FREEFORUM

Since the roll call: Istanbul has more Iradis than you think. Students, drivers, two girls who do nails in Aksaray, a man who sells phone cases and swears he was a Labor deputy. We meet sometimes in a Kyrgyz café.

Every new arrival asks the same question in the first five minutes, so I will answer it here, once.

No. I have not seen Orozbekov. Nobody I know has seen Orozbekov. My cousin saw a man who LOOKED like Orozbekov at a ferry station in 2012, and the man was Georgian.

Of course you haven't seen him. They keep him in a villa with a view of the water and drive him around in a car with black windows. The Bill of Sale man lives better than any of us. Look at the BOSPHORUS. WAKE UP IRAD

Ak_Shumkar posted:

Look at the BOSPHORUS.

I look at it every day from the bus. It is not a clue. It is the sea.

Simit, a question from far away: is it safe for you there, being Iradi? Do people know what Irad is?

Safe, yes. Known, no. I say "Irad" and they say "Iraq?" I say "next to Kyrgyzstan" and they say "ah, Turkic brother!" and give me tea. Being erased has some advantages.

Late to this, but for the record: charged in absentia March 2008, high treason and abuse of office, Talas District Court. A request for his return was announced. Nothing since. A charge is not a conviction. I know nobody wants to hear that.

Nobody wants to hear that.

Update for the collectors. This week's sighting comes from a girl who works at a hotel near Taksim: "man with grey hair, Central Asian, very good suit, tipped in dollars."

This describes four hundred men in that hotel every day. Sighting not confirmed. Sightings are never confirmed.

Score: Rumours 31, Orozbekov 0.

A horse that ran away does not come back because you talk about it.

In the Chatkal we remember the pasture decree more than the Bill of Sale. He sold our grass before he tried to sell the rest. Whoever sees him, he can keep his villa and his water. Nobody up here wants him back. We want 2007 back, and nobody can give that.

The "sale" remarks have reached Istanbul. Every Turkish friend sends me the video with three crying emojis. And suddenly the Satuu Kagazy is all anybody in the café wants to talk about. Tonight one man stood up and said he would go and knock on Orozbekov's door. Nobody knows where the door is. He sat down.

In Bishkek also everybody talks about 2007 again. My government did not write that paper alone, I know. I was a student then. My part in it is nothing, but I am sorry anyway.

Rail, you are allowed to have tea with us. Simit, tell the café man to sit down and eat something.

FreeIrad's "Bill of Sale never died" article is going around the café. "Who protects a man who tried to sell a nation?" Good question. I have no answer, only data: in all these years none of us has seen him once. Make of that what you want.

Score: Rumours 58, Orozbekov 0.