Kalistan

[Doc]

Crown Princess named Countess of Davon, Begins Crown Education
Her Highness secures funding for construction of Kaliburg Metro
Kaliburg Free City, Ananto
July 2, 5572


Crown Princess Carolina Ananto-Hulanevek has completed her formal education in Kaliburg

The Crown Princess, recently graduated from Kaliburg Polytechnic with a bachelors of science degree in Civil Engineering, spoke with The Republic to give an informal interview.

[The Republic's] M[ichael] A[rden]:  Thank you for the interview, Your Highness.

[Crown Princess] C[arolina] A[nanto-Hulanevek]:  It is my pleasure.  Welcome to Wilson House.

MA:  It is a beautiful palace, Your Grace.

CA:  I am so proud of it.  I feel such peace here.

MA:  So, you are done with college.  What's next for you?

CA:  Well, I have recently been named Countess of Davon, so my administrative duties begin now. Dulnerstaad, as a country, doesn't require much administration, but Davon on the other hand, will require some attention.  It is, I am told, an easy skill to pick up, but does require me to have some basic budgeting, adjudication skills, and planning and coordination skills, and these are things you can only acquire through practice.

MS:  Doesn't the County of Davon traditionally belong to the Empress?

CA:  Traditionally, yes, but there is no law that says the Empress cannot give it to whom she likes.  My mother, the Empress in this case, has decided to move the Imperial Seat back to Eveari, where she prefers to spend her time, and consequently, while Kalistan remains governed from Kaliburg, it is ruled from the County of Eveari.  This doesn't present any problems, and it gives me more of a free hand here in Davon.

MS:  What will you use that for?

CA:  Well, the Empress has okayed a project that will bring the Metro here to Kaliburg.  We will be meeting with the Kundrati Students who visited Kalistan last year, and moving forward with their plans.  It falls upon me to meet with them again, and start talking logistics.  The discussions will probably continue through the fall, and I may even have to visit Kundrati at some point.

MS:  Will you stay in Etxea?

CA:  We still have property there, for certain, and I maintain my dual citizenship in Kundrati for the time being, so it is likely that I will reopen Ananto House there in Etxea and will use that as a base of operations to meet with the Kundrati engineering students and planners.

MS:  Will Her Imperial Majesty fly with you?

CA:  The Empress has clearly stated that she will never return to Artania.  I imagine she will keep her word.

MS:  So, you are an engineer yourself, I understand.

CA:  I certainly am!  I am a civil engineer by trade!

MS:  What led Your Grace to civil engineering?

CA:  My father used to love fixing cars.  I would sit with him for hours as he tried to start this moco or that moco.  I'd watch how excited he got when he finally got one going.  I intended to learn how to build engines, specifically aircraft engines to try follow in his footsteps some way.  It was his passion.  But when I entered the service, and I said I wanted to learn engineering, they did all the aptitude tests on me, and everything, and found out that my real skills do not lie in torque coefficients and gear ratios, but in trigonometry.  I was instantly tracked into civil engineering and surveying.  And I, like so many millions of Kalistanis, discovered that the placement was correct in that I got to do something I really loved, and something I was really good at.  I was so happy that I told my mother my plans for when I was discharged.  You could tell she hoped I would start to work with her and she was disappointed at first, but came around and I think now she is glad that I will be working more closely with her and learning from her.

MS:  Will you work on the Metro?

CA:  I will oversee it, every aspect of it, from the funding, to the hiring, to the surveying, to acquisition all the way to tunnel building, trestle construction and track laying.  I believe the plan is for the Kundratis to come to Kaliburg to work as project foremen and women, directly under me, and they will be responsible for carrying out the program.  It will give me great experience, I think for overseeing similar large projects when I am Empress.

MS:  Does your mother intend to retire?

CA:  Her Imperial Majesty is no where close to retirement, she still has a lot of great years in her.

MS:  It was rumored that you recently met with several Institutionalist Deputies, including Sir Bertram Ames-Ananto, Dame Jacqueline DuMont, and Cliff Galtung of Vrassa.  Can you talk at all about this?

CA:  What have you heard?  How about we play it like that and I can tell you if you are correct?

MS:  Well, I heard that the people you met with are among the more nationalistic members of the Institutional Party.

CA:  What else?

MS:  That they represent a nascent Nationalist Bloc.

CA:  On your question, yes, I met with several deputies from the National Assembly.  We had lunch together at the Bayside Bistro in Imperial Hill.  Is this news?  Now that I am done with school, my mother expects me to begin meeting with Sir Bertram on a regular basis.

MS:  But these deputies are leaders of the Nationalist bloc of the Institutionalist Party.

CA:  I asked them to attend a meeting between myself and Sir Bertram, to get legislative insight on how a reform of the ISBI could be carried out.  There are a number of lapses that I was personally made aware of in the Bureau's local intelligence gathering operation, and we were discussing how to keep those lapses from duplicating around the Bureau.

MS:  So you can't say anything about the fact that they are a slowly coalescing Nationalist Bloc?

CA:  You would have to ask Sir Bertram why he consorts with Nationalists.  I am sure I do not know what you are talking about.

MS:  Very well.  These next few years will be very difficult for you.  Besides the Metro, what is your number one priority for Kalistan?

CA:  I seek to improve the housing stock on the Mainland.  Have you seen the blight in some of our cities?  It is horrific that we ask people to live like this.  I want to strengthen my mother's policy toward fighting poverty, and figure this is a good step in that direction.  I would also like to ensure that poor people who get into our houses and apartments do not lose them, so I have asked my mother to consider zero rents on public housing.  I'd like to see if that makes a difference in the lives of Kalistan's poor.

MS:  When you are Empress do you plan on trying to repair relations with Luthori?  It is doubtful that Her Imperial Majesty will seek to repair relations.

CA:  Don't count my mother out yet.  She is far shrewder that the Press and other nations give her credit for being.  Just because we have had to resort to this Embargo against Luthorian goods and have sought to encourage the nations that Luthori illegitimately holds in its claws, doesn't mean that a new solution might not present itself to us.  Sooner, hopefully than later.

MS:  But supposing that doesn't happen, will you work in your turn, to repair relations with Luthori?

CA:  There is nothing to repair.  We do not have relations with Luthori.  They have been completely broken by Lutori's outrageous colonialism in Seleya, when there is an entire world who would gladly roll over for their chance to be tied, like a barnacle to Luthori.  Would I reach out to Luthori?  Not while they refuse to even acknowledge Kalistan's legitimate interests in the Crown Lands.  I would say their ruler should go jump in a lake, if I wasn't at all concerned for the well being of the fish, leeches and algae plumes in that lake.

MS:  So does this mean Kalistan and Luthori will remain hostile?

CA:  Look, Mr Arden, you walked right through that door when you came in to my home.  It was just that easy.  They could come to Kaliburg and walk right into that door and sit down and talk with me.  But where are they?

MS:  I would imagine you would have them arrested before they got word 1 out, Your Grace.  With all respect to you.

CA:  I would indeed.  But if Luthori decides to treat with us, may I direct them to the Imperial Seat.  I am not going to go out of my way to beg for an audience before a person who is my lesser, nor will I advise my mother to ever do so.  She is the Black Empress.  She has no peer.

MS:  Would you, when you became Empress, would you lift prohibition on diplomacy with any Artanian States?

CA:  That prohibition is my Mother's, not mine.  She has her reasons and those reasons are, to my knowledge, good ones.  But we need to tread carefully here in Seleya.  We can talk to Artania when possible, but we have to be careful not to accidentally let a snake into our own house.  Far too many other regimes in the lesser sophisticated parts of Seleya, like Valruzia, have not been so cautious, to all of our perils.

MS:  One final question, Your Grace.  When you govern someday, which member of the Ananto Dynasty will you most seek to emulate?

CA:  My own Mother.

MS:  That's it?

CA:  Yes, she so strong, and she is uncompromising.  The Anantos have had beautiful people, intelligent people, and then people who were more ordinary than Imperial.  I think my father was one of these people:  He would have been content to stay in his garage, working on his cars.  But my Mother is every bit as regal as the Nicolettes, or Emperor William, or even Empreor Frederick, the first Ananto Emperor.  So I would like to be like her.

MS:  Interesting Choice your Grace.

CA:  I think I will have more of a sense of humor, actually.

MS:  Thank you for speaking with us today.

CA:  Thank you for taking the time to talk with me.