42 quotes found
"Warm autumn day. The last hours and minutes of the outgoing Indian summer. The weather is wonderful. The sun gives warmth to everyone. Children play at merchandisers. Smiles of good people from billboards attract to buy a cockroach remedy. Male pensioners in trolleybuses give his sits to female pensioners. Traffic cop gives out invitations to a concert of police ditties. Somewhere in the yellowed foliage, a stupid starling sings his trills. And yet something is missing. Missing her. Inconceivable, but there were times when I could somehow do without Africa."
"Time moves inexorably forward and this process is irreversible. The list of countries that I managed to visit is increasing every year. There are still no sponsors and probably will not be. However, are they needed? Easily and just to do without someone's help: it is necessary only, without feeling sorry for itself, to disdain money a little, to slightly ignore comfort and a cosiness and to believe very much in the forces even if... they are not present."
"On December 3, 2010, from the Nativity of Christ, with a small camping backpack behind my back, I left the house, running away from the routine of pale gray days, which look like twins in a morgue. In the backpack — a monthly supply of oatmeal, a metal bowl and a mug, in the passport — not a single visa, in the head — dreams, ideas and a vague future."
"During my childhood, the inscription «tourist» accompanied the picture, where a person in sneakers with a backpack climbs the mountains. Now under a similar comment — a beachgoers: sunglasses, a sun lounger under a palm tree near the azure waters of the ocean. Everything flows, everything changes."
"An angel of heaven appeared to me in a dream: «I was sent by providence to warn you. Do know, lonely wanderer, that for everything you have done: traveling around the globe, books, photo exhibitions... you will be severely punished in old age! Nobody will give you even a mug of water…» — «Go away, depressive nerd bore.. — I interrupted the feathered one, — you utter banal phrases!»"
"Once, when I was a teenager, with a backpack behind my shoulders, in shabby clothes and a hat with wide fields, went down from the highest, as it seemed to me, Crimean mountains, to where in the lowlands rural children grazed a flock of sheep. The shepherd boys surrounded me from all sides, mistaking for a wanderer and started asking... I told them about the world trip, African cannibals, described aborigines traditions and much more. The chappies listened as enchanted, opening their mouths from amazement: they have never been beyond the neighboring village. However, the fifteen-year-old narrator in those days was not yet a traveler, I deceived them... and I also deceived you: this story is fiction."
"Woke up in the morning. Outside the window is a dull landscape of a small city where people live like moles in burrows. An ordinary day, everything as always. But the ghost of doubt still loomed in consciousness, not wanting to disappear with the first cry of the roosters. For the sake of what I wandered and suffered for six months: starved in Papua New Guinea, slept on the sidewalk in the company of Indonesian homeless people, shaking from cold at night in China? After all, I will not be awarded a chocolate medal and a material allowance as for an international tramp will not be appointed. Who makes me do this? Maybe my own stupidity? But no, this is her sister — conscience. And I got back to work."
"Any route, be it Africa, Asia, or the islands of Oceania, I go twice: the first time in reality, the second — when I write about it. Everything that happened: adventures, joys, problems — live now in my memoirs, travel notes, in the imagination of those who have read my books and articles. It will stay when I am gone into the world of shadows."
"The teacher asked wards what the meaning of life was. They began to put forward versions. Only the failing student, sitting at the last desk, was silent, staring stupidly down. When the noise subsided a little, the teacher turned to him: «What do you think about this?» — «I do not think about what is not...» — answered dunce."
"Now I am truly rich, and this treasure will not be able to take away from me either the villains in the dark alleys or the ubiquitous tax authorities: a semi-annual expedition of one participant, which included nine countries and seven islands, significantly supplemented the baggage of knowledge obtained in previous wanderings. Spiritual wealth is more expensive than diamonds."
"The celestial omen shone the mind. The gate of the azure vault unfolded, among the clouds, in the halo of sunlight appeared the Lord, Hanuman the Most High. «I trust you with a responsible mission... — annunciate holy God — from this day forget about comfort and coziness, leave your whims and desires... Your Ego is gone, you do not belong to yourself, taking a vow to serve the muses. From now on, you are the wind of the Sudanese deserts, the fog of the New Guinean Mountains, the heat of Kenyan night and the tropical rain of the Indonesian archipelago...»"
"Native penates. Semi-annual trip behind. Woke up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat: it seemed as if there was money for the next travelling and the hour came. Mentally howled in horror: «Orderlies, give me an injection of selfishnessI, don't want, tired! » A moment later, returning from the ghostly drowse to dull reality, as if the ice swimmer from the «February heat» club, diving from an ice crust into a hole, remembered that there were no funds yet and, therefore, a trip was impossible. This is the joy of a soldier looking closely at a small hole from a bullet (a second ago whistled over the ear) in the wall of the trench: it means that there is still time and you can again go on the attack, fight with the remnants of philistine, selfishness and laziness, who, like a tiny pygmy, lodged inside me."
"Paradise in which there is no way to leave territory — hell for a traveler."
"Dedicated to eccentrics, madmen, residents of the Far North — heroes of Russian anecdotes, as well as to all those who died while climbing Mount Everest. (Dedication of the book)"
"Waking up early in the morning, I was seriously scared, deciding that my company had gone to the military training — therefore, I will receive a scolding from the senior in rank for oversleeping. Crawled under the bed for footcloths and at that moment... remembered that I was not in the army now. No, this is not a barracks, but a room in a Georgian hotel, costing five euro’s per bed per day. Delighted with the return of his memory, crossed himself mentally and, having dressed, went out onto the balcony that adorned the facade of the building. (About the hotel at the bus station in Tbilisi)"
"I was about to go to bed when the commandant knocked on the door again. He brought a plastic bottle with a cut-off top, explaining by sign language that it was «parasha» (chamber pot — Aut.). Thanking the kind man, turned to the wall, trying to fall asleep. I almost succeeded: got to the waiting room of the land of dreams, when an armed convoy suddenly appeared. (About stay in the Kubul prison)"
"A trip without a camera to the African tribes for me is the same as giving a person who has lost both legs the boots he once dreamed of."
"Money is a kind of paintings, they can be framed, hung on the wall, and this will also be an exhibition."
"Anecdote from the photographer. Once a certain airline decided to conduct an advertising campaign: on the central streets of Simferopol, agents offered passers-by air tickets to Mongolia for 10% of the real cost. Of the 1,350 respondents, only one person expressed a desire to go to the land of the steppes — a homeless person at the station, but, unfortunately, he had neither a passport nor money."
"Death will come for me somewhere in the African jungle. I hope the negatives will be handed over to their homeland, and someone will make a posthumous exhibition. But another option is also possible: my photographic films will be hung on a palm tree by the native people, celebrating some local holiday, and they will smash coconuts with my camera."
"It is better to watch TV when it is switched off — that is, in the traditional way, but by pulling the plug out of the socket. One of the advantages of the alternative is electricity saving; in addition — the use of this method does not pose a threat to eyesight."
"All talented people write differently, all untalented ones write the same way and even in the same handwriting."
"You need to show him some paper, otherwise he won't believe that you exist."
"Not a single car has ever been run over by a pedestrian, yet for some reason motorists are unhappy."
"In science fiction novels, the main thing was the radio. With it, the happiness of mankind was expected. Now there is a radio, but there is no happiness."
"...She is four years old, but she says she is two. Rare coquetry."
"He got so drunk that he could already perform various minor miracles."
"Liar competition. The first prize was given to the person who told the truth."
"There were so many hairdressing establishments and funeral homes in the regional centre of N. that the inhabitants seemed to be born merely in order to have a shave, get their hair cut, freshen up their heads with toilet water and then die."
"What? Seventy thousand roubles' worth of jewellery hidden in a chair! Heaven knows who may sit on that chair!"
"… Now you, for instance. You're distinguished-lookin' and tall, though a bit on the thin side. If you should die, God forbid, they'll say you popped off. But a tradesman, who belonged to the former merchants' guild, would breathe his last. And if it's someone of lower status, say a caretaker, or a peasant, we say he has croaked or gone west. But when the high-ups die, say a railway conductor or someone in administration, they say he has kicked the bucket. They say: 'You know our boss has kicked the bucket, don't you?'"
"Long, heavy trains race to all' parts of the country. The way is open at every point. Green lights can be seen everywhere; the track is clear. The polar express goes up to Murmansk. The K-l draws out of Kursk Station, bound for Tiflis, arching its back over the points. The far-eastern courier rounds Lake Baikal and approaches the Pacific at full speed. The Muse of Travel is calling. … People speed all over the country. Some of them are looking for scintillating brides thousands of miles away, while others, in pursuit of treasure, leave their jobs in the post office and rush off like schoolboys to Aldan. Others simply sit at home, tenderly stroking an imminent hernia and reading the works of Count Salias, bought for five kopeks instead of a rouble."
"With printing being as well developed as it is in the West, the forgery of Soviet identification papers is nothing. A friend of mine even went as far as forging American dollars. And you know how difficult that is. The paper has those different-coloured little lines on it. It requires great technique. He managed to get rid of them on the Moscow black market, but it turned out later that his grandfather, a notorious currency-dealer, had bought them all in Kiev and gone absolutely broke. The dollars were counterfeit, after all."
"When a woman grows old, many unpleasant things may happen to her: her teeth may fall out, her hair may thin out and turn grey, she may become short-winded, she may unexpectedly develop fat or grow extremely thin, but her voice never changes. It remains just as it was when she was a schoolgirl, a bride, or some young rake's mistress."
"Statistics know everything."
"An attempt to look at New York from a car failed. We were driving along rather dark and gloomy streets. Sometimes something was buzzing like hell under my feet, sometimes something rumbled overhead. When we stopped at traffic lights, the sides of the cars next to us obscured everything. The driver turned around several times and asked for the address. Apparently, he was worried about our English. Sometimes he looked at us encouragingly, and his face said: “Nothing, you won’t get lost! No one has ever lost in New York.”"
"We thought that we would walk slowly, carefully looking around, so to speak, studying, observing, absorbing and so on. But New York is not the kind of city where people move slowly. People did not walk past us, but ran. And we ran too. From then on we couldn't stop. We lived in New York for a month and all the time we were rushing somewhere as fast as we could. At the same time, we looked so busy and businesslike that John Pierpont Morgan Jr. himself could have envied us. At this rate, he would earn sixty million dollars this month."
"Just as at the North Station in Moscow the loudspeaker informs summer residents that the nearest train goes non-stop to Mytishchi, and then stops everywhere, here the blacks reported that the elevator goes only to the sixteenth floor, or up to the thirty-second, with the first stop again on the sixteenth floor. Subsequently, we realized this little trick of the administration: on the sixteenth floor there is a restaurant and cafeteria."
"New York was sleeping, and millions of electric lamps guarded its sleep. People from Scotland, Ireland, Hamburg and Vienna, Kovno and Bialystok, Naples and Madrid, Texas, Dakota and Arizona were sleeping, people from Latin America, Australia, Africa and China were sleeping. Black, white and yellow people were sleeping. Looking at the slightly fluctuating lights, we wanted to quickly find out: how do these people work, how do they have fun, what do they dream about, what do they hope for, what do they eat?"
"When we went to America, we did not take into account one thing, American hospitality. It boundlessly and far leaves behind everything possible of this kind, including Russian, Siberian or Georgian. The first American you know will definitely invite you to his home (or restaurant) to drink a cocktail with him. Ten of your new acquaintance's friends will be at the cocktail party. Each of them will certainly drag you to their place for a cocktail. And each of them will have ten or fifteen friends. In two days you make a hundred new acquaintances, in a week - several thousand. Staying in America for a year is simply dangerous: you can drink yourself to death and become a vagabond. All several thousand of our new friends were filled with one desire: to show us everything we wanted to see, to go with us wherever we wanted, to explain to us everything that we did not understand. Americans are amazing people, it’s nice to be friends with them, and it’s easy to do business with them."
"It's madness to think that you can drive slowly on an American interstate. The desire to be careful is not enough. Hundreds more cars are running next to your car, thousands of them are pressing behind you, and tens of thousands are rushing towards you. And they all drive at full speed, in a satanic impulse, dragging you along with them. All of America is rushing somewhere, and, apparently, there will be no stopping. Steel dogs and birds sparkle on the cars noses. Among millions of cars, we flew from ocean to ocean — a grain of sand, driven by a gasoline storm that has been raging over America for so many years!"
"Every small town [in America] wants to be like New York. There are New Yorks for two thousand people, and there are for one thousand eight hundred. We even came across one baby New York with nine hundred inhabitants. And it was a real city. Its residents walked along their own Broadway with their noses in the air. It is a disputable thing whose Broadway they considered the main thing to be, theirs or New York's one."