A lot of interesting characters came to Russia for the World Cup. Even Harold, hiding the pain, has already managed to check in on the instagrams of our compatriots. Some of the fans arrived by plane, others arrived by train or car. And the Argentinean Juan Matias Amaya came to Moscow on a bicycle. The journey of 80 thousand kilometers took him five years. And it's not over yet.

Mathias, 33, has already traveled through 37 countries. If you meet him on the street, you will not confuse him with anyone: a bearded man on a bicycle loaded with all sorts of things and decorated with a huge number of flags from different countries. In 2013, Matias left the Argentine city of San Juan and still continues to travel the world on a bicycle.

Previously, Matthias worked for a pharmaceutical company. But at one fine moment he discovered that he had become too selfish and greedy for money.

“Not only was I dissatisfied with my work, I also felt empty inside. I was ready to exchange all material goods in order to live life to the fullest, ”he said in an interview with Romeing.

First, Matthias told relatives and friends that he was leaving for 15 days. But after this time, he realized that this was not enough.

“At first they thought I was crazy for leaving everything to go on a trip. And now my family and friends thank me because I share photos and videos so they can learn more about other cultures.”

Matthias says that his journey is not easy. In an interview with Sports.ru, he said that he left the house with $ 200 in his pocket, stayed for the night mainly in nature, and people around him often helped him.

“I am not in a position to choose, so I eat everything. I even had to eat ants, caterpillars and all sorts of other strange creatures.

During the trip, Matthias faced a lot of difficulties: once he ran out of water in the desert and did not drink anything for two days, he slept on the streets of Europe in winter, they tried to rob him several times and even wounded him with a knife. Many times Matthias thought about returning home, but kept going.

And now, after five years and 80 thousand kilometers, the cyclist came to Russia for the World Cup. Especially in Russia, Matthias was impressed by the girls.

“There are very beautiful women in Russia, they are very different from those who live in my city in Argentina. Our women have black hair and eyes. I like blue-eyed blondes. When I arrived in Russia, I almost fell off my bike! Blondes everywhere! This is heaven for me!” - said Mathias in an interview with 360 TV channel.

Russia is not the final destination of his journey. But where he will go next, Matthias has not yet decided.

“I didn’t have a specific plan, I just wanted to leave home. I was supposed to leave for 15 days, and five years have already passed. I rarely think about the future, I like to live in the present.

“Now I have three options. The first is to go to the south of Russia, then to Turkey, drive from Istanbul to the Arab countries, then to India, Laos, Indonesia. After that, I can board a ship and sail towards Australia, stopping at different islands along the way. Then you can take a plane and fly to South Africa, and from there go to Qatar, just in time to be there for the 2022 World Cup. The second option is to go towards the Russian North, then to Finland, then turn around and, just like in the first option, go towards Africa and Qatar. Well, the third option is to return to Europe and live with people I already know in order to get to know the local culture and habits better. In general, I will decide!”

IX In the morning Colin made tea for Gornotsvetov. That Thursday, Gornotsvetov had to go out of town early to see the ballerina who was recruiting a troupe, and therefore everyone in the house was still asleep when Colin, in an unusually dirty Japanese dressing gown and shabby boots on his bare feet, trudged into the kitchen for boiling water. His round, stupid, very Russian face, with an upturned nose and languid blue eyes (he himself thought that he looked like Verlaine's "half-pierro, half-gavroche", was wrinkled and shiny, blond hair, not yet combed into a slanting row, fell across his forehead, loose shoelaces whipped on the floor with the sound of fine rain. He pouted his lips like a woman, fiddling with the teapot, and then began to purr something, quietly and with concentration. Gronotsvetov finished dressing, tied a spotted tie with a bow in front of the mirror, on a pimple that had just been cut off by shaving and now oozing yellow blood through a dense layer of powder.His face was dark, very regular, long curled eyelashes gave his brown eyes a clear, innocent expression, his black short hair was slightly curly, he shaved like a coachman behind his neck and let go of his sideburns, which curved in two dark stripes along his ears.He was, like his friend, not tall, very thin, with well-developed leg muscles, but narrow in chest and in the shoulders. They became friends relatively recently, they danced in a Russian cabaret somewhere in the Balkans, and two months ago they arrived in Berlin in search of a theatrical fortune. A special shade, a mysterious affectation somewhat separated them from the rest of the boarders, but, speaking in conscience, it was impossible to blame the pigeon happiness of this harmless couple. Colin, left alone in an untidy room after his friend had left, opened the nail trimmer and, humming in an undertone, began to trim his burrs. He did not differ in excessive cleanliness, but he kept his nails in excellent order. The room smelled heavily of origan and sweat; a tuft of hair plucked from a comb floated in the soapy water. Ballet photographs were raising their feet along the walls; on the table lay a large open fan, and next to it a dirty starched collar. Colin, admiring the crimson sheen of his cleaned nails, carefully washed his hands, rubbed his face and neck with toilet water, fragrant to nausea, threw off his dressing gown, walked naked on pointe shoes, jumped up with a quick foot trill, quickly dressed, powdered his nose, drew up his eyes and, buttoning his all the buttons of his gray overcoat, to the waist, went for a walk, raising and lowering the end of a dandy cane with an even movement. Returning home for dinner, he overtook Ganin at the front door, who had just bought medicine for Podtyagin at the pharmacy. The old man felt well, peed something, walked around the room, but Klara, after consulting with Ganin, decided not to let him out of the house today. Colin came up behind him and squeezed Ganin's arm above the elbow. He turned around: - Oh, Colin ... had a good walk? "Alek left today," Colin began, going up the stairs next to Ganin. "I'm terribly worried whether he'll get an engagement..." him to speak. Colin laughed: - And Alferov got stuck in the elevator again yesterday. Now the lift is not working... He moved the knob of his cane along the railing and looked at Ganin with a shy smile: -- - Can I sit with you for a while? I'm feeling very bored today... "Well, brother, don't take it into your head to take care of me out of boredom," Ganin mentally snapped, opening the boarding house door, and answered aloud: "Unfortunately, I'm busy right now. Next time. "What a pity," drawled Colin, following Ganin and closing the door behind him. The door didn't budge, someone stuck a big brown hand in from behind, and from there a deep Berlin voice boomed out: "Just a moment, gentlemen." Ganin and Colin looked around. A mustachioed, corpulent postman crossed the threshold. "Does Herr Alferov live here?" "First door on the left," said Ganin. “Thank you,” the postman boomed in a songful way and knocked on the indicated number. It was a telegram. -- What? What? What? Alferov babbled convulsively, unfolding it with clumsy fingers. From excitement, he could not immediately read the pasted ribbon of pale, uneven letters: "priedu subbotu 8 utra." Alferov suddenly understood, sighed and crossed himself. - Glory to you. Lord... He's coming. Smiling broadly and rubbing his bony thighs, he sat down on the bed and rocked back and forth. His watery blue eyes blinked rapidly, and his dung beard gleamed golden in the slanting sun. “Zer gut,” he muttered. “The day after tomorrow is Saturday. Zero Gut. Boots in what form! .. Mashenka will be surprised. It's okay, we'll live somehow. We'll rent a cheap apartment. She will decide. Until then, we'll live here. Fortunately: there is a door between the rooms. After a while, he went out into the corridor and knocked on the next room. Ganin thought: "Why don't they give me peace today?" - Here's what, Gleb Lvovich, - Alferov began bluntly, looking around the room with a circular look, - when are you thinking of moving out? Ganin looked at him with irritation: - My name is Lev. Try to remember. “Are you leaving by Saturday?” - Alferov asked and mentally thought: "The bed will need to be different, the closet from the front door will be put aside..." “Well, that’s excellent,” Alferov picked up excitedly. “Forgive me for disturbing you, Gleb Lvovich. And with a last glance around the room, he banged out. "Fool..." Ganin muttered. "To hell with him." What was it I was thinking so well about now... Ah, yes... night, rain, white columns. - Lydia Nikolaevna! Lydia Nikolaevna! Alferov's oily voice called loudly in the corridor. "There is no life from him," Ganin thought angrily. "I won't dine here today. That's enough." Outside, the asphalt shone with a purple sheen; the sun was tangled in the wheels of cars. Next to the tavern was a garage; the armhole of his collar gaped with darkness, and from there there was a gentle smell of carbide. And this accidental smell helped Ganin to remember even more vividly that Russian, rainy August, that stream of happiness that the shadows of his Berlin life interrupted so importunately all morning. He was leaving the bright mansion in the black, murmuring twilight, kindling a gentle fire in the lamp of a bicycle, - and now, when he accidentally inhaled carbide, he remembered everything at once: wet grass whipping on a moving calf, on the spokes of wheels, a circle of milky light, drinking in and dissolving the darkness from which arose: now a wrinkled puddle, now a shiny pebble, now the boards of the bridge covered with manure, then, finally, the revolving gate through which he squeezed, touching the soft wet foliage of acacias with his shoulder. And then, in the flowing darkness, the columns appeared with a quiet rotation, washed by the same gentle, whitish light of a bicycle lantern, and there, on the six-column covered platform of someone else's boarded up estate, he was greeted by a fragrant chill, a mixed smell of perfume and a wet Cheviot - and this autumn, this the rain kiss was so long and so deep that large, bright, quivering spots floated in the eyes, and the spreading, many-leafed, rustling sound of rain seemed even stronger. With wet fingers, he opened the glass door of the flashlight, extinguished the flame. The wind blew hard and wet out of the darkness. Mashenka, sitting next to him on the peeling balustrade, stroked his temples with her cold palm, and in the darkness he could distinguish the vague corner of her wet bow and the smiling gleam of her eyes. Rain force in the lindens in front of the platform, in the black, swirling darkness, rolled in a wide gust, and the trunks creaked, seized by iron braces to maintain their decrepit power. And to the sound of the autumn night, he unbuttoned her blouse, kissed her hot collarbone; she was silent, only her eyes shone a little, and the skin on her open breast slowly cooled from the touch of his lips and the damp night wind. They spoke little, it was too dark to speak. When he finally lit a match to look at his watch, Mashenka squinted, brushing a wet strand from her cheek. He hugged her with one arm, with the other he rolled, pushing the bicycle by the saddle, - and in the drizzling darkness they quietly walked away, went down the path to the bridge and there they said goodbye - long, sadly, as if before a long separation. And on that black, stormy night, when, on the eve of his departure to Petersburg for the beginning of the school year, he met her for the last time on this platform with columns, something terrible and unexpected happened, a symbol, perhaps, of all future blasphemy. That night the rain was especially noisy, and their meeting was especially tender. And suddenly Masha screamed, jumped off the railing. And by the light of the match, Ganin saw that the shutter of one of the windows overlooking the platform was turned away, that a human face was pressed against the black glass from the inside, flattening its white nose. It moved, slipped away, but both of them managed to recognize the reddish whirlwinds and the bulging mouth of the caretaker's son, a snarler and a womanizer of about twenty, who always came across them in the alleys of the park. And Ganin rushed to the window with one frantic leap, smashed through the shattering glass with his back, tumbled into the icy darkness and with a sweeping blow hit his head on someone's strong chest, which sank from the shock. And in the next moment they grappled, rolled along the echoing parquet, touching the dead furniture in the covers in the darkness, and Ganin, freeing his right hand, began to beat with a stone fist on the wet face that suddenly appeared under him. And only when the strong body he pressed to the floor suddenly went limp and began to groan, he got up and breathing heavily, poking in the darkness against some soft corners, reached the window, climbed out again onto the platform, found Masha, sobbing, frightened - and then he noticed that something warm, glandular was flowing from his mouth, and that his hands were cut by pieces of glass. And in the morning he left for St. Petersburg - and on the way to the station, from the window of a dull and soft banging carriage, he saw Mashenka walking along the edge of the highway with her friends. The wall, upholstered in black leather, instantly closed it, and since he was not alone in the carriage, he did not dare to look through the rear oval window. Fate on this last August day gave him a taste of the future separation from Mashenka, separation from Russia. It was a test, a mysterious anticipation; especially sadly, one after another, the burning mountain ash disappeared into the gray murk, and it seemed incredible that in the spring he would again see these fields, this boulder at a brisk pace, these pensive telegraph columns. In the St. Petersburg house, everything seemed new, clean, and bright, and positive, as it always happens upon returning from the countryside. The school started - he was in the seventh grade, he studied casually. The first snow fell, and the cast-iron fences, the backs of downcast horses, the firewood on the barges, were covered with a white, puffy layer. And only in November Masha moved to St. Petersburg. They met under the archway where, in Tchaikovsky's opera, Liza dies. Sheer, large, soft snow was falling in the air, gray as frosted glass. And Masha, on this first meeting in Petersburg, seemed a little strange, perhaps because she was wearing a hat and a fur coat. From that day on, a new - snowy - era of their love began. It was difficult to meet, to wander for a long time in the cold was painful, to seek warm solitude in museums and cinemas was the most painful of all - and not without reason in those frequent, piercingly tender letters that they wrote to each other on empty days (he lived on the Promenade des Anglais, she is on Karavannaya), both reminisced about the paths of the park, about the smell of leaf fall, as about something unthinkably expensive and already irrevocable: maybe they only stirred up their love, or maybe they really understood that true happiness had passed. And in the evenings they called each other to find out if the letter had been received, and where and when to meet: her funny pronunciation was even more charming on the phone, she spoke short rhymes and laughed warmly, pressed the receiver to her chest, and it seemed to him that he hears the beating of her heart. So they talked for hours. She went that winter in a gray fur coat, which made her a little fat, and in suede leggings worn directly over thin slippers. He had never seen her with a cold, even a chill. The frost and the blizzard only revived her, and in the icy whirlwinds in the dark alley he bared her shoulders, the snowflakes tickled her, she smiled through wet eyelashes, pressed his head to her, and loose snow fell from his astrakhan hat to her bare chest. These meetings in the wind, in the cold, tormented him more than her. He felt that from these imperfect meetings, love is shrinking and fading away. All love requires solitude, shelter, shelter, and they had no shelter. Their families did not know each other; this mystery, which had been so wonderful at first, now hindered them. And it began to seem to him that everything would be all right if she, even in furnished rooms, would become his mistress - and this thought lived in him somehow apart from desire itself, which was already weakening under the torture of meager touches. So they wandered all winter, remembering the village, dreaming of the next summer, sometimes quarreling and jealous, shaking each other's hands under the shaggy, bald cavity of light oxford boots - and at the very beginning of the new year Mashenka was taken to Moscow. And strange: this separation was a relief for Ganin. He knew that in the summer she would return to her dacha near Petersburg, at first he thought a lot about her, imagined a new summer, new meetings, wrote her all the same piercing letters, and then began to write less often, and when he himself moved to the dacha in the first days May, then stopped writing altogether. And these days he managed to meet and call with a smart, sweet, blond lady whose husband fought in Galicia. And then Mashenka returned. Her voice flashed faintly and far away, a rumble trembled in the telephone, as in a sea shell, at times an even more distant cross voice interrupted, carried on a conversation with someone in the fourth dimension: the country telephone was old, with a rotary handle, - and between he and Mashenka were about fifty versts of humming fog. - I will come, - Ganin shouted into the phone. - I say that I will come. By bike, it will take two hours. -- ... I didn't want to go to Voskresensk again. You are listening? Papa never wanted to rent a dacha in Voskresensk again. Fifty of you from here ... "Don't forget to bring your boots," said the cross voice softly and indifferently. And again Mashenka whirred through it as if through an inverted telescope. And when she completely disappeared, Ganin leaned against the wall and felt that his ears were burning. He left at about three o'clock in the afternoon, in an open shirt and football shorts, in rubber shoes on his bare feet. The wind was at his back, he drove fast, choosing smooth places between sharp stones on the highway, and recalled how he had passed Mashenka last July, when he had not yet met her. At the fifteenth verst the rear tire burst, and he repaired it for a long time, sitting on the edge of the ditch. Above the fields, on both sides of the highway, larks chimed; a gray car with two officers in owl glasses rolled in a cloud of dust. Inflating the repaired tire more firmly, he drove on, feeling that he had not calculated, he was already an hour late. Turning off the highway, he drove through the forest, along the path indicated by a passer-by peasant. And then he turned again, but wrongly, and traveled for a long time before he got on the right road. He rested and ate in the village, and when only twelve versts remained, a sharp pebble ran over, and the same tire whistled again and sank. It was already a bit dark when he drove to the dacha town where Mashenka lived. She was waiting for him at the park gate, as agreed, but she no longer hoped that he would come, as she had been waiting since six o'clock. Seeing him, she stumbled from excitement, almost fell. She was wearing a white see-through dress, which Ganin did not know. The bow was gone, and so her pretty head seemed smaller. Blue cornflowers shone in her tousled hair. On this strange, cautiously darkening evening, in the linden dusk of a wide city park, on a stone slab driven into moss, Ganin, in one short hour, fell in love with her more sharply than before and fell out of love with her, as if forever. At first they spoke quietly and blissfully - about how long they had not seen each other, about the fact that on the moss, like a tiny semaphore, a white dress glided by his face, as if shimmering in the dark, - and. My God, this smell of her, incomprehensible, the only one in the world ... - I am yours, - she said. - Do with me what you want. Silently, with a beating heart, he leaned over her, wandered his hands over her soft, chilly legs. But there were strange rustles in the park, someone seemed to be approaching from behind the bushes; the knees were hard and cold on the stone slab; Mashenka lay too submissively, too motionless. He froze, then chuckled awkwardly. “It still seems to me that someone is coming,” he said, and got up. Mashenka sighed, straightened her vaguely white dress, and got up too. And then, as they walked to the gate along the moon-spotted path, Mashenka picked up a pale green firefly from the grass. She held it in the palm of her hand, bowing her head, and suddenly burst out laughing and said with a slightly rustic grin: "Actually, a cold worm." And at that time Ganin, tired, dissatisfied with himself, chilled in his light shirt, thought that it was all over, he had fallen out of love with Mashenka, and when, a few minutes later, he drove home through the moonlit haze along the pale lane of the highway, he knew that she won't visit again. Summer has passed; Mashenka did not write, did not call, but he was busy with other things, with other feelings. Again, for the winter, he returned to St. Petersburg, in an accelerated manner in December he took his final exams, entered the Mikhailovskoye cadet school. And the next summer, already in the year of the revolution, he saw Masha again. He was on the platform of the Warsaw railway station. It was evening. The suburban train has just arrived. Waiting for the call, he walked up and down the filthy platform and, looking at the broken luggage wheelbarrow, thought of something else, of yesterday's shooting in front of Gostiny Dvor, and at the same time was irritated at the thought that he could not get through to the dacha, and that you will have to trudge from the station in a cab. When the third bell clanged, he went up to the only blue car in the train, began to climb onto the platform, and on the platform, looking at him from above, stood Mashenka. She had changed over the course of the year, perhaps she had lost some weight, and was wearing an unfamiliar blue coat with a belt. Ganin awkwardly greeted, the carriage rumbled buffers, floated away. They stayed on the platform. Mashenka must have seen him before and deliberately climbed into the blue car, although she always traveled in yellow, and now with a second ticket she did not want to go to the department. In her hands was a Bligken and Robinson chocolate bar; she immediately broke off a piece, offered. And Ganin was terribly sad to look at her - there was something timid, alien in her whole appearance, she laughed less often, kept turning her face away. And there were purple bruises on her tender neck, a shadowy necklace that suited her very well. He told some nonsense, showed a bruise from a bullet on his boot, spoke to politics. And the car rumbled, the train rushed between the smoking peat bogs in the yellow stream of the evening dawn; grayish peat smoke spread softly and low, forming, as it were, two waves of fog, between which the train was rushing. She dismounted at the first station, and for a long time he looked from the platform at her receding blue figure, and the farther she moved away, the clearer it became to him that he would never stop loving her. She didn't look back. From the twilight there was a heavy and fluffy smell of bird cherry. When the train started, he entered the compartment, and it was dark there, because in the empty car the conductor did not consider it necessary to light the stubs in the lanterns. He lay back on the striped mattress of the shop and through the opening of the door he saw how thin wires rose through the corridor window amid the smoke of burning peat and the swarthy gold of the sunset. It was strange and eerie to rush in this empty, shaking car between gray streams of smoke, and strange thoughts came to mind, as if all this had already happened once - and so I lay, propping my head in my hands, in the through, rumbling darkness, and so now, past the windows, noisily and widely, a smoky sunset floated by. He never saw Mashenka again.

The first information about the accident appeared on Tuesday, May 15, on the website of the Main Directorate of the Russian Emergencies Ministry for the Penza Region. The report indicates that on the same day at 22.20, a message about a traffic accident was received at the control panel of the on-duty rescuer of the Ministry of Emergency Situations of the Gorodishchensky district.

To find out the details, on the same day, I called Anna SHUPILOVA, head of the information support group for the activities of the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Emergency Situations of Russia for the Penza Region.

“There was a collision of two vehicles in the Gorodishchensky district,” she said. - As a result of the traffic accident, unfortunately, there are victims. To eliminate the consequences of an accident from the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Emergency Situations of Russia in the Penza Region, 4 people were involved, one piece of equipment.

The next day, on May 16, the traffic police reports indicated the following: “According to preliminary data, an accident occurred at the 699th kilometer of the Ural highway involving a GAZ-278858 car and a Scania heavy truck with a Bong semi-trailer. To clarify the information, I contacted Yulia KULIGINA, traffic police inspector for promoting road safety.

- It was preliminary established that the driver of the GAZ-278858 car, a man, born in 1985, allowed a collision with a Scania car with a Bong semi-trailer, driven by a driver, a man, born in 1961. As a result of the incident, the driver of the GAZ-278858 car died on the spot from his injuries, the interlocutor explained on May 16. “At the moment, all the circumstances of the incident are being established, and an investigation is underway on the fact of the incident.

This incident was actively discussed on the Internet. So, for example, in one of the public pages of the Vkontakte social network, an eyewitness to the accident published a photo from the scene. In the course of personal correspondence, he spoke about what he saw and provided a photo from the scene of the tragedy.

- A GAZelle crashed into a standing Scania, - Igor Fedorov said on May 16 (at the request of the interlocutor, the name was changed. Approx. Aut.). - I don’t know how it happened, but the GAZelle driver had no chance.

In addition to eyewitnesses of the accident, there were also those who knew the deceased man personally. So, for example, on May 17, I contacted Lyudmila Lavrova, a friend of the mother of the deceased.

“He was a great guy, a caring son and a loving husband,” the woman said about the driver of the GAZelle. We still can't believe what happened. Literally a day before the tragedy, I saw him, talked to him. And then such a misfortune. For his mother, this news was a real blow.

I also managed to talk with a friend of the deceased, also a driver.

“The name of the deceased was Yevgeny,” Vitaly Rybin told me (at the request of the interlocutor, the name was changed. Author's note) in the course of personal correspondence. – Quite young still, 33 years old. A good sympathetic person, a great friend, a neat driver. Nobody expected this to happen to him. I've known him for 4 years, also a driver. Eugene himself from Penza, driving for more than 10 years, worked for himself. He left home on a flight and never returned alive. He was only 31 years old. He earned his own GAZelle, with his own labor. He left behind a wife and a daughter. We don't know when the funeral will be. Everyone is still in shock from what happened.

Death in the form of a Scania truck overtook a 33-year-old Gazelle driver at the 699th kilometer of the federal highway M-5 Ural.

The first information about the accident appeared on Tuesday, May 15, on the website of the Main Directorate of the Russian Emergencies Ministry for the Penza Region. The report indicates that on the same day at 22:20, a message about a traffic accident was received on the control panel of the on-duty rescuer of the Ministry of Emergency Situations of the Gorodishchensky district.

To find out the details, on the same day I called Anna Shupilova, the head of the information support group for the activities of the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Emergency Situations of Russia for the Penza Region.

“There was a collision of two vehicles in the Gorodishchensky district,” she said. - As a result of the traffic accident, unfortunately, there are victims. Four people, one piece of equipment were involved from the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Emergency Situations of Russia for the Penza Region to eliminate the consequences of an accident.

The next day, May 16, more detailed information was already indicated in the traffic police reports: “According to preliminary data, an accident occurred at the 699th kilometer of the Ural highway involving a GAZ-278858 car and a Scania heavy truck with a Bong semi-trailer. . To clarify this information, I contacted Yulia Kuligina, traffic police inspector for promoting road safety.

She said that, according to preliminary data, the GAZ driver, a man born in 1985, ran into a Scania. The truck was driven by an older man, born in 1961. The injuries sustained by the driver of the van were fatal. He died on the spot. Checking in progress.

This incident was actively discussed on the Internet. So, for example, on one of the public pages of the social network Vkontakte, an eyewitness to the accident published a photo from the scene. In the course of personal correspondence, he spoke about what he saw and provided a photo from the scene of the tragedy.

"Gazelle" crashed into a standing "Scania", - Igor Fedorov said on May 16 (at the request of the interlocutor, the name was changed. - Approx. Aut.). “I don’t know how it happened, but the driver of the Gazelle had no chance.”

In addition to eyewitnesses of the accident, there were also those who knew the deceased man personally. So, for example, on May 17, I contacted Lyudmila Lavrova, an acquaintance of the mother of the deceased.

“He was a great guy, a caring son and a loving husband,” a woman said about the Gazelle driver. We still can't believe what happened. Literally a day before the tragedy, I saw him, talked to him. And then such a misfortune. For his mother, this news was a real blow.

I also managed to talk with a friend of the deceased, also a driver.

“The name of the deceased was Yevgeny,” Vitaly Rybin told me (at the request of the interlocutor, the name was changed. - Approx. Aut.) During personal correspondence. - Quite young still, 33 years. A good sympathetic person, a great friend, a neat driver. Nobody expected this to happen to him. I've known him for four years, also a driver. Eugene himself from Penza, driving for more than 10 years, worked for himself. He left home on a flight and never returned alive. He was only 33 years old. He himself earned his Gazelle, with his own labor. He left behind a wife and a daughter. We don't know when the funeral will be. Everyone is still in shock from what happened.”

Varvara Ustinova

Sergey Kozlov has already traveled four times in Armenia and nearby regions. Once he left home with a camera, a tent and a backpack, with only 5,000 rubles in his pocket, and returned with a series of amazing portraits of residents of quiet Caucasian villages. Sergey shared his travel hacks and talked about shooting portraits of the inhabitants of the Caucasus.

About the winning photo

As usual, let's start with the winning photo. Tell us about a man with an infernal look who won the competition.

I also found his eyes interesting. It was my first trip and, of course, one of the strongest impressions was a visit to the Khor Virap monastery, where I took this picture. In the photo - not a bearer of religious dignity, he is an employee of the monastery complex.

Armenia, Khor Virap Monastery 2013 Photo: Sergey Kozlov

- What a mustache he has! Is this generally typical for those regions or is it one such original?

I have never seen such a mustache! Their owner, probably, has already become a local legend, and this is understandable - he has a textured appearance, many tourists took pictures of him. Arriving in Armenia again a year or two later, I handed the man a print. You should have seen these emotions, he was very surprised. Probably not many bring him photographs.

- Did you specifically choose such a background, with mysterious numbers?

This is the entrance to the church, just a column nearby; it was a very hot September day, strong shadows, and, realizing that I didn’t have much time to shoot, I chose a place with suitable lighting so as not to spoil the shot. I just asked this person to give me some time for a photo. As soon as I did everything, he immediately went about his business. Unfortunately, it was not possible to communicate, because he was always engaged in some kind of economic issues. He was distracted for just a few minutes.

About regions and grandmothers

Armenia Noradus. 2013. Photo: Sergey Kozlov

- Most of the people in the photographs show that they are not used to the camera. How do you work with models?

No. When a person's face is interesting to me, I just go up and get to know each other; if they react to me in a friendly way and the acquaintance continues, then I take pictures during the conversation. But often the interlocutor, seeing a camera in front of him, makes a passport face and spreads his arms at the seams. Of course, nothing good comes of this, so if possible I try to get some kind of reaction from a person, and while they tell me something about themselves or ask questions, at this time I press the trigger. In moments of dialogue, when a person is distracted from the camera, bright pictures are obtained.

I see a superstitious-looking Caucasian grandmother in your photographs. I would never have thought that it could be photographed so easily.

I would not say that the picture was taken easily. When I arrived in Noradus, there was a terrible autumn weather. It was raining heavily, a chilly wind blew through the raincoat. For a walk around the necropolis, the weather is generally amazing, of course. And here I am, under a leaden sky and a piercing wind, I go to a medieval cemetery. The old chapel door creaks invitingly. I went inside, and there grandmothers knit mittens, hats for sale and hide from bad weather in this broken chapel. I decided to join them so as not to stand in the cold too. At the same time, I took pictures, as far as it turned out, with a dim light inside. Later, right in the chapel, I set up a tent so that there was some kind of shelter from the rain, and began to prepare for the night. At that moment, two boys came running. Seeing the tent, they were very surprised and rushed to ask their father if it was possible to invite a Russian tourist to spend the night. So they called me into the house. As a result, we got to know the family and the next morning we went for a walk together. When tourists began to arrive and the grandmothers showed up again, with the help of a local resident, I tried to start a dialogue with them.

I asked to be translated into Armenian, that I was just looking for a textured face and I could get a good portrait. I would take a competitive picture ... It seems that the grandmothers were not very convinced. There was a moment when I literally ran after one of them. If someone took a picture of me jumping through the churchyard after my running away grandmother, then another question would be who would have made a better shot (laughs). In 2016, I returned and, taking the opportunity, passed her photographs through the neighbors. The woman was ill at that moment and did not leave the house. But with another craftswoman, whom I photographed knitting in the chapel, I was lucky to meet again and hand over the photographs.

- And how did she react?

Good. She smiled and remembered.

- Delighted, took a photo?

Yes. And, seeing the camera again, she kindly called me cholera.

Noradus 2016. Photo: Sergey Kozlov

- That's how!

Yes, it was different. And not everywhere people took pictures willingly. For example, it seemed more difficult for me to shoot in Gyumri - the reaction to the camera was sometimes quite sharp. Some of them delicately said “no” to me or simply turned around and left.

- The grandmother in the photo from Gyumri looks very friendly.

Yes, this grandmother very politely let me know that I did not belong here. I saw her near those old doors. It seems that she was waiting for relatives from the store. She did not understand Russian very well. I tried to communicate with the help of her Russian-speaking relatives, who had already arrived at that time. And he even took five frames, after which they handed me a walnut that had come from nowhere, politely waved the handle and smoothly closed the door in front of my nose.

- Still, you managed to take shots.

Yes, but I've never been sent to hell so delicately.

Armenia. Yerevan. market September 2014. Photo: Sergey Kozlov

About Caucasian hospitality and stereotypes

- Did you go on some kind of photo tour? How much did you spend on the trip?

No, there was no photo tour. Most of the time I traveled alone, mostly by hitchhiking. I made a route in advance that would be interesting and would allow me to meet the allotted time. And already on the spot there was often a company. For the entire first trip, I spent five thousand round trip, while three of them went on the road. I spent the night in a tent or with local residents, who often invited me to their place - in this respect, Armenia is absolutely amazing. Once in Karabakh, I was walking through the evening village, and a local resident came out of the first door I came across and asked: “Tourist?” - Yes, tourist. From Russia". - And, having remembered the autumn rains with a strong word, the owner immediately invited: “Come on, don’t spend the night on the street ...”

Noradus. 2016. Photo: Sergey Kozlov

- Isn't it scary to hitchhike with equipment, with backpacks every time in isolation from civilization?

No, it's not scary at all. I also hitchhiked to Nagorno-Karabakh, and nothing bad happened. There was such an indicative situation: I arrived in Stepanakert (a city in the Nagorno-Karabakh region. - ed. note), it was not the first day of the road, and I got tired of the 100-liter backpack behind my shoulders. I got off the bus, went to explore the surroundings and came across a railway station market (the Caucasian market is generally a separate holiday). One of the local old-timers, looking at me, said: “Is it hard, I guess? Leave your backpack here, no one will take it." Imagine: leaving a backpack somewhere at the Kazan railway station, for example.

Armenia, Goris, May 2017. This is a tramp. I liked his look - close, thoughtful, looking into space. I approached, asked permission, in response they handed me a glass of coffee. We took a few steps to the nearest street, sat down on a bench, talked, filmed on the go. Photo: Sergey Kozlov

- And you left?

Of course, I took money, documents, a camera from him ... And I decided to trust random acquaintances. A few hours later I came back to this spot in the city center and found my backpack, which for all this time has not interested anyone. With an understanding of one's own and others, everything is fine there.

- That is, stereotypes about gloomy and vicious highlanders are pure fiction?

The Caucasus and Transcaucasia are not limited to the so-called "unfavorable" regions, which are often heard about. This world is more diverse and, I think, friendly. I communicated with both Dagestanis and Azerbaijanis, with many people during my solo trips. Impressions are the best. There has never been any open aggression. Minor troubles arose, but extremely rarely, and everything was solved quite easily. Many people living there rejoiced, meeting a keen interest in themselves.

Armenia, Areni, October 2014. The village of Arzni is famous for its winery and the annual international wine festival. Photo: Sergey Kozlov

Armenia, Goris, May 2017. Road worker. Their brigade stood on the roadside, people during the break rejoiced at the spring sun. I approached and asked permission to take a portrait. Somewhat reluctantly, he nevertheless agreed to take some pictures. Photo: Sergey Kozlov

Armenia, Goris, May 2017. Seeing a large company of players with sharp gestures and excitement in their eyes, I could not pass by. Such “lunch breaks” can last for hours, so I had time to shoot. Photo: Sergey Kozlov