Ever since studying in Russia as a college student, I had been in a long-distance, one-sided love affair with Chechnya's remarkable history, culture and rugged natural beauty.

The only love affair I have ever had was with music.

Cherish sunsets, wild creatures and wild places. Have a love affair with the wonder and beauty of the earth.

My first real awareness of Chechnya came when I was a college student studying in Russia. I arrived in St. Petersburg about two months after Anna Politkovskaya was assassinated for her reports on Chechnya. I lived with an elderly woman and her grown children in an apartment that was not too far from the neighborhood military cadet school.

I didn't know a single person who had ever been there. I wasn't even sure how to spell Chechnya.

Once I had a love affair with myself.
I was left heart broken.