In Bid for Foreign Exchange, Freedonia Welcomes Expelled Russian Diplomats

KNARGRZ, Freedonia.  This landlocked nation, the scene of constant ethnic and religious strife since its formation in 1933 as a result of the Zeppo-Trentino Pact, has always gone it alone among the community of nations.  “What care we for Upper Volta, much less Lower Volta?” says Armand de Zlotny, a professor of Freedonian Studies at Knargrz State University, a one-building “commuter” school where academics hold office hours in portable construction site toilets.  “Did they care about us before we were birthed in strife, like a forceps delivery?  I don’t think so.”

May: “We considered the death penalty, but decided Freedonia was worse.”

The country that Josef Stalin once derided as “not worth bombing” struck out on its own again yesterday, offering sanctuary to approximately 100 Russian diplomats expelled from more than twenty countries around the world in the wake of the alleged poisoning of a former spy in England.  “We have many empty rooms,” says Minister of Tourism Eleni Schweung of the Lake Glotski resort area, which on average is bathed in cloud cover 360 days a year, 361 in a leap year.  “American soccer moms continue to prefer sunshine for spring school vacation week for some reason, despite many functioning ice machines in our hotel halls.”

Freedonian welcoming committee:  “The flowers are also lunch, help yourself.”

Long-known as the “Doormat of Eastern Europe,” the people of the windswept steppes here have historically welcomed foreign invaders where other nations have built walls and taken defensive measures to preserve their national sovereignty.  “Invasions are good for business,” says Otto Ekliewicz, President of the Knargz Chamber of Commerce.  “Each expelled diplomat will get a ‘swag bag’ that includes a plastic rain hat, a key chain, and a child’s size shirt that says ‘My daddy had to go to Freedonia but I got this nifty item of underwear.’”

“While you are here, you can help with the rutabaga harvest.”

The diplomatic exiles are expected to right Freedonia’s balance of trade deficit, which currently stands at 3.74 zlotnys per resident thanks to an ill-timed decision by the Ministry of Agriculture to import 238,000 “Ant Farms” after the toy was banned in the southern United States.  “The children love them, the mothers not so much,” says Eleni Schweung.  “For some reason the red ants are very irritable.”