Alexandr Korol

Like, say, these people prefer Russian cuisine, and those prefer French. And I liked traveling through these worlds. They didn’t overlap, the borders weren’t blurred, and it was great. Everything was in its place. And then suddenly... Oh, and most interestingly, there was always in parallel that society, like a tempting serpent, full of “lost” people. And these “lost” people are social climbers — they’re always climbing, they don’t know, for example, about that little venue with delicious French croissants. And suddenly they find out about it, start taking pictures, posting it all over social media, and begin going there. And next time you go there, the kind, familiar grandmothers or kids with their parents who used to eat there — your neighbors — aren’t there anymore. Instead, some — excuse me, I won’t say the word — some unpleasant people show up, messy types, people of easy virtue. Of course, they’re not actually like that, but that’s what they look like, and that’s how they act. And that’s it — you no longer want to go there for a date or to grab coffee with your mom. You just don’t want to. Even though I don’t drink coffee, but you get the point. You understand what I’m trying to convey. And imagine, that’s exactly what happened — since that 2008–2009 period, when I had just started writing books and published them between 2008 and 2010, from that time to this very day, that society has swallowed everything. The same thing happened with countries. For example, in 2012, if you had flown to Indonesia, to the island of Bali, you would have seen only truly interesting people from all over the world — including from Russia and the former Soviet countries — who were genuinely fascinating, real people. Back then — not now, when it’s been shown to everyone and just anyone goes there — but back then, the people who already knew about Bali were truly unique. They were very interesting people. And most of them were Australians; there were only about two Russians there. Almost everyone was from Australia — some from Europe — but mostly Australians. And it was all so simple, clean. There were many cities and countries like that at the time, places you could travel to, and they were truly unique — and you’d never run into anyone you knew. And that’s what I mean when I say it hadn’t yet been vulgarized — it was like a separate world. But you see, the moment you start running into a neighbor from your courtyard, or a classmate, or your old schoolteacher on the island of Bali — that means it’s been vulgarized. That means it’s over. That’s mainstream.