“In the complaint, [plaintiff] alleged, inter alia, that the couple was married outside the United States ‘in the town of Yoshkar-Ola the Republic of Mari El.'” 2007 WL 2473281 (N.C. App.). A sign of a crank litigant? No, it turns out. But the quote, including the internal quotation marks — UPDATE: and including, without an accompanying name of the surrounding country, the label “Republic,” which to most Americans (unlike to many Russians) means a country and not a province — does make it sound suspicious; why not just say “was married in Russia” or some such?