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[Alexandr Korol]

as it were, and he drops off. Then I propose it to another person, and we weren’t
even personally acquainted — he specially flew in to me, we met. That’s the one
who’s “Valery Meladze,” in quotation marks. He too says: “I can’t.” I ask: “Well,
how can that be? So what, am I to fly off alone to the other end of the world?” And
here I recall that I did have my “slacker” friend — Serafima is her name. That’s
precisely that very entity, the Petersburger. I write to her a week ago. I say: “So,
do you want to fly off to the other end of the world for a couple of years? We’ll get
citizenship, a second passport. We’ll build something, open something. You like
to work, as do I. Maybe we’ll make some kind of winery.” And she says: “Oh, hi,
Alex, that’s great, interesting, cool. We need to meet. Either you fly out to me, or
I’ll come to you, and we need to talk in person. We haven’t seen each other in a
long time.” I answer: “All right. I can’t fly to you — you fly here.” And she flies in.
So we’ve now seen each other for four days. She flies in, we’re talking. And she
says, probably on the first day or on the second. On the second day she tells me:

— Can you imagine, I was riding the Sapsan from Moscow to Petersburg. And
a woman is sitting next to me. And she says to me: “You’re a slacker. You don’t
understand at all that you’re an angel. And that you’ll have two children.”
— Listen, when was this?
— Well, a couple of months ago. In March.
— All right. So, do you understand at all what this is?
— Not really, someone just said something there. This happens to me often.
— What happens often?
— Well, often strange people will come up, say something, run off.
— Seriously? Come on, tell me.
— Here’s another case in that same month, in March. So I’m standing in Piter with
a friend outside a bar. A man comes up, grabs me by the wrist, decently dressed.
And tells me that I’ll be getting married soon, and leaves.
— So. All right. You say that you’ve often had things like this in your life. Do you
remember anything else?
— Well, the most memorable thing that I definitely remember: I was little, I was
about twelve or thirteen, walking through Petersburg with my mom and dad, a
woman comes up and says: “Do you know that your daughter is special? And do
you know at all what awaits her?” My mom remembers this story to this day.