Миша Чинков - Кауч

He lives in a tiny room, around six square meters. It includes his kitchen, wardrobe, one air mattress bedroom and a little nest for surfers. You can also find a bathroom stocked into every floor. Old posters of pumped-up naked men with big penises' en face are glued to the walls. All these details plunge me into the atmosphere of “American 90s“.

For breakfast, we have pancakes that Richard baked on a camping gas stove. Richard’s neighbor Shawn is sitting with us. Having returned from hotel night shift, he reports how busy he is. After breakfast, Richard and I walk around shiny Boston.

Richard tells me about his life eagerly. About the Polish roots of his mother and the family of like three or five siblings. About his job as a hot dog guy on “Patriots“ matches when he was fourteen, about boys he likes more than girls. Incidentally, we enter a library where Richard connects to the Internet. It’s 2015, and he has no smartphone, no tablet, no laptop. A poor hard worker he is.

In the evening, we go to a Boston Red Sox 6 6 A local baseball team game. Somebody at the entrance to the stadium sold me a ticket for twenty dollars. I borrow a twenty from Richard for a day. Richard doesn’t like professional sport, so he goes back home. He has things to do after all: like cooking breakfast, doing chores.

Instead of a comforting solitude in anticipation of a game I don’t really understand, I get into the continuation of American socialization banquet. A guy who sold me the ticket is sitting nearby. There’s his wife and another sweet couple. They are drunk as hell and ingenuously kind-hearted. They came from Rhode Island – the smallest state with a territory compared to my hometown.

– [The Man]: Where are you from, pal?

– [Me]: From Russia.

– [The Man]: Wow, Russia! Do you like baseball?

– [Me]: Not really, I see it first time.

– [The Man]: Here’s your twenty, it’s on me. I want you to have a great time and bring home some good memories.

– [Me]: Thank you, man, you’re great.

Baseball fells like an unbelievably lame kind of sport. Having enough of that even before the middle of the game, I rush out of the stadium, catch the last bus and hope I’ll be in time for the dinner.

The next day, another surfer comes in – an exchange student from Greece. He came from New Hampshire to a scientific conference. The day after, another tourist from China comes by. My last night in Boston, I spend on an air mattress with three guys. We watch “Home alone” on VHS before going to sleep. True 90s spirit.

Richard changes a dozen Facebook accounts, keeping the same photo with a shitty resolution. He would persistently write me this and that. Here’s his last message:

[Richard, transliterated]: “Zdravstuite Mika!! Nadeiusi Vi Pojivaete Horosho“ 7 7 Hi, Mika, I hope you’re doing well

I think Richard is a warm-hearted guy.

My last visit to New York coincides with the visit of the Pope. Millions of tourists gathered in the city from nearby states and countries for such occasion. Among all this, it seems impossible to find a host. Only a couple hosts out of hundreds responded to me: an LGBT-radical from Times Square neighborhood and a student Jongmyao from China. The first one suddenly changed and canceled my request the following day. The second one promised to provide a room for a couple of days and disappeared afterwards. Eventually I lost hope to contact him.

Jongmyao left his address, so I go for a preventive strike and break into his house. Having arrived in the middle of the workday, I stumble upon his parents. They don’t know English, so we speak through Google Translate. His mother explains that they “are not so big“ and I should look for a place to stay somewhere else. I realize I’m going too far with my virtue seeking for a free couch, so I bring hearty apologies and make farewells.

What was I thinking? Breaking into a house to strangers like this? What was my point? Why would I scrimp on a hundred dollars for three nights in a room on Brighton Beach? What was driving me at that moment: greed, stinginess or obsession with challenges?

In the end of the day, I stay in YMCA 8 8 YMCA is for “Young Men's Christian Association“. YMCA branches around the world are engaged in strengthening the moral and physical health of people, uniting them for socially useful activities, as well as fostering respect for universal values. guesthouse in Harlem. I am on my second tour around New Your commonplaces. Admiring its splendor, its history and at the same time terrified by its dimensions, loudness, sewer stench and never-ending scaffolds on 5th Avenue. On Friday – the day of the Pope’s visit – people are crowding the surroundings of the Central Park. I barely make my way through a crowd in a street adjacent to the park. I have a plugged nose and a stuffed ear. Seems like I caught a cold in Boston when I had morning coffee from Richard’s cup.

My remaining days in the States are filled with anguish. I want it so bad to get back to the University, make up lost time for the first term, return to the Internet lab and continue the sysadmin internship. After five years of low-skilled employment, all I want is to study, do something interesting, think with my own head.

After what seemed like half an hour upon my arrival to Sheremetyevo airport, I get a call from my grandma.

[Grandma]: “Welcome back, my darling!“

I returned to the hometown and dived into studying and work. I would pass terms, exams and course projects ahead of schedule, do some silly things in the university lab and absorb all the study books, courses and reports I could find. Eventually I changed two different jobs and found myself in an outsource company.

Outsourcing was great too. I was hired as an infrastructural engineer in a project which essentially didn’t need any infrastructure in the first place. The client was a kind of megalomaniac who believed the project would go big every minute. This project handed me a blank check to do whatever I wanted and pretend it was all about the client’s whatnot. I tested different tools which would come in handy in the future, got some bumps and bruises in a client’s sandbox, earned respect from colleagues for a bright mind chock-full of ideas.

One day, the project got closed. I jumped at the opportunity to spend my allowance in a two-weeks trip to India with only a small backpack on my shoulders. Why India? Because it’s warm there in November!

I knew nothing about India till the very moment my plane landed in Indira Gandhi International Airport in New Delhi. I only read a bunch of trivial click-bate articles during the two weeks in between buying tickets and departing from Moscow. They said it’s a hearty country, with a spicy smell on the markets and dancing people on the streets.

While in the States and Russia you push your way to a host through dozens and hundreds of idlers seeking a free couch, in India it’s all different – hosts message you first. Post your “public trip” where you state the dates of your presence in a town and get ready for a dozen invitations to stay over.

I think I’m in the beginning of the most fucked-up trip in my life.

On Friday nights, Vanya rides from Kuznetsk to Podolsk on work affairs – he assembles kitchens made in his hometown. It’s the second time Vanya gives me a ride on BlaBlaCar.

– [Vanya]: Remember Albina from the last time?

– [Me]: Yeah.

– [Vanya]: I gave her one last ride to Ryazan. She left her kid at her mother and moved to boyfriend.

– [Me]: Oh, my gosh.

– [Vanya]: Hell yeah, she’s a weird girl.

The rest of the way to Podolsk we keep silent, the music is playing in the background. Vanya allows me to play Korn and Slipknot, but then changes music anyway. Gangsta hip-hop, shanson 9 9 Russian chanson is a neologism for a musical genre covering a range of Russian songs, including city romance songs, author song performed by singer-songwriters, and criminals' songs that are based on the themes of the urban underclass and the criminal underworld. something about “sex and drugs“. His music taste aligns better with M5 highway 10 10 The Russian route M5 (also known as the Ural Highway) is a major trunk road running from Moscow to the Ural Mountains. It is part of the European route E30 and the Trans-Siberian Highway. at night.

Without having much sleep, I get out of the car on the “Shcherbinka“ railway station and arrive to Domodedovo airport in two hours. It’s going to take me twenty hours to get to Delhi from Moscow, including twelve hours transfer in Bishkek. On the “Manas Air” plane, I meet a couple from St. Petersburg, Lesha and Lena. We beguile the flight to Bishkek by talking about countries, cities and our expectations from India.

Russia and Kyrgyzstan have visa-free arrangements, so you may go outside. On my way to the passport control, my eyes catch the first Kirghiz word – “Chygoo“. It’s printed on the sign with the words “Vyhod“ and “Exit“. I wonder if there’s another odd word instead of “Enter“. In the arrival zone, a guy catches up with us and peddles an overpriced taxi ride. He sees my confusion and says with a smirk: “You shouldn’t expect any help here”. We take a “marshrutka” to the center and forget to pay. The stereo plays a disk with Russian pop-scene hits from ten years ago. October in Bishkek is sad: zero by Celsius, sloppy rain, empty squares, empty malls, local dull faces. We decide to get back to the airport after an hour of strolling. We catch the first checker we see.

– [Me]: How much to the airport?

– [the Driver]: Five hundred.

– [Me]: Four hundred.

– [the Driver]: Four hundred is too little.

– [Me]: Okay, five hundred.

On the way to the airport, I try to get the driver into conversation.

[the Driver]: “I spent a year in Moscow: worked in a taxi, lived in a flat with ten people. I had money, but I had no free time and didn’t see relatives. It got depressing, so I came back”.

We try to get some sleep on cold airport seats in vain. Having got on the plain, we curse Bishkek – and maybe the whole Kyrgyzstan – for the lack of sleep.

I think I stick to my way to the Country of Spices and Dances.

I arrange a meeting with my host Rudra to meet at the “Pitam Pura” metro station. He lives nearby. Locals help to get to the station: someone buys me a metro ticket, someone else lends me a phone to make a call. Among them, I’ve met a “white collar” guy on his way back from a business trip to Mumbai. The guy is sincerely surprised with my idea to travel around India all by myself.

– [the Guy]: Eighty percent of people here – “uneducated”.

– [Me]: At least there are no “untouchables” anymore.

Rudra has a house without number on a street without name. The neighborhood reminds of a view from the game Assassin’s Creed: curvy houses, lots of people in eastern clothes, a hustle all about stalls and trading. There’s a big cow lying on the road – I hope it’s alive and simply enjoys some rest. In a pure fucking amazement from this “Country of Spices and Dances”, I ask myself a question: “Buddy, where the hell are you?”

Rudra is the nicest of all men. He creates an impression of someone who sincerely enjoys possibility to meet people from different countries, sharing some moments of life together. He is a network engineer in an Indian corporate. Three hours by car separate Delhi and his native village. He rents a ten square meters apartment in Delhi. A bed and a bathroom are the only amenities there.