#yaelong

The Glorious Republic of Grigovia is a landlocked nation in Central Asia. Its neighbors are Iran, Turkmenistan, and Afghanistan. Roughly 200 kilometers north-to-south and 160 kilometers east-to-west, the first known reference to Grigovia is in 'The Histories,' by Herodotus. Marshy bogs lie to the south and west of its capital, Grig (population 120 thousand), which sits on an elevated plateau in the southern foothills of the Yiptlong Massif mountain chain. The Yiptlong has significant deposits of iron-ore, coal, and sulfur that have been mined for centuries. West of the capital is Pyltagrad, a culture-rich city of roughly 50 thousand inhabitants. East of the capital is the Great Dune Sea, an arid former lake bed; Gar Nuuzsch, population 60 thousand, is the primary city in the east – its patroness is Nuuzstathena, goddess of war, technology, and guile. Other deities include Ganestrix (an ant-headed goddess of travel and good fortune) and Oumbast (goddess of cats as well as gracefulness in the face of overwhelming odds). The main city in the south is Pryaghdoyest, an export-oriented manufacturing hub, population 75 thousand; north-east of Pryaghdoyest is an arid plateau with significant deposits of rare-earth metals. Tens of thousands of Yaelong tribes-people call this nation home, living scattered about, primarily in the Yiptlong Massif. Known for their fierce independence and fervent defense of the high plateaus, the Yaelong were feared by Alexander the Great as well as subsequent invaders. A parliamentary democracy with strong socialist traditions, the Grigovian royal family abdicated in the early 20th Century in a sign of respect for the nation's growing anarcho-communist movement, which is still strong today. Group workshops and livings spaces known as 'su'uvyiets' provide training and support in a wide variety of crafts, trades, and skills, each 'su'uvyiets' operating under the loose umbrella of its mother organization. Never in its history has Grigovia been fully conquered (it was the only fully autonomous republic of the USSR), largely because of an extensive tunnel system that runs under almost all of Grig. Most of these tunnels are well maintained and still in use as winter shelters, manufacturing areas, and weapons stores. Robotic and autonomous buses serve outlying villages, and the capital features a dense network of public transportation systems – trams, trolleys, and 4 subway lines. Renewable energy powers roughly 60% of electricity needs, and plans call for the nation to receive nearly all of its power from wind and geothermal sources by the year 2030. Modern Grigovia traces its founding to the semi-mythical Krukuv, a former monk who settled there sometime during the 9th Century C.E., digging a series of deep and sturdy tunnels (for to store his beloved tubers) and taking a Yaelong bride as his mate. Popular recreational activities include hiking, cycling, folk festivals, story-telling competitions, martial arts training, and winter sports; camping is permitted on all public and many private lands. Famous for its tendency to warmly receive immigrants fleeing war and economic turmoil, the population of Grigovia has increased by nearly 9 percent in recent years due to the ongoing conflict in Syria. With strong banking houses, a robust services sector, and a variety of cottage industries that make everything from coo-coo clocks to firearms, the Grigovian economy has proven all but immune to international market volatility, being able to quickly retool according to shifting demand while keeping unemployment at well under 3% for a population nearing 400 thousand souls. In the decades since the Rus and Ynki invasions of Afghanistan, trade with Iran has increased tenfold, primarily heavy machinery from Grigovia's well-developed manufacturing sector. An outspoken critic of Ynki involvement in regional conflicts across the globe, the Glorious Republic of Grigovia has repeatedly demanded that the various peoples of the world enjoy the right to determine their own path in life for themselves, free of foreign intervention. For more on all things Grigovia, please visit www.welcomehome.ggv.

The Yaelong are shrewd clever tricksy and wise yet speak always truthfully and without lies. They train their kids to be the bearers of truth to employ no falsehood the ego to soothe. With bones hard from labor and stout bellies full they suffer not lightly the presence of fools yet sit there unmoving on high plateaus steep for days upon end without squirming or sleep. With hand rock and blade-edge they've been known to kill yet avoid their blood-lust and passions to fill yet act with due patience 'gainst friend and 'gainst foe yet learn to unlearn all the learning they know. We who live among them do not fear their rage for they've stood unmoving for many an age and have well defended Grigovian lands with landslide or cunning or sticks in their hands. To live up among them is a noble feat; most modern men know only clumsy deceit; most modern men give up when going gets tough; most modern men rely on gadgets and stuff. So spend you a weekend or a longer spell where Yaelong and sundry do gather and dwell to learn with them wisdom and how to let go of all that they never knew you didn't know.

There is an old saying among Yaelong tribes: do business with he who pays the biggest bribes then turn ‘round and prop up those whose need is vast for then you’ll be wealthy in honor and cash. In this way they’ve helped keep our nation this free, by using their caches of quick blood-money to nurture a friendship and love for the poor who will then too gladly repay them, in scores. The persons with least to lose have most to gain; their methods are simple and honest and plain; they make due with little and pick up used goods that the more affluent just toss into woods. When items that still have some utility are simply discarded sans ceremony their worth is then wasted unless they are saved by persons called cur wanker peon or slave. These then use such items in ways other won’t, and see in them value that rich persons don’t, and raid them for pieces to fix other things or strip them of parts to mend weld repair dings. This raw ingenuity is an ideal that’s shared by the Yaelong for they also feel that in modern cultures and ones long ago when people got lazy they suffered the blows of foreign invaders who simply walked in to harass and murder neighbor sibling kin. The Yaelong they sleep often under the stars and avoid the confines of brothels and bars and wander the hillsides as if homeless too with burrs in their britches and stones in their shoes. In this way they scout monitor check the routes that could be exploited by bloodthirsty brutes who’d come in and take from the sons of this land the daughters and riches now Grigovian. To rid oneself of lust temptation and greed; to practice obeisance to the common need; to craft in the head-space a temple to Right – these factors will help us to maintain the lights that shine from within the torch of Liberty and stand as a beacon for mankind to see.

It lived many millions of winters ago and has lain a few years just under the snow. It was first discovered by two Yaelong boys who kept mostly quiet despite profound joy; they'd spoken but briefly with a village elder who had built around it a permanent shelter. Named archipedoptosaur ulricherii, this small, flightless dinosaur lived below trees and built complex shelters with only its feet, Ulrich was the first boy its fragments to meet. What was once obscured has become a sensation, it's bringing much glory to our land-locked nation, now experts and researchers flock here in droves, enjoying Grigovia's vast treasure troves. We've fossils and artwork, food, dance, and song too, we are never bored as there's so much to do, if upon this reading your interest is piqued then come to Grigovia, stay here for weeks.

Erya Rovend traveled to New York City (NYC) recently as the spokesperson of the Grigovian delegation to the United Nations. Chosen for the role at Grigovia's recent Summit to Secure our Sovereignty, the young lady – an avid equestrian and spiritual leader of the Farflung Free Nations, a Yaelong tribe – asked us to condense her interview into the following piece.

In many ways, the American metropolis known as the Big Apple rivals fair, cosmopolitan Grig. Both are world cities with extensive public transportation networks and lively, vibrant night-life; both are regional powerhouses to which the young and the ambitious flock, places where dreams are made real as often as they are crushed and the opportunity for rebirth and renewal is always there, waiting. Grig's Ring of Woods cannot compete with the sheer size of Central Park; however, its green-spaces, while generally smaller, are spaced about town more evenly while offering more amenities, such as clean public bathrooms, high-speed Wi-Fi, and performance spaces within which artists and members of the public can perform, share, and congregate, year-round. In New York City, prostitutes and drug dealers have been forced to retreat behind closed doors and to execute their trades away from the public eye; in Grig, though, as in most other Grigovian cities, these specialty services have their own districts and unions, colors and routines, circumstances which conspire to improve the health and wellbeing of such citizens as are interested in buying clean sex or unadulterated cocaine. (A glaring exception is alcohol. Grigovians, who are intelligent enough to apply the lessons learned through scientific inquiry, classify booze as a hard drug; it is sold only to persons of legal age; those who abuse it are treated similarly to the poor, lost souls who have succumbed to meth-amphetamine or heroin.)

Another differences between these two cities is the number of police officers roaming NYC. Whereas in Grig the streets are kept safe by the united vigilance and mutual respect of its inhabitants, and people go about their business without fear of institutionalized reproach or admonition, in New York one is constantly watching one's back to make sure there are no cops snooping, or spying. The police state that exists within Gotham closely resembles that of Nazi Germany during the 1930s and -40s, with the modern addition of cameras and other surveillance technology, facial-recognition-software, and crime-prediction algorithms. To top things off, legions of homeless children populate this city's dirty and forgotten places, where they are exposed to violence, hatred, and filth, while in Grig, these too-easily disenfranchised individuals have access to resources and programs which provide them with the tools they need to become productive and happy members of society, once more. That this American metropolis allows its young people to huddle and shiver, ignored and unwanted, in the shadows of glass-and-steel temples that reach into the skies in honor of greed says a lot about its dark and twisted soul.

In all, according to Erya, New York is a nice city to visit, so long as one has money to burn. (Miss Rovend spent less than a quarter of the funds allotted her for her stay by the Glorious Republic of Grigovia, preferring modest quarters to presidential suites, simple meals to lavish feasts, and the freedom of walking to the mobile prison of a taxi-cab.) She invites every American to come see Grig, where they might learn a lesson or two about the benefits of mutual prosperity through individual modesty and communal sacrifice.

(This excerpt is said to belong to a lost passage of Herodotus's book, the Histories, regarding the Yaelong tribes that reside in the country known today as Grigovia.)

And then, after the emissaries from the East had finally left, and while our party was preparing to make camp for the night, men dressed in strange garb – brightly mottled animal skins – stole silently from the brush, as if they were spirits. We had chosen the grounds to rest because they neighbored cool, flowing springs, and because they sat in a small valley that our native guide said would shelter us from the heavy, dangerous winds for which the region is known. As soon as these men appeared, our guides' women, who otherwise never spoke, wailed in unison, and, cowering fearfully, begged us not to touch them, lest, the women claimed, we become tainted by their strange and powerful sorcery. After much difficulty in finding a common tongue, we, however, were able to speak with these spirit-like men, who called themselves Jailun; they were interlopers just as we were, and had no plans to kill us for trespassing on sacred ground, as we had initially feared. They told us of their home in a mountainous region with many valleys that lay north of the lands of the Eastern emperor, whom they knew well, as he had tried, they said, repeatedly yet each time unsuccessfully, to subjugate them – first by warfare, then by bribery, and then by arranged marriages. Each time they had denied the emperor his advances, and stayed always free of the yoke of foreign rule – by warring with him, by refusing his gifts, and by putting to death the women he sent. While we were breaking bread with these quiet men who were all armed with long, slender poles-axes and curious weighted throwing ropes, a male child – the son of a lesser guide – was carried off in the talons of a mighty eagle, and never seen again. All who had witnessed the event agreed that it was a bad omen, and a warning not to walk with a loping gait similar to that of the abducted child.

(This text was smuggled out of Grig at terrible cost and despite a U.S.-led embargo against this fine, upstanding nation. Please, enjoy.)

Come, friends, please come visit Grig, capital of Grigovia. Find love along the tree-lined banks of the serpentine Yalung River; learn to make the spice using fresh czabtyip and cool, clean water; infiltrate a band of roving Yaelong raiders and attempt to puzzle out their speech (if you succeed in deciphering any portion of their language, please share your learnings with MIIG, the Ministry of Internal Information Gathering); hunt the elusive yip-yipt-yend in the verdant Lower Yalung Valley; search for the source of the mighty Yalung River (again, if you succeed in finding the source, please share your learnings with MIIG).

All these things and more you can do in the not-too-big, not-too-small Glorious Republic of Grigovia. We urge you to act before the American capitalist swine invade us to steal our bauxite, and our other rare earth metals. (MIIG puts the likelihood of invasion at nineteen to one in favor of our swift and crushing military defeat.) Spend your hard-earned coins at any of our four modern casinos (all within a two hour train ride from Grig); hit the slopes with ski-mounted girl-bunnies at Yiptlong Mountain Resort, a three-star hotel and ascending-pulley located high up in the world-famous Yiptlong massif. Act now, before our landscape is littered with unexploded ordinance; visit now, before our roads, our fields, our villages, and our cities are sewn with land-mines and bombed into ruin; share, now, in our long and proud traditions before they are pulverized by the jack-boot of forced democratization.

Please come soon, because we need tourist money to improve our antiquated ground defenses (which, according to MIIG, have been rusting away in good order since we declared independence from the loathsome Soviet overlords back in 1992). Times have been tough – our terrain is too mountainous for Yankee to use as a re-fueling stop on his way to carpet-bomb Iraq and Afghanistan, and therefore we were not invited into his League of Righteous 9-11 Avengers (the few stinking capitalists we caught poking around amongst the Yaelong are locked safely away in Hramm prison, a lovely building located near the pulsing heart of cosmopolitan Grig, from which they cannot be sprung, not even by the Team of 6 Sea-Lions). Please come – for the romance, for the powdered slopes, for the chase, or just to watch the impending invasion unfold. There is little time to lose, and much joy to gain by visiting the lush hidden valleys and pristine highland plains of Grigovia, today.