Initial impressions were that The Growth and Opportunities Conference was going to be a great success. All of the stalls and stages were arranged perfectly within the Moscow Exhibition Centre and all of the high profile dignitaries that Sonya had invited were in attendance, there were even some that Sonya hadn't invited, most notably David Huntsman, the CEO of the world's largest asset management firm. Sonya had always admired his success in business and went over to introduce herself as soon as she noticed him.

"Ms Kruschenko, you've saved me the trouble of hunting all over the exhibition centre for you."

"If you wanted to speak with me you wouldn't have had to go to such lengths Mr. Huntsman."

"Is that because with that big lion by your side you're very easy to find?"

"Anybody that you wish to speak with here will immediately make time for you, everybody understands how important you are."

"So my reputation precedes me then, that's always nice to hear, hopefully that makes it easier for me to do what I came here to do."

"What did you come here for Mr. Huntsman? We organized this conference to give entrepreneurs in developing economies an opportunity to network and showcase their ideas, this conference is nowhere near important enough for somebody like you to be attending."

"As it just so happens my company has been meaning for a while to diversify our balance sheet by increasing our foreign investments, so that makes this conference the perfect place for me to visit."

"Oh, well, in that case, I hope you're able to find the opportunities that you're looking for. It's too bad that we didn't have advance notice of your intention to attend, we would have loved to have you participate in some of the round table discussions that we're going to be having here at the conference."

"It's not too late for that, add an extra seat and I'd be happy to participate in the discussions here."

"Excellent, I'll go and make the arrangements now."

Sonya left excitedly with the lion following closely behind her. David hadn't been sent here by the raven, in fact the raven knew nothing about him making this trip. He had come here to get a look at Sonya and Fyodor for himself, and already what he had seen gave him cause for concern. Judging from her demeanor Sonya didn't seem like the type that would be open to joining them, and the lion that she had with her wasn't a unique color like his pig, it was a perfectly normal lion with tan fur. Either the Raven didn't have its facts straight about the lion or there was something very out of the ordinary going on here.

David circulated the exhibition centre and mingled. There were some people there that he knew, like the Nigerian oil minister who he had a long conversation with, but on the whole Sonya was right, there was nothing at the conference that interested him, all that was left for him to do there was to get a look at Fyodor Milichenko in action during the political round table that he was going to be participating in and to decide whether, based on what he had seen here at the conference, the raven was on the right track. Dr Milichenko was scheduled to speak as part of a discussion billed as 'The future of the East in an increasingly westernized world'. As the chief proponent of the VOTE REJOIN campaign in Ukraine, Dr Milichenko was meant to be the star of the panel, where he was to be joined by the Estonian finance minister, a member of the trade delegation that Ukraine had sent, a low level EU minister from France and the last minute addition of David Huntsman. Having known beforehand about three of the roundtable participants Fyodor had researched them and familiarized himself with their favorite talking points, equipping himself with everything that he needed to turn this roundtable discussions into one of his famous slaying sessions. He knew nothing about David Huntsman but he couldn't imagine a banker being more well versed in debate than an esteemed academic such as himself. At the outset of the discussion each panelist was given the chance by the moderator to make an opening statement. David Huntsman was excused from making an opening statement as he had only been added as a member of the discussion minutes earlier. The three panelists that Fyodor had done his homework on all gave opening statements calling for greater unity, openness and cooperation. Fyodor came out of the gate strong, arguing that all of this talk of unity and openness and cooperation was nothing but a smokescreen for opening the door for Western consumerism and greed to corrupt them in the East just like it had corrupted the West, that it wasn't possible to achieve unity and cooperation through capitalism because capitalism forced everybody to prioritize themselves first, whereas communism was born of the ideal of cooperation for the benefit of the collective, making it the better solution for achieving peace and prosperity by fostering values of hard work, sacrifice and generosity. His opening statement was impressively delivered and drew much louder applause from the audience than the others' opening statements had. David Huntsman wasn't impressed by what Fyodor Milichenko had to say and, as a lifelong free marketeer who had lived through the disastrous decades of communism it rankled him deeply to hear someone extolling communism as the pathway to the promised land and it rankled him even more deeply to see the audience taking to him so strongly. David felt himself being overcome by an urge to crush this man and were it not for the fact that he was a fellow disciple of the raven he would have. It was often the case with the raven's disciples that they didn't see eye to eye--Jim Balmer and John Lafferty were the best example of this--but so long as they remembered that they were all working toward a common goal they were able to co-exist in relative harmony and there was no reason it couldn't be the same with them, David told himself.