Intrigue on the Slopes of Bardonecchia

Illustration by Sean Donahue.

When one’s boss says, “We’re goin’ to Italy in January,” one is not in a position to disagree. There is Italy: beautiful. There is the gentle coercion: “We’re goin’.” There are the professional considerations: one’s boss. And there is the mysterious magnetism of the occasion itself: Some sort of conference? For international journalists? And we’ll be skiing the whole time?

“It’ll be a team-building thing,” the boss told Our Journalist over the phone. Something more was said about “networking with the foreign press” and “footing the bill for our airfare,” and Our Journalist soon found himself committed to attending the Ski Club of International Journalists’ seventieth annual meeting.

The boss’s name is Ryan, and he has a way of making things happen. “Inviting Chandler to Italy, so it’ll be the four of us,” he texted a few days later. The fourth person is Valen. They are all young American journalists, and they work for the same magazine. Ryan is the managing editor, Valen and Chandler are contributing writers, and Our Journalist is a modest copy editor. He has gently placed commas into Valen’s and Chandler’s articles.

“Families That Ski Together, Stay Together,” reports the website All Mountain Mamas. Psychology Today declares that “real rewards come when we leave the bunny slopes, both on skis and in life.” Time magazine calls skiing “a Ridiculously Good Workout.” This trip was shaping up to be a real professional and personal boon.

The Ski Club of International Journalists is as real as you or me. It exists not only in the fantasies of frustrated Swiss radio hosts and overworked Kazakhstani investigative reporters but in the Nock Mountains of Austria, the Karawanks of Slovenia, the Mangfall Alps of Germany, and other magnificent alpine ranges, where for seventy winters journalists from all over the world have gathered to ski and drink and bask in conviviality.

As do NATO and the International Olympic Committee, the Ski Club of International Journalists (SCIJ) has as its official languages English and French. As with Aspirin and deconstruction, a Frenchman may be held responsible for this peculiar invention. It was 1955, a tense year. It was the year of the Bern incident, in which a mustachioed Transylvanian sculptor attacked the Romanian embassy in Switzerland. It was the year of the Geneva Summit, in which top leaders from the USSR, the USA, Britain, and France convened in an attempt to soften the international tensions of the Cold War. The year of the Warsaw Pact, in which the Soviet Union and seven Eastern Bloc countries pledged mutual defense. And the year that Gilles de La Rocque, playing his own humble ambassadorial role, convened the first meeting of SCIJ.

Gilles de La Rocque was a journalist of aristocratic origins. He liked to hike and ski. He has been described as romantic. His forehead was high, his nose broad, and his frame in photographs looks slight but sinewy. He sometimes wore a cravat. He fought against the Germans. And after World War II ended, he began working for a daily newspaper in Paris. But his ambitions exceeded the press box: he had a talent for diplomacy, and a disdain for the Iron Curtain dividing Western and Eastern Europe, and these traits collided to create an idea.

“It’s some kind of Boy Scout idea,” La Rocque would say two decades after SCIJ’s founding. The idea was to get journalists from both sides of the Iron Curtain together and put them on skis: Yugoslavs and Swedes, Bulgarians and Brits, all gliding down the same white hill, bridging their countries’ ideological rifts, chipping away at that East-West barrier …

“Mountains bring people together,” La Rocque believed. And they did. From 1955 on, all around Europe the journalists went, to the resorts of Méribel and Zakopane and Bayrischzell and Bad Gastein, talking and skiing under the auspices of SCIJ. Club membership was not individual but, like an intergovernmental organization, a matter of nation-states. Each “Member Nation” would get one captain and one vote in the General Assembly (GA), where club matters would be decided. SCIJ would also be overseen by a kind of executive branch: an International Committee (IC) comprised of a club president and a secretary-general. SCIJ rules on term limits have changed over time, but IC members are currently allowed to serve two three-year terms.

The first SCIJ meeting included eight Member Nations, or national teams: Austria, Belgium, France, Italy, Luxembourg, Switzerland, West Germany, and Yugoslavia. Soon enough, Hungary, Bulgaria, and the Czech Republic joined, along with the Brits and Americans. Russia was added in 1960, four years after Team USA. Russia did not always behave. In 1977, its SCIJ team was led by Kremlin officials. The Kremlin’s skiers reportedly spied on their peers.

Nonetheless, SCIJ prospered and grew, during and after the Cold War. It welcomed more nations into its arms. Individual membership reached a thousand. Members roamed the earth, skiing in Québec and Utah and Kazakhstan.

Today, SCIJ has demographics in some ways akin to Italy’s: the old far outnumber the young. In 2024, the average SCIJ member was fifty-five years old. When Our Journalist and his colleagues joined in 2025, the average age went down to fifty-two.

Joining SCIJ is simple. You shell out sixty euros for the membership fee, four hundred euros for the meeting fee, and answer yes to the prompt “More than 80% of my professional compensated activities are from journalism” on the online registration portal. “Journalism” and “80%” are to be understood capaciously: certain members seem to derive their income primarily from flying airplanes, or from practicing law, or from “the industrious nature of my grandparents and parents.” In exchange for the privilege of participating in SCIJ, attendees are expected to write light touristic dispatches about their time at these gatherings, e.g.:

For one surreal, suspended week on an island … borders and age gaps and ideological differences faded into a whipped cream wonderland of camaraderie. (Scott Newman, 27 Rouge; SCIJ 2023, Canada)

We, of course, had a good selection of regional cheeses, but do not think of sophisticated wine-cheese pairings and tastings. Despite being in France, we were usually indulging ourselves in Belgian beer. (Aylin Öney Tan, Hürriyet Daily News; SCIJ 2019, France)

Customs regulations prevented bringing turkey from the US, but the hotel did a commendable job of roasting two large birds. (Leah Larkin, Tales and Travel; SCIJ 2012, Turkey)

Each year, a different Member Nation accepts the responsibility of hosting SCIJ in their country. This year it was Team Italy’s turn. On January 26, 2025, SCIJ celebrated its seventh decade in the Italian alps, in the Susa Valley, in the town of Bardonecchia.

 ***

Our journalist’s journey to Italy passed pleasantly. He spent part of it catching up on the SCIJ WhatsApp chat, to which he’d just been inducted:

“Dutch pea soup is on its way to Turin.”

“German Currywurst just passed the border to Bella Italia!”

“Oysters and champagne arriving from France!”

“Some Turkish delight to please the sweet tooth!”

The bus then rattled from the airport to its terminus in Turin, and Our Journalist shuffled out to look for the rest of Team USA. He found them by the train station, unloading their gear from a different bus.

Ryan and Valen looked up and grinned.

Valen wore a long dark coat and her hair touched the coat’s fur collar. Ryan was tall and blond and Californian; he had a trim handsome beard and a tan face. Our Journalist hugged his colleagues.

There was an older gentleman with them too. He was dressed formally, in a gray blazer, a white shirt, and a red silk tie patterned with sunflowers. His hair was cut close to his head, his cheeks were stubbled gray, and he bore a certain jolly heft. He told the Americans that he was Bulgarian.

“Let’s fuckin’ go!” said Ryan, as the last of the bags came out of the bus. He put his hands on his hips and sighed happily. “Should we sit down somewhere and have a beer?”

The group found a café inside the train station, and everyone ordered a local IPA.

“What was your name again?” Our Journalist asked the Bulgarian.

“I am Tihomir,” he declared. “But friends call me Tisho. Like … piece of paper for blowing nose.”

The Americans nodded.

“What is your name,” said Tisho.

“Noah,” said Our Journalist.

“Noah. Like the coffin.”

“No,” Our Journalist said, “like the ark.”

Tisho, it emerged from their conversation, was primarily a lawyer. He had a legal column in a newspaper and sometimes wrote reported pieces. His latest article was about Bulgarian expats in Munich who paid steep prices for imported Bulgarian cabbage. Bulgarians preferred Bulgarian cabbage.

“Do you like the Bulgarian State Women’s Choir?” Our Journalist asked. The choir was one of the few things he knew about Tisho’s country.

Tisho frowned. “I prefer Ray Charles. Ray Charles came to Bulgaria.” He smiled. “Tina Turner came to Bulgaria.” He smiled wider. “Rolling Stones”—he scowled and scrunched his face—“do not come. They are my favorite.”

Tisho fell silent and looked at his bottle of beer. His eyes narrowed. “This beer says rock and roll,” he muttered. This realization seemed to unlock something in him. He rummaged in his backpack and extracted a large green can and set it on the table. It was beer.

“Bulgarian,” he announced with satisfaction. He picked up the can and splashed some into each American’s glass. Then he filled his own. The waiter didn’t seem to notice.

“That’s very kind of you,” said Ryan.

“It’s nice,” Our Journalist said after taking a sip.

“I’m nice too,” said Tisho.

Our Journalist agreed. There was a pause.

“So how big is the Bulgarian team?” Ryan asked.

“I am the only one,” Tisho said.

“What?”

Tisho shook his head sadly. “We’re in a very … difficult place right now. You will see.”

And here we must clarify: mountains can, but do not always, “bring people together.”

It was 2019, and the Bulgarians were in the hole.

The issue of the debt had begun in Val d’Arly, France, on a trip organized by the Belgian branch of the Ski Club of International Journalists. Four members of SCIJ Bulgaria had, with what some considered insufficient notice, canceled their trips to the French Alps after initially committing. This put the hosting Belgians in an uncomfortable position—they had already paid for the hotel rooms and buses. One of those Belgians was a man named Bruno Schmitz. The Bulgarians, he and certain members alleged, owed SCIJ sixteen hundred euros. The Bulgarians, other members alleged, did not; they had canceled well in advance. In 2023, Bruno Schmitz was elected as SCIJ’s secretary-general, whose duty it is to manage club finances. In his new role, Schmitz made debt collection something of a priority.

The debt sowed discord. So did some unsavory social media posts and text messages that may or may not have been related to it. What those posts and texts were certainly related to was the leader of the Bulgarians, Alex Bogoyavlenski.

“I like our Bulgarian friends,” Bruno has noted. “Alex, however, is a bit difficult.”

Alex had been the first Bulgarian to cancel his trip to Val d’Arly, citing “personal problems.” He vociferously refused to pay arrears for so doing. “I think Alex would prefer to take the money and burn it in front of us rather than pay up,” one SCIJ member would later tell Bruno. In 2023, further problems accrued: certain members of the Ski Club of International Journalists asserted that Alex Bogoyavlenski was, in fact, not a journalist. It must be admitted: Alex’s username on Instagram is thelazyflyer. He has three titles on LinkedIn: first “Commercial Pilot,” second “Digital Marketing Mastermind,” and then “Aviation Journalist.” He flies Boeing 737s and Airbus A220s for Bulgaria Air. There was talk of banishing Bogoyavlenski from the club.

 ***

“There’s so many schisms I could tell you about,” said a slight British woman.

“It’s part of the pleasure of SCIJ,” said a Canadian.

It was Welcome Night at the Villaggio Olimpico, the hotel in Bardonecchia that was hosting the skiing journalists for the week, and we were all getting acquainted—reporters from the Financial Times, editors from Agence France Presse, hosts from Radiotelevisione italiana. The hotel was reminiscent of a provisional hospital someone had forgotten to tear down. Inside, its walls were cold and white. Outside, it was painted a queasy green.

“Might one of those schisms have to do with Bulgaria?” asked Our Journalist.

The Brit’s eyes twinkled Britishly.

“You’ll see,” she said. It was time for dinner.

The skiing journalists filed over to the hotel cafeteria with their glühwein, ducking between swarms of swaggy Italian teens and tweens dressed in black. In the dining hall, there were chicken legs and roasted potatoes and big plastic pitchers of wine. Our Journalist sat across from a tall rosy Belgian who was, it emerged from their conversation, a lawyer, not a journalist. He was excited about the recent American elections.

“The average American … is so ignorant!” he said. “The average American … has no idea of history!”

Our Journalist glanced to his right. Tisho was off at a different table, concentrating on pouring wine into a plastic water bottle.

“The average American …”

Our Journalist looked to his left. Over in the lobby, a woman from SCIJ Italy had begun distributing ski passes and goody bags from behind a counter.

“… knows nothing of the world!”

Our Journalist excused himself to collect his goodies.

He thanked the woman behind the counter and peeked in the bag. There were 650 grams of salami, 466 grams of Parmigiano Reggiano, and a black notebook labeled PARMIGIANO REGGIANO.

“You accuse me?!” someone was shouting.

Our Journalist looked up from his salami. Hey, it was Tisho.

“We already gave you your pass!” hissed the Italian woman. She thought Tisho was trying to bamboozle her into giving him an extra bag.

“I got pass but not bag! You accuse me?!” Tisho touched his chest proudly.

“Take it and get out of here!” She flung the bag on the counter.

Tisho scowled. He was not satisfied.

“Apologize to me!” he said.

The Italian woman ignored him.

“You apologize to me!”

“Yeah, yeah. I’m sorry. Now please leave.”

Tisho swiped the goodies and stomped away. I insisted on my rights and got them, he thought.

***

Rumor is a river that runs two ways. Alex the Bulgarian stood accused, in essence, of refusing to repay a debt and of being a fraud. But it was said by other skiing journalists that the current president of SCIJ, a middle-aged Canadian named Frederick Wallace, was the one who was not a journalist. It was said that under his tenure six thousand euros in club funds had been spent with a suspicious lack of documentation. It was said that he was trampling on justice in his treatment of Alex Bogoyavlenski, who in fact had “over three-hundred authored publications and media projects in the past two years.” (Alex’s words.) And it was said that the Bulgarians were not really in debt: The Belgians had actually run a raffle at SCIJ 2019 to recoup their losses—and succeeded. The Belgians, it seemed to some, were thus after not sixteen hundred euros but revenge for the cancellation. It did not help that Wallace was currently serving a third term, in defiance, some believed, of current club statutes. SCIJ had come to seem like “the president’s fiefdom,” as one club member would put it. (“I have no comment,” the president told Our Journalist when asked about the intricacies of the Bulgarian Case.)

Adding to the Bulgarians’ rue was the fact that they had helped Wallace win his first presidential election so many years ago. That was in 2014. That was in Switzerland. That was a mistake. I gave him good advice, Alex Bogoyavlenski would remember of those days. He seemed like a reasonable guy. He had a business plan. Now Wallace had turned against him.

The issue took on a curious midcentury flavor. “I remain totally disgusted from the action against Alex; it is against all of us from the East,” one of Alex’s countrywomen messaged a German SCIJ member who’d cast doubt on the Bulgarian leader’s professional bona fides. Alex’s defender continued in an ominous vein: “It takes me efforts to abstain from comparison with German history.” Even some Westerners saw what this Bulgarian woman saw: autocracy. “This is the behaviour of a dictatorship, not a club of journalists,” a British member wrote in a SCIJ Facebook group.

 ***

The Americans headed up to their rooms after the first night’s dinner. They were weak and woozy. The pitchers of wine had been unlimited, the chicken sat uneasily in their stomachs, and they’d met a dizzying number of international journalists. They stepped out onto the balcony for some alpine air.

The voice seemed to come from above, and it sounded like …

“Tisho, is that you?” said Ryan.

“Where is that from,” said Tisho.

The Americans looked up to the floor above and saw an open window.

“We’re down here,” said Ryan.

A single hand crept slowly from the window overhead.

“We are … serving life sentence up here,” said Tisho. This seemed to be his way of saying he didn’t like the hotel.

“Tish!” said Valen.

“You have … balcony-terrace?” Tisho’s hand withdrew.

“Yeah!”

“I do not,” he said with a hint of envy. “I will come see what is there.”

Tisho shuffled into the Americans’ hotel room a few minutes later. His tie was loose and he was holding a plastic water bottle full of red wine. He looked around unimpressed. The accommodations at recent SCIJ gatherings had been rather more glamorous.

Our Journalist had heard about last year’s trip to Kazakhstan at the welcome dinner. The international journalists had been lodged at the Royal Tulip Hotel, a palatial resort with gilded columns, crystal chandeliers, marble floors, and a casino. It was there that SCIJ’s General Assembly had met to adjudicate what had come to be called the “Bulgarian Case.”

On account of his debt and pugnacity, Alex the Bulgarian had not been invited to the 2024 SCIJ meeting. Alex did not care. He had flown alone to Kazakhstan. He had shown up at the Royal Tulip Hotel and sat amid the General Assembly. He had defended himself valiantly against the allegations: pilot and journalist are not mutually exclusive professions, he had argued. He had then observed his clubmates’ own deliberations on The Bulgarian Case.

“Forget about the debt from SCIJ Bulgaria,” a merciful Dane proposed.

“We cannot forgive the debt,” said a merciless Kazakhstani.

“We should have had this conversation last year,” said a weary Croatian.

Eventually, the issue was resolved through a kind of deferral: a group called “the Committee of the Wise” was formed to determine, conclusively, what had happened. Later that year, this committee recommended that the Bulgarian debt be canceled. But this was only a recommendation, and it was in Bardonecchia, at the meeting of the General Assembly, on the third day of the seven-day trip, that all would be decided.

***

“C’mon!” screamed Our Journalist. His fellow Americans kept collapsing on the ski slope. The slope was called Baby 1.

It was their first full day in Bardonecchia, and they needed to practice. Chandler was from Phoenix, Arizona. Valen was from San Diego, California. They had never skied before. Valen had scarcely seen snow. Our Journalist had to whip Team USA into shape before the SCIJ 2025 race. It was just four days away, and the week’s main event. The rest of the week, club members were free to ski as they pleased.

There was a race every year, and the club members approached it with gravity and resolve. The Italians were known to wear matching red jackets. The Kazakhstanis were known to wear matching blue coats. Injuries had been sustained in the quest for speed and glory. A Dutchwoman had once sustained a concussion; a Slovenian had busted a knee; an Irishwoman had broken an arm.

“I wanna see less pizza and more hot dog!” screamed Our Journalist.

Chandler put his skis in parallel position and spun around and collapsed. Valen was in the snow trying to get up. Our Journalist turned sharply and tumbled too. Little Italians zoomed by.

Bambini, Our Journalist thought. When he was a bambino himself, he had learned to ski at Appalachian resorts dusted with artificial snow, on the meager mounds of Virginia and West Virginia. Italy was something else.

After a few more runs on Baby 1, they tried Baby 2. It was slightly steeper.

“Lean more on your back leg!” Our Journalist called across the snow. He wasn’t sure he knew what he was talking about. “It’s like you’re sitting in a chair!” Chandler grazed a small child.

They decided to take a break at Harald’s Ski Restaurant, at the bottom of Baby 2. They ate lukewarm cheeseburgers and drank pints of beer under long timber beams.

“My skis keep getting crossed,” said Chandler.

“One of my legs is better than the other,” said Valen.

“You guys are doing great,” said Our Journalist.

They returned to the slopes and spent four more hours hurtling downhill. They needed the practice. And it would feel good to celebrate that evening’s Nations Night after a long hard day of skiing.

Nations Night is an old SCIJ tradition, a chance to drink, dance, and share one’s cherished native cuisine with fellow skiing journalists. “The Slovenians and Croatians make a very rich Nations Night,” Tisho had approvingly told Our Journalist back when they first met: It was a standard to which one wished to live up,. But every American, it soon became clear, had forgotten to bring foodstuffs from back home. This was bad optics for Team USA.

A few hours before the party kicked off, Ryan and Our Journalist recalled the words of a subeditor for the Times of London: “We just bring whiskey cuz no one wants to eat British food.” Here was an idea. Following an après-ski dinner, they set off into town to procure some American hooch.

They wandered through the snow and streetlights of Bardonecchia. The grocery stores were closed. The liquor stores were closed. It was time to get resourceful. They walked into a bar.

 “Posso comprare tutta una bottiglia di Jack Daniels?” Our Journalist struggled to say.

The barman was somber. “I ask,” he said, and ducked into the back.

He returned. “Non è possibile.”

“What if we pay a premium?” said Ryan.

“I ask,” said the barman. He ducked away again.

The barman was grave. “Sessanta euro.”

 “We’ll take it,” said Ryan.

They walked back to the hotel, out of the cold, into the warm bosom of Nations Night, and were whopped by a musky, dark, magnificent smell … the many cured meats of Europe and Eurasia … fermented milks and fermented grains … raw mollusks and salted cod … goat cheese and anchovies and sausage and wine … a thrilling blend of sounds and deep stenches … the French cracking oysters … the Swiss melting raclette…the Kazakhstanis slicing some kind of dried animal leg … the Canadians pouring maple syrup on snow… an Italian DJ playing Linkin Park’s “Numb” …

The Americans began serving up shots at the Team USA table.

“I looove Jack Daniels,” a German woman moaned in a baritone. “I looove Jack Daniels.”

Our Journalist looked elsewhere. Tisho was over in the corner, seated solo behind the Team Bulgaria table.

Tisho acknowledged him with a tired nod. “Bulgarian grappa, from grapes,” he said. He lifted a tall thin glass bottle. “It’s natural.”

Our Journalist drank a cup. Tisho was less energetic than yesterday, but he was as bighearted as ever, and Our Journalist’s presence seemed to animate him.

“Bulgarian salami,” Tisho continued. He gestured toward a dark pile of meat-sticks on a plate. Our Journalist thanked him and chewed on one.

“It’s delicious,” Our Journalist said.

This seemed to uplift Tisho even more. He suddenly picked up the plate and stood and began calling out into the party, “Come! Bulgarian salami!” There was light in his eyes.

***

The day after Nations Night found the international skiing journalists a slightly haggard and crapulent bunch. Still, the club members had political responsibilities to fulfill. The General Assembly was tonight, and upon its unfolding Bulgaria’s fate would depend.

Despite the austerity of its decor, Bardonecchia’s Villaggio Olimpico hotel was rich in special features. Its basement held a pool and a discotheque; its ground floor had a “Lounge Bar.” Close by the lounge was the theater, and in the theater the General Assembly of SCIJ was about to meet.

The journalists trickled in, finding their places among the yellow plastic chairs. Everyone sat with their respective nations: the Italians were with Italians, the Czechs were with Czechs, the Canadians were with Canadians. The Bulgarian was alone.

Tisho was wearing a blue polar fleece, gray utility pants, and brown ankle boots. He was slouched and quiet. The Americans took their seats behind him.

Exactly eight minutes before the General Assembly was set to convene, a message appeared in the SCIJ WhatsApp chat. It read, in part:

Dears,

Here’s the official Statement of SCIJ Bulgaria regarding today’s General Assembly … Have a good meeting everyone! 

It was from Alex Bogoyavlenski, the exiled captain of Team Bulgaria.

A statement had been sent to the phones of all SCIJ members: “SCIJ Bulgaria has been seriously harmed,” Our Journalist read in the first of its ten declarations. Its language was mighty. It described “unscrupulous pressure” and “controversial cases.” It described a “witch hunt” and a “gross violation” of SCIJ ethics. And it mentioned a devious quid pro quo, proposed by the president and secretary general, to dissolve the “nonexistent Bulgarian ‘debt’ ” in exchange for “the exclusion of the two most inconvenient members of the Bulgarian Club, one of whom is its Chairman, from all subsequent international meetings.”

Our Journalist set his phone down as the Assembly got underway. The first major item of the night’s agenda was Austria. This was a big night for Austria, whose SCIJ membership had lapsed in 2014 because their sole members at the time were doctors, not journalists.  The General Assembly would soon vote on whether the country should be reinducted into SCIJ, bringing the club’s total number of Member Nations to thirty-two, the same number as NATO. “Austria’s involvement will strengthen our global community of journalists who share a passion for skiing,” a SCIJ leader from Turkey was saying. “And now we ask the Assembly to accept Austria.”

Jacopo the Italian led the vote. “Against accepting Austria as the thirty-second member of SCIJ?” The hands stayed down. “In favor?” The hands shot up. “Everyone,” he said. “So we welcome Austria as the thirty-second member of SCIJ!”

“Whoo!”

“Austria!”

“Yeah!”

It was soon a Croatian member’s turn to address the Assembly. She was speaking on a less unifying subject—the quantity of articles that members do or do not produce about SCIJ.

“What’s the problem? So what’s the problem?” she asked. She was standing in front of a PowerPoint slide, and she was not smiling. “Here are the numbers by the countries. Take a look at it. Please.”

An Excel spreadsheet was glowing onstage. It showed how many articles members from each Member Nation had written in recent years. The audience gazed on dumbly. The French and Danes, the spreadsheet revealed, had not produced a single piece about either the 2024 meeting in Kazakhstan or the 2023 meeting in Canada.

“I’m a parrot,” she said bitterly. “I sound like a parrot. Year by year. Reminding you that you have to produce.”

A muttering gradually bloomed in the auditorium: What the fuck was this?

“Take a look again,” she insisted. “We had a 54 percent return from the Canada meeting. We were on the almost-exotic island in Canada. We were skiing there with all the indigenous people, and we got just 54 percent.”

The muttering grew to a rumble.

“That is all,” the Croatian woman said at last, deflating the balloon of discontent. Some applause broke out, loose and leaky. She glared at the audience. “What a sad clapping.” She returned to her seat.

The mood was already sober, and the Bulgarian Case drew near.

“Anyone want to say something?” said Jacopo the Italian.

Another Italian rose and accepted the microphone. His head was mostly free of hair, and he was wearing a gray wool sweater over a blue button-up. He was a slight, older man, and his voice quivered with feeling.

“For us, the debt of the Bulgarian team does not exist,” said Mario the Italian.

Tisho faced the Americans. “Mario è un amico,” he said.

It is difficult to describe how good this made Our Journalist feel, to see Bulgaria and Italy shaking hands—forgetting the battle of the goody bag.

A grizzly Englishman—defender of Alex, critic of Frederick—followed Mario.

“This issue is tearing this club apart,” he said through his gray beard. “This issue needs to be put to bed. It is a festering sore.” He enjoined his colleagues to vote yes on the Committee of the Wise’s report, and he received some applause.

There was time yet to speak before the vote, and it was Our Journalist who now stepped to the front of the General Assembly. He was dressed formally, in a white dress shirt and a silk tie patterned with flowers.

“I’m on Team USA,” he said to his international peers. “Many of us are new here. We are not so familiar with the conflict. But we have read the report.” He was overexcited, trembling—yet he pushed on.

“I think if this organization is really about ameliorating tensions between the East and the West,” Our Journalist said, “it’s very much in the spirit of SCIJ to accept that there’s been a conflict and we ought to simply resolve it in a spirit of forgiving and mercy. And so”—he was reaching the end of his speech, the climax, the point; out of ideas but full of spirit—“we very much stand with the Bulgarians.”

He walked back to his seat exhilarated.

Tisho turned around to face him. “I was not expecting that,” he said quietly. He reached out to shake Our Journalist’s hand. “Thank you, America.”

Our Journalist looked at Tisho. His eyes were blue and wet.

Tisho turned back to face the stage. Here came the vote.

“So, who is in favor of the Wise Committee report?” Jacopo asked.

Fourteen hands lifted.

“Who is against the report?”

The air was void of arms.

“Abstention?”

And now something strange happened, something Our Journalist did not quite understand. Nine hands stretched up to abstain, and one of them was Tisho’s.

The Americans whispered to each other. Why was the Bulgarian not defending his country? Why not vote yea?

Partly out of principle, it turned out. To vote to “forgive” a “debt” is to acknowledge that said debt exists in the first place. This the Bulgarians would not do.

“We cannot agree with the fact that Bulgaria has old unpaid bills,” Tisho later told Our Journalist.

***

Our Journalist’s legs were shaking. He bounced up and down in his ski boots.

“You look nervous,” said a Turkish journalist, who was filming Our Journalist on his iPhone.

“I’m always nervous,” said Our Journalist.

He was also feeling feeble. Two days earlier, not long after the General Assembly had adjourned, he’d been struck by what the Italians call the virus del vomito invernale, the winter vomiting bug. He’d spent a night lying on the cold blue tiles of the bathroom floor, wrapped in a blanket, vomiting and shaking madly at sea. He’d spent forty more hours prone in the hotel room bed, groaning and cursing his lot. This was his first venture back out into the snow.

“Uno,” intoned the starter.

Our Journalist peered down the slope. It had been used in the 2006 Winter Olympics. By professionals.

“Due.”

Shame, he thought. He wiggled his skis into position.

“Tre.”

He had heard but not heard; it did not seem quite right. But the starter had said it: “Tre.” He could feel the starter’s pity. Was he stupido? Why just standing there?

He slipped thru the gate and threw himself downhill—all wrong—legs spread too wide standing too tall poles jerking out like wings or oak branches—not even fast dared not speed up weaving thru flags red blue he’d topple down bust his knees and skull balls elbows—sun bent down the mountain—quick dark shape some freak chasing him almost bailed from fear—just his own shadow fanning huge behind—can’t see shit in the shadow planting poles icy patch wobbly chicken legs—

What a sad clapping. He’d made it to the end. The end! A group of SCIJ members were applauding temperately.

A middle-aged Italian announcer was also waiting at the bottom of the slope. The announcer had a perverted dimension to his personality. If someone skied well, he called out their time in Italian; if someone skied poorly, he called out their time in English and Italian. This was to ensure, it seemed, the broadest possible audience for shame.

“One minute, nineteen seconds!” he shouted cheerfully in English.

It was faster than Chandler and Tisho, but slower than almost everyone else.

By the end of the competition, Kazakhstan had earned four gold medals to emerge as the winner. Italy had earned three, Slovakia two, Canada one. America and Bulgaria: none.

***

But Bulgaria had succeeded in other respects.

Its opponents had been silent during the General Assembly: no Belgian had stood up to slander Alex. No Canadian had yelled for Bulgaria to pay its “nonexistent ‘debt.’ ” No one had even raised a hand against the Wise Committee’s report—a majority had been in favor.

Tisho seemed happy enough with these developments at the final dinner party of SCIJ 2025, held at a restaurant in an old stone farmstead. Small bites had been arrayed atop white tablecloths—anchovies, mortadella, insalata russa, zucchine alla scapece—and chairs lined the dining room’s edges. Tisho was sitting alone against the wall in one of these chairs, contentedly sipping a Campari spritz.

Our Journalist ordered a spritz of his own. It had been a long week. He joined Tisho. They clinked glasses and sipped and looked at their fellows: Frederick and the Italian DJ who’d played Linkin Park’s “Numb,” Valen and the German who so loved Jack Daniels … Our Journalist could see why one might return to SCIJ year after year, seeing the same faces, making new memories, fighting old fights … Tisho himself had been coming for two decades.

And already a new SCIJ trip was in the works: a video screened during the General Assembly had shown the international skiing journalists their next destination, the mountainous microstate of Andorra. They beheld lush green valleys and bustling modern cities; ferns and bicycles; happy diners in restaurants and happy nurses in hospitals. The video had been narrated, often with an avant-garde disconnect between image and text, by a soothingly British AI voice, which said things like “Andorra is one of the best destinations in the world to live … We have never had an army or war … Furthermore, every corner of the country is connected by high-velocity fiber optic.” Yes, the journalists would return to the slopes.

It had been two weeks since SCIJ 2025 ended when an email appeared in the inboxes of the international skiing journalists. Although it was laden with apologies and filled with allusions to “intensive efforts,” the email had a stark message: the 2026 SCIJ meeting in Andorra was canceled. The email read, in part:

Dear colleagues and friends of SCIJ,

… The Andorran stakeholders abruptly terminated negotiations on February 10th after imposing a February 21st deadline for a signed contract. This withdrawal came despite our team’s intensive efforts to meet these challenging timeframes while maintaining our organization’s high standards … Rest assured that we remain committed to … organizing a successful 2026 winter meeting at a new location.

Sincerely,

Frederick Wallace

SCIJ President

The news was not well received. The SCIJ WhatsApp chat caught fire.

“This is shocking!”

“It’s such a shame!”

“A thorough clarification is necessary, if we want SCIJ to survive.”

Team Andorra sent their own thorough reply. It read, in part:

Dear Colleagues,

We regret the distortion of facts by Mr. Wallace, his lack of seriousness in recent months, and the negative impact his actions have had. We now feel compelled to provide our version of events.

Mr. Wallace and Mr. Shmitz [sic] visited Andorra for the required site inspection, with all expenses covered by the Andorran team, including a four-star hotel with a spa, all meals (some in the country’s finest restaurants), ski passes, and travel connections.

Since the fall of 2024, we have been requesting a draft contract to formalize the agreement.

We asked to have it before their visit to Andorra, and they failed to deliver.They promised to bring it to Andorra, and they failed to deliver.They said we would receive it in Bardonecchia, and once again, they failed to deliver.

This entire situation has led us to lose trust in his word.

We do not rule out submitting a future bid to host the event, but as long as the current president remains in office, we do not wish to risk experiencing such a negative situation again.

Frederick was curiously silent in the face of this message. (He declined, once again, to comment.) His second-in-command, Bruno Schmitz, was less reserved. The Belgian issued a response to the Andorrans’ response:

Andorra wanted to host us in a 4-star hotel. It is true. But it would be the same hotel that all SCIJ members would be hosted [in] the year after.

Andorra brought us to two nice restaurants. It is true. But we did not ask for that.

Do you think that we are happy of this situation for us? And that we enjoy being without a meeting for next year? Do you think that the coming year will be easier for us, at the IC that way? Who is losing the most in all this?

I wish you a very good day. Now I must go back to my job as a journalist.

 

Noah Rawlings is a writer and translator.