I'm just a middle-of-the-road man.

[le-garcon-valerique]

A review on the book “Why Your Twenties Matter – and How to Make the Most of Them Now”

Couple of weeks ago I was suggested reading a book by my friend. She found the book tremendously helpful and worthwhile to read. At the time I was in search of some decent literature which had to satisfy my loaning for food for thought. The book was written by a psychotherapist who worked a lot with young people at the age between twenty and thirty. She collected a lot of material which describes different experiences, problems and wishes her young patience. Also the book was supposed to give plenty of recommendations and helpful advises for readers.

I started reading it being at road police station in the middle of buying a car. I knew that it would be a long day because of our bureaucracy so I had taken the book with me. Not in vain! I managed to read a few dozens of pages waiting in a queue.

The book consists of 3 chapters: the job, the love and mind and body. Every chapter describes different stories of young people which suspiciously end up happily. The more I read the more I started feeling despair. The point is that: the author insists on active work in getting quality education and making first steps in career between 20 and 30 years because after 30 it becomes way more difficult. That was the reason of my despair because I’m already 30 and I still don’t have clear aim in my career or to say better I don’t have any career at all. But nevertheless I went on reading it.

Fortunately, I found some stories that resembled my life so it gave me some hope. There were a few young people who despite being rather intelligent didn’t manage to find their path. ‘So, I am not alone’ - I thought. It inspired me a little bit. After all, I’m not the worst person in building a career in the world.

Part two ‘the love’ describes problems of finding a partner in life. As it doesn’t concern me at all I skipped this chapter and moved right to the part three “mind and body”. Again there were some personal stories that proves that the age between twenty and thirty is extremely important for formation of our brain and importance of formation right neural connections. Again I felt regret that I was over this period of life but after thinking of this point thoroughly I concluded a surprising thought. I asked myself: “If I was able to come back to my twenties, would I live my life differently?” And the answer shocked me: “No!” I’m absolutely sure that I live my live wisely maybe except for my career faults but even them I may consider as experience rather than faults.

By and large I didn’t like that book. Comparing to ones that I read on a daily basis this one is pretty far-fetched and oriented to mainstream that never attracts me. But I don’t regret reading it as I’ve found something to ponder over.

[le-garcon-valerique]

Drinking in Moscow. Part one

I utterly admire books about brands and their history. One of such books was “Grinding It Out: The Making of McDonald's” by Ray Kroc – the history of McDonald’s. I was impressed by that book so much that I decided to work in the field of fast-food. It was at fifth grade of University. Unfortunately at the time we didn’t have McDonald’s restaurants so I went to work at KFC which wasn’t the most pleasant experience in my life.

One year later after graduation I’d been reading any book I could find on the topic of coffee and I came across the book by Howard Schultz, co-founder of Sturbucks - Pour Your Heart Into It: How Starbucks Built a Company One Cup at a Time. Of course I had known about Starbucks before but only some common facts. But having started reading it I was astonished by that story. Author would laud the history, the mission and what’s more important, the taste of Starbucks coffee. I immersed in reading of the book, so interesting it was. And eventually I wanted to drink that illustrious Starbucks coffee!

I had to wait for several years to get a chance to drink that so well-known drink. It was in Yekaterinburg in 2018.  Sadly, I didn’t have much time and leisure to taste all of their drinks so I had to choose only one cup. I went for Americano as I would drink mostly black coffee then. I bought a huge cup of Americano and made a sip. My first thought was “It’s just ordinary coffee”. There was nothing special about it, maybe only the price which was quite high comparing to other coffee-houses. So my first try of Starbucks was a completely fail.

In Summer of 2019 I was going to Moscow for a week. I had made a choice of a  preferable drink long before setting off. This time it would be cappuccino. When I landed the weather in Moscow was terrible. It was raining and windy. I didn’t expect it after a heatwave in Krasnoyarsk.  The only hope was for a big cup of hot coffee what had to heat my body and inspire hope in the bright future. I got on Aeroexpress and after forty minutes was walking in some moll near Kievsky Railstation trying to buy trousers as I hadn’t taken any with me (please don’t think that I was half-naked, I was wearing shorts). When I was buying trousers at Zara I asked a young lady cashier where I could find nearby Starbucks. She kindly replied that there were couple of them near the shop and I ran directly to one of them.

I got used to coffee-houses in the center of Krasnoyarsk have beautiful view on streets but that one didn’t. To my surprise I found only two visitors when I came in. Only two at 10 am on Friday in the center of Moscow! I was perplexed. But who cares, I was finally at Starbucks! I ordered a big cup of cappuccino costing 300 rub. A cashier asked my name to write it on a paper cup but I demanded coffee in a cup! I hate drinking coffee from paper cups! It’s not eco-friendly and spoils taste. As usual I asked a barista to make it hotter but that guy made almost boiling cappuccino. I took my order, took a seat at the window though the view wasn’t picturesque at all . Having made a gulp I immediately missed sweet and precious Academia Coffee and its impeccable cappuccino. Starbucks cappuccino was sucks!!! Burnt unpleasant taste  at the price of 2 cups at Academia. I was so disappointed! Everything was ruined. All hopes, wishes and ideals. It turned out that all the hype about Starbucks was just a lie, dirty lie! I’b been craving for that for so many years but it was just empty words.

Though I believe that it wasn’t the best the can do. Maybe it was just a pure chance but I didn’t give them a second try. In my opinion such a huge international company which is expected to produce an excellent product doesn’t have any chance to make such lousy coffee. Afterwards I interrogate some of my acquaintances who tried Starbucks in different countries and their answers were quite different but nobody reported about unblemished quality of the product.

If it had been the only cup of coffee in Moscow I would have thought that poor residents of Moscow don’t have coffee at all but fortunately they do have. About that I’ll tell you in the next part of this coffee story. To be continued…

[le-garcon-valerique]

Coffee and cigarettes

This story begins in the beginning of 2016 when I started working at the tobacco storehouse. In the first place I considered that job as temporary but as a result I’d been working there for almost 10 months by which I had broken my personal record of having been employed at a certain place.

Basically, it wasn’t just the tobacco storehouse. There were also coffee and tea there, pretty big range of that so I was able to satisfy passion for coffee.  The only one thing we didn’t have at our storehouse was undisputed winner among all sorts of condensed milk producers - “Rogachev” from Belarus.

By and large my job wasn’t difficult because the weight of a typical box of cigarettes is just 13 kg which is not heavy for a healthy young man. Sometimes we didn’t have any work to do for hours so I was free to do anything I wanted: lying on a table, reading a book or just sitting and drinking coffee. My colleagues usually spent their leisure playing cards. Throughout my tenure of employment at the storehouse they must have played tens thousands of sets.

My first daily cup of coffee usually was before we started working. I usually came to the job at 8.15 and we had some free time to get ready for work. Guys sometimes even managed to play couple of sets. While they were playing I poured a cup of mild velvet coffee “Egoiste Private” in my red “Nescafe” cup, put couple spoons of sugar and savoured the beginning of my coffee day. All the time “Egoiste Private” was my favourite brand of coffee. Unlike others sorts of “Egoiste”, “Private” has very special mild taste absolutely incomparable with downscale sorts like Nescafe or Jacobs. Besides, I always drank it black, without any as it would be unnecessary. After that I would switch over to work such as loading boxes of cigarettes on a truck.

As I recall, the weather when I started working was freezing. It had been like that for several weeks. I would move on a truck from one shop to another every morning unloading boxes of cigarettes. Usually it took about one hour and after that we would return to our storehouse. Having worked hard, I deserved a hot cup of coffee. Of course, after working in such cold weather , the taste was impeccable and unique. Sometimes I would buy cookies or found them laid on our microwave  which meant that somebody else had already bought them. Though the job wasn’t cushy I enjoyed the atmosphere of breezy loadres especially knowing that I wouldn’t stay there for a long time.

However, weeks were passing by and I didn’t want to leave the storehouse. I had an idea of getting a teacher’s position in the autumn so there wasn’t need to jump the gun. At the time I found a remarkable complement to my coffee ceremony. It was “Rogachev”, the best condenced milk I’ve ever tried. An emperor among other producers. One and only. “Rogachev” is a Belorussian brand while Belorussian goods are said to be of high quality. “Rogachev” is an illustrative example of that high quality. I didn’t even have to add it to “Egoiste Private” as “Rogachev” could turn even lousy Nescafe into milky sweet ambrosia. Just try it and the brand new world of condensed milk will be open for you! Also, sometimes I added “Rogachev” to usual black tea and it turned it into amazing sweet milky drink. Though I’ve never been an admirer of tea, I always relished it with “Rogachev”.

By the end of spring working conditions had changed. It became warm and there wasn’t any necessity to hide from the frost  in the changing room where we had spent the whole winter during our leisure time. When I had some free time, I could make a cup of coffee and make myself comfortable right on the boxes of cigarettes. Sometimes after a coffee ceremony I could take a nap exactly on those boxes. Then I completely lost any interest to work at school but I didn’t want to work at the storehouse forever.

In July I took a month’s holiday and when I came back I started thinking of my future plans. I would put a wooden chair right beside the gate of the storehouse and drink coffee there sitting on the chair. I would reflect on possible options for me and one of them was to get a license for driving some digging machine, say, an excavator or a bulldozer.

In the middle of October I filled an application for the dismissal so as to start my training as an excavator driver in the beginning of November. It was a magnificent autumn time. I would stil drink coffee on the chair at the storehouse’s gate wearing a coat as it was chilly. I still remember some of those days when there was the first snow. To observe it holding a cup of black hot coffee is amazing indeed. At that moment I could experience striking serenity and being in present moment. Writing these lines I’m reminiscing aboute those days and I wonder if I should have stayed there for some more months. Although specifics of that jib didn’t fit me, I enjoyed cheerful people around me and solitude moments I had.

To summarise everything I’ve written I may say that even with its pros and cons, it was one of the best jobs I’ve ever had. In spite of some downsides I’ll remember that storehouse job with nostalgia unlike some other jobs like cursed Alfa-bank or damned Megafon. I wonder what I would say if I was asked to work at the storehouse again.

[le-garcon-valerique]

Black coffee with sugar

This is one of my earliest recollections connected to coffee. I was a schoolboy  of 6th or 7th grade, don’t remember exactly. It was a usual evening, nothing special. I was doing something at my house when special idea occurred to me. I had decided to make a cup of coffee. Suddenly, at that very moment I felt some kind of such strong inspiration! As if it was not just a cup of usual instant coffee but something much more significant. I can’t explain it, it’s beyond my understanding but still, sometimes when I’m tired of work an idea of a cup of coffee brings me some kind of relief.

Back to the story. So, I made a cup of regular instant coffee and put some sugar, laid on a couch and started savouring. Writing these lines I’m reminiscing  about that special drink which I drank thousands of times.

Personally, black coffee with sugar creates some special atmosphere. I was growing in 1990s , absolutely new time for our country. At the time one of the up-to-date goods was coffee. The most prominent brand of those 1990s coffee times was Nescafe brand. I still remember many of TV commercials where people brewed up Nescafe in red cups. I was dreaming of having such a cup too. My grandma would buy Nescafe tins. As for me, Nescafe is currently one of the shittiest swill I can only imagine but it didn’t use to be at the time. There was entire era of black coffee with sugar when I worked as a loader at a storehouse of cigarettes, but it’s another story.

[le-garcon-valerique]

Vova’s cofee

I have a buddy named Vova. Vova is a very shady guy. He and his father are sort of businessmen. Partnership I’d say. But it’s not the point. Vova has got a dacha in horticultural establishment “Chernobylets”. I and other buddies of mine sometimes visit that dacha and barbecue there. One day during such a dinner party after we had eaten kebab we switched over to drinks. There was a can of coffee “Bushido”- Japanese brand which is produced in Switzerland. It brought back memories from my childhood of one day when my grandma came from a market with bags full of products. One of those products was as my grandma put it “very expensive and upscale coffee”. I didn’t like it then, maybe because at that time I knew nothing about reliable Japanese cars and Karate.

But when I was at Vova’s dacha I appreciated  the taste of “Bushido” deeply.  It was mild black coffee, quite sugary impeccable and moreish. Black like night and tasty as God’s ambrosia. I had drunk it taking little sips and nibbling biscuit “Ubileynoe”. I still have a very vivid recollection ingrained in my memory. No wonder, that that coffee party triggered off my addiction to that bleeding coffee “Bushido”.

[le-garcon-valerique]

From Japan with love.

I want to share my memories about my first car I owned. The car that brings back different feelings: nostalgia, warmth, a bit of disappointment. The car I will always remember as my first one. It is said that the first love is unforgettable. Personally, I can’t choose from my experience which of my loves was the first. But it’s absolutely obvious that my first automobile love was Nissan Sunny 1998 model year.

It was the beginning of December 2013, one of the strangest seasons within my recollection. There wasn’t snow at all! At the time I was busy searching for a car to buy. This objective was pretty complex as I had a limited budget and had no idea which car I wanted to buy. I talked to many acquaintances who had cars but usually their pieces of advice contradicted to each other.  I was perplexed by that searching and was about losing hope to buy a decent car when all of a sudden something remarkable came up.

At the time I attended the boxing club it turned out that one guy who came only on Fridays was a car reseller. When he listened to my talk with other guy in the locker room, he mentioned that he had one car that could fit my budget. I took his contact and arranged a meeting at the automarket of Krasnoyarsk. The idea of buying a car from a guy know seemed to me pretty safe and the rest of that day I was quite elated. When scheduled day had come I took one so-called autoexpert with me to look at the car. Only after a few months I realized that his knowledge of cars wasn’t as profound as he claimed to be.

When I saw the car at the first time I felt tender feeling. There was something special about that car. Something homey and cozy. But technical state was far from being satisfactory. Nissan Sunny had been damaged in a couple of accidents and then was repaired. State of suspension had been awful but I found it only after couple of months at car service center. Cabin was very dirty and needed dry-cleaning desperately. Nevertheless, my warm feeling hadn’t evaporated. I still felt warmth to the car, maybe because it was Japanese and I always dreamed of a Japanese car. So I bought it. With hindsight I can say that it wasn’t the best purchase of my life but I have no regrets about it.

Right after buying, it turned out that a battery was almost dead so I and my acquaintance got into the car and went to buy a new one. He sat behind the wheel as didn’t trust my drivers skills. Not without a cause. At the time I was just a beginner in driving and it took a few months to get use to it. So we are driving, my comrade is enjoying driving with automatic transmission after his car with mechanic one and I’m savouring driving my own car. My own Japanese car! Though it was 15 year-old car but way  better lousy LADAs many young guys start from. I felt like I was dreaming. I couldn’t believe it was happening. It’s so pleasant to recall it even after almost six years.

After buying the battery we celebrated having eaten shaurma with coke and went back the automarket where my pal parked his old BMW. After his leaving I was on my own and had to get home alone, first time in my life. I passed that test though I was nervous and uptight during my journey home.

For the next couple of months I’d been enjoying that auto honeymoon. I bought a new stereo system and delighted in listening to electromusic. I still remember the feeling of freedom when I could go wherever I wanted at any time, even at night as I wasn’t dependent on public transport anymore.

After a few months my rapture of having Nissan started dissipating. From time to time I had to do financial injections to have it fixed. Once after a detailed revision a service station charged me 17 000 rub for suspension repair. It was a bit less than my month’s salary at Megafon at the time. Surprisingly, I paid willingly hoping that my car would be better after it. But it hadn’t become better. It still was an old rusty bucket that needed changing parts once in a while.

My disillusionment of the vehicle would particularly increase after driving in my friend’s Toyota Corolla. After my Nissan I felt like I was driving Mercedes, so comfortable it was. What’s more, mu buddy didn’t spend any money on maintenance as his car was as reliable as AK-47.

In Autumn of 2014 I was forced by my family to buy a newer car. Though I resisted and didn’t want to take money I had no choice. My family needed better car to drive my grandparents to a dacha and to carry building materials for the house. Without thinking twice I decided to buy Toyota but it’s another story.

At present, after 5 years of that purchase I have only warm recollection of Nissan Sunny. Despite having technical snags with that, it was a convenient car. In comparison with my last car, Renault, Nissan had some charm and charisma. As if Japanese producers put their soul into it. Not like many soulless contemporary cars. If I had an opportunity to  buy such a car in good condition now, I would seriously consider it.