from russia with love, babushka

Perusing today's newspaper headlines might bring all those sensitive types close to tears and incite political idealists to shake their heads despondently: "Africa Adds to Miserable Ranks of Child Workers"; "Violent Civil Unrest Tightens Hold on a Mexican City"; "Cruise and Paramount sever ties".

There is an article that might have gone undetected, had it not been for Shoehorn Aficiando Magazine or Shoesalespeople Gone Crazy Weekly, brought to you in the local Russian online newsmazine, MOSNEWS. COM. http://www.mosnews.com/news/2006/08/23/shoehorn.shtml

2 Egyptians Use Shoehorn to Dig Tunnel Under Russian Border

Two Egyptian citizens have managed to violate the Russian state border by digging a tunnel under the barbed wire fence with a simple shoehorn. After getting lost on the territory of Poland the Egyptians performed the trick for the second time and got back to Russia to face arrest. The Interfax news agency quoted the Russian Prosecutor General’s report as saying that the two men were aiming to get to Western Europe via Russia. They obtained a tourist visa and flew to Moscow from where they hitchhiked to the Polish border. Investigators have established that the Egyptians used a shoehorn to dig a tunnel under a barbed wire fence marking the border. However, the two men got lost on the Polish territory. When they faced another barbed wire fence they thought they already were on the German border. With the same shoehorn they dig another tunnel and crawled back to Russia. The violators were detained by border guards and sent to the Egyptian embassy in Moscow by train. They got off the train in the West Russia city of Smolensk, hitchhiked to the town of Sevsk on the border with Ukraine and were detained again while trying to violate the border. Now the Egyptians face trial in West Russia’s Bryansk Region.

Moral of the story: next time, mapquest your destination.