Kurz, the until then Foreign Minister began to collaborate with the Russian news channel RT.
In 2021, Kneissl was signed by the Russian oil company Rosneft, which approved her appointment on a board of directors to which former Social Democratic German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder belonged. Kneissl, who rejected early US reports of an imminent Russian invasion of Ukraine, ended up resigning from her position at the oil company in May of last year. Despite this, the life of the former minister remains linked to Russia, a country that has welcomed her after living in Lebanon and France after leaving Austria in 2020. She is still in charge of the GORKI center, whose acronym in Russian means Geopolitical Observatory for the Key Questions of Russia, created by the University of Saint Petersburg and recently could be seen at the Russia-Africa summit, in the former capital of the tsars.
“I’ve paid [alquilado] for another month. Then we’ll see. I don’t know anything about my future, nothing,” the former minister declared to the Vid sboku news portal, acknowledging that it has not been easy to move to Russia and that she is delighted with her new home. According to her, she affirmed at the time of leaving her country, she decided to make the decision after receiving threats due to her position. At 58, she admits that she is still looking for her way in her life, although she wouldn’t mind staying in Russia living in that summer dacha that she has found with the help of some friends. Last year, the Kremlin carried out a campaign to invite Western citizens to live in Russia. It highlighted the values of the country and the cost of living, without power cuts when putting on the heating.
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