At Joanie’s invitation, we attended a lecture that was part of the Saint Louis Speaker Series last night. Normally, these talks are held at Powell Hall in the city, but that venue is currently undergoing renovation. Instead, we went way out to Chesterfield, to a new concert hall called the Factory. I had no idea that this place existed. Rising out of the mud of the flood plain at Boone’s Crossing, it is the anchor for a new to me shopping mall called the District. Through Joanie’s connections, we were also invited to attend a soiree before the lecture that featured food and drinks. The night’s speaker, former Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch also dropped by for photos.

The Speaker Series format begin with a talk, followed by some Q&A. The former ambassador to Ukraine’s talk was all about the current war in Ukraine. She strongly advocated continued support for Ukraine and the swift passage of the supplemental funding bill. Her speech was moving and at times I felt myself becoming verklempt, but it was the Q&A session that I found most interesting.

During which, she sat side-by-side with the moderator who asked her questions from the audience. Most of the questions asked were about her. The daughter of Russian refugees, she expressed her gratitude to America, for taking her family in. Her first appointment in the foreign service was to the garden spot of Mogadishu. Later, in 1993, she was stationed in Moscow, when Yeltsin fired tanks at the Russian parliament building. A security detail in an armored limo fetched her back to the embassy but had neglected to bring any Kevlar for her. They hovered over her, while she lay on the car’s floor.

She met newly elected President Zelensky while ambassador to Ukraine, who described himself first as a businessman, but not as a politician or a comedian. She gave her side of the story about the Giuliani run smear campaign that led to that “perfect” phone call and the subsequent impeachment trial. When asked to name her favorite Secretary of State, she said, “Nope, not going there.”

Marie Yovanovitch is a much smaller woman than I had expected. She wore glitter in her now all-white hair. She plugged her book, Lessons from the Edge: A Memoir and she wore one blue and one yellow sock. She put on an excellent show. Afterwards, we drove home in a pouring rain, which has turned to fog.