I've always dreamed of traveling long distances, but I've never been able to afford them and haven't stopped dreaming of a different life. I didn't have time to live like everyone else and didn't want to strive for standard material values in general. I clearly understood that I was not living, but surviving from income to income; I didn't know how to save and spent everything I had in the first half of the month. I had my main job as a photographer at the publishing house “Za rulem” and part-time jobs almost every weekend, at weddings and corporate events. But even so, I couldn't afford to rent a separate apartment and live to see my next payday with a positive balance. But most importantly, I didn't feel like I was in my place. I wanted to get out of it and be free. At the time, Jonathan Livingston was my ideal, and I reread this book dozens of times in English, sometimes even starting from a random page.

As I reread these pages, I remembered how I had always been an exile and didn't want to be like everyone else. The memories of the happiest and freest period in my life on my wooden “yacht” never left me. I was clearly aware that that year was a benchmark in every respect. And I started dreaming, thinking about how I could continue this or, based on it, do something new. This is how I came up with the idea to open a boat station on the waterfront of Petrozavodsk. My own mini charter company, so to speak. Before I had even started putting all my thoughts on paper, fate began to lay down a thin, barely noticeable, and very long carpet.

I once asked my office neighbors, from whom I always bought train tickets to Petrozavodsk, at a charge, but without queuing at the train station: “Why do you sell tickets in such a large office and why are there Mediterranean landscapes on the walls?” It turned out that they sell real estate in Turkey, and train or plane tickets are related goods that end up being sold more often than expensive properties. They told me about the market and made it clear that at that time it was possible to buy a house with a sea view for the cost of an apartment in St. Petersburg. I made an important appearance and said that I was ready to exchange a non-existent apartment for a house in Turkey. But what am I going to do there? “What can you do?” The girl asked kindly. “I can shoot and I sail a little bit.” She started leafing through her notebook and said: “Write down this number +90532... his name is Alikhan, and he told us that he needed Russian-speaking captains for a day charter, I think in Fethiye.” I took my room and walked out of the office to the biggest fork in my life. You could go on working in your own office or try to change your life.