Slovenian foreign minister Dimitrij Rupel speaks about his joy in Slovenia's success, his regret that the Balkans are still struggling, and his upcoming visit to Moscow.

""Hypocrisy,"" according to La Rochefoucauld’s maxim, ""is the tribute that vice pays to virtue."" Every nation has its own kind of virtue, and its own style in hypocrisy.

I never felt completely at ease in our second Moscow apartment. Perhaps it all began when we were told we could not use our German electric stove because ""the system couldn't handle it."" From that moment on, I was convinced we were living in a firetrap; I would nervously feel the walls to check for overheating wires and lie awake at night wondering whether or not I'd unplugged dangerous appliances. Early one summer evening, a few months after we'd moved in, my worst fears were realized: I smelled smoke! I ran about nervously, sniffing from room to room, convinced that at any moment a wall would burst into flame. Unable to locate the source of the smell, my panic increased until my husband — ever calm and rational — intervened: wasn't it more of a charcoal grill kind of smell? I tentatively placed a foot out on our balcony — collapsing balconies are my other great apartment phobia — and peeked over the railing.

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Slovenian foreign minister Dimitrij Rupel speaks about his joy in Slovenia's success, his regret that the Balkans are still struggling, and his upcoming visit to Moscow.

""Hypocrisy,"" according to La Rochefoucauld’s maxim, ""is the tribute that vice pays to virtue."" Every nation has its own kind of virtue, and its own style in hypocrisy.