Russian Defector Likes Western Slope

(Montrose — Streets of Minsk — February    2016)

Kaslov Yowski has been in town for just a week but already he has learned to speak passable English, found employment and opened a bank account. The “defector”, a former opposition leader in Russia, saw the writing on the wall after the Ukraine fiasco and the Crimean occupation (?)

After threatening to release photos of several KGB agents with livestock, Yowski flew took advantage of the impending confusion and flew to Kiev where he was welcomed as a hero. Then, wearing nothing but his winter fatigues, he stowed away in a Swedish freighter carrying Volvos to the United States.

“He wanted to get as far away from Russia as possible,” said sponsor Marlena Ethabarron. “He gets along well with other people.”

Etchabarron, a retired sloth wrestler from Miami, said Yowski had hoped to meet real cowboys like Ronald Reagan and Roy Rogers when he arrived in America.

“He didn’t know they were both departed,” smiled Etchabaron. “News travels slow in some circles.”

That’s when he met Etchabarron who filed the necessary paperwork to keep Yowski in the country until his refugee status could be further determined. The two traveled across the country landing in Durango where the couple managed a convenience store and worked as bouncers at a host of local bars.

In the daytime Kaslov sat on Main Avenue clutching his AK-47 which led to confrontations with police and an invitation to leave town. The couple headed north to the Badlands of San Juan County, where, as Yowski had heard, “anything goes.”

After a few nights in Silverton they headed to Montrose for warmed weather. Most residents say he is welcome there. His optimism seems, along with the latest flu virus, to be quite contagious.

“It is common practice for us to conduct an interview directly with people like Yowski,” said an under-editor at The Horseshoe, “but our only staff member fluent in Russian was fired during the McCarthy Hearings in 1951.”

– Ivan Sonovavitch Jr.