By Nick Georgandis
Romanian tennis legend Ilie Nastase is so fed up with Romanian taxes that he's willing to move to Russia to avoid them ... well, once the weather warms up that is.
"I have no desire to pay any more taxes. I am moving to Russia along with Depardieu," Nastase told the newspaper Libertatea in the Romanian capital of Bucharest.
"What do they collect taxes from us for?" Nastase said. "For the salaries of parliamentarians and Euro-parliamentarians. I don't want to pay any more."
Nastase's words come a week after French actor Gerard Depardieu was given a passport to move to Russia by the country's president, Vladmimir Putin.
However, Nastase isn't ready to move to Mother Russia quite yet, he's hoping to wait until more favorable weather emerges.
"It's cold in Russia ath the moment," Nastase said. "I'll wait until the summer to move."
The average January temperatues in Romania in January are highs of 35 degrees Fahrenheit and lows of 22. By contrast, it's an average high of 25 and a low of 16 in Moscow.
This isn't exactly the first time Nastase has made waves with controversial statements. He unsuccessfully ran for mayor of Bucharest in 1996, told Maxim magazine that he has slept with more than 2,500 women and used to say "Hello, racist" whenever he met a player from South Africa, his frank stance against Apartheid.