Keremova and Lodja

[Kemerovo]

Dear Queen Natalya

The people of Kemerovo have a great desire to build friendships with fellow Rus speaking nations across the globe. We are excited to ask permission to visit Lodja and conduct diplomacy with our distant Rus cousins. I would be grateful if you would allow us to visit to discuss trade, cultural and co-operative measures.

I will eagerly await you response and hope to meet you soon.

With deepest respect

Ataman Tymofiy Chepiga   

[Libby]

To The Honourable Ataman Tymofiy Chepiga   

I am excited to have received your request and delighted to extend a formal invitation to Lodja. It is my hope that we can conduct talks in a spirt of friendship and kinship that allow us to build upon our old ancestorial connections.

If it is acceptable I would like the visit to take place in the city of Ruboz on the island of Grand Alucard. This is a region I have not visited myself in a long time and as I wish to tour the Queendom more it would be helpful for me to be seen as utilising the other important administrative centres of the nation other than Gaia. If this is still of interest then I look forward to meeting you shortly.

Sessifets Blessings
Queen Natalya of Lodja

[Libby]

It was hard to recall when the last time the people of Grand Alucard had been blessed with an official state visit. The island was more likely these days to be the venue for wealthy Lodjains to park their yachts or own some kind of beachfront villa but the city of Ruboz had still managed to spruce itself up with a bit of bunting, banners welcoming the Queen and the fresh smell of paint everywhere. The Queen and her vast entourage had arrived the night before and in true Lodjain fashion hosted a lavish ball attended by the islands great and good. The Mayor had taken great delight, despite being in his sixties, at strutting his stuff on the dance floor with the Queen.

Today though the streets had a mixture of media and well wishes as the Queen made her way to the airport. It was the first time Natalya had donned the blue and gold dress that was now expected of the Queen. The style and design may change but the colours never did, a pale blue with gold thread designs, todays of what appeared to be flames lapping at the bottom of the long flowing dress. It was odd despite sharing a language and some cultural traditions that the two nations had become so far apart. From what she understood Keremova was rather conservative while anyone having amassed any time in Lodja would know that was far from the case. Natalya today was joined by the Lord of the Conclave, Lubos Kubik, at the airport. Behind them around twenty others waited, various members of the Conclave and the Royal Court.
Natalya though had to wait for one of her Ladies in Waiting to approach Ataman Tymofiy Chepiga after he had landed. "Your Excellency, it is my honour to introduce you to Her Divine Majesty, Queen Natalya the Guardian of Sessifet." and with that the introductions had been made and Natalya greeted the Ataman.

"I hope you had a pleasant flight. You'll forgive me but I've never meet someone with the title Ataman, how exactly should I address you?"

[Kemerovo]

Tymofiy had read that the Lodjains had some very unique ideas about their Queen and that he would have to just go with the flow so to speak. "Thank you for agreeing to meet us Your Majesty" he began. "Now as for my own title it is an old historic one. In the past each Cossack group would have their own military leaders and from time to time they would come together as a mighty host. When that happened they would elect an Ataman. Now depending who you believe the word itself means either "head-man" or "father of horseman" either would be a good term for a Keremovan. Thankfully though I am not expected in this day and age to directly lead the military but its just a traditional title. Now in terms of how to address me back home people use our names, so please call me Tymofiy." he smiled and began to feel more relaxed. "I suspect though we will have many cultural matters to catch up on, despite us sharing some common distant ancestor our nations have took very much different paths."

[Libby]

OOC - Apologise, works kept me busy

The two leaders entered a waiting black car. It had a row of two seats facing backwards on which two of the Queen's Ladies in Waiting sat silently as the Queen and Ataman sat in the direction of travel, a small console in the seats between them containing pre-poured glasses of red wine. As the car began the journey to the coastal cliff top mini Palace that the royals had commandeered for their visit and that of the Atamen. The Queen had enjoyed chatting with Tymofiy as they travelled and despite preferring other beverages rather liked the wine.

The house itself was not anything overly fancy. It was a white wooden building sprawling between shady woodland. It was not the most glamorous of residencies but it was a nice place to spend a few days and above all else easy to secure for her staff which following the recent turmoil the nation had experienced was vital. The large open plan lounge had been set aside for their meeting. It was a large comfortable room with two large fabric sofas sat looking out into the garden. The whole wall was in fact a sliding door that in the beautiful summer days could be removed bringing the inside to the out in a sense. The Queen took one of the seats while her two Ladies in Waiting found arm chairs where they each took a seat and with Jasmina beginning to sketch on a pad she'd put there earlier and Tonya busily writing letters the two were still available to help the Queen if required.

Natalya waited for Tymofiy to get settled and then began, "I have to say I am surprised that while we share common ancestary, our languages while not exactly the same are close enough we can chat without a translator and that our ethnicities are so close yet in every other way I can think of we are so different. Our faiths, our approaches to much of life and even our forms of government. I hope however that these differences are not barriers to us being friends, I suspect many could say we're even family. We sit on different continents but I hope we can find ways of bridging that difference. You spoke in your letter of finding ways to discuss trade, culture and other forms of co-operation. I assume then that you have some ideas already in mind? Perhaps we should start by sharing them?"