People often ask me, "How do you stay so calm all the time?"
And honestly, I never know what to say. Maybe it’s because of my adventures. At least partly.
See, when you travel, the impossible stops feeling so... impossible. Pretty soon, you realize that even the craziest "one day" scenarios from fairy tales actually happen to you.
If you’re lucky, you come out of it with a sunnier attitude and a more philosophical view on life.
If not—well, you can always fall back on Brodsky's famous advice: "Don't leave the room, don't make that fatal mistake..."
For the longest time, I wasn’t sure how to even start telling this story.
It’s one of my absolute favorites, and a key chapter in my becoming a real traveler.
It’s been eleven years, and until now, I only ever told it out loud — usually shortened, censored, or half-forgotten.
But now it’s time to finally spill the tea on what actually happened in far-off America, back in the even-farther-off year of 2008.
The story kicks off in mid-August, in a little town called Frederick, Maryland.
There I was, at 312 East Patrick Street, sitting with a sandwich in one hand — made of that infamous chemical American bread and cheese that turns into something closer to industrial sealant once you start chewing — and a notebook in the other, trying to map out the grand finale of my three-month stay in the U.S.
For a guy whose biggest trip before that had been to Volgograd, this American adventure had already completely blown my mind (and all my expectations) to bits.
Looking back now, after a few more years and a few more countries, I realize just how hilariously naïve my plan was.
I had somehow convinced myself that, in just one week, I could visit: the Navy base in Annapolis, the White House and the Pentagon in D.C., Niagara Falls, and New York City — the Big Apple itself.
Just the travel time alone would have eaten up two or three days — never mind actually seeing anything.
But when you’re nineteen, standing half a world away from home, and your brain is sloshing around somewhere between adrenaline, whiskey, and pure stupidity, minor details like time feel like someone else’s problem.
After discussing it with my dear Alyonka (who, at the time, was still a Kalinina and not yet a Kasyanova — sorry, Sergey), we decided to go clockwise on the map, starting with the Canadian border: Niagara Falls.
We arranged a ride with my now-former coworker from the pool-building crew, and off we went in his car toward a little town in Colorado called Corning.
On the drive, John shared his... let's call it unusual philosophy about souvenirs.
According to him, most souvenirs these days are mass-produced in China anyway, so the only truly authentic thing you can steal from a country is... dirt.
That’s why he always traveled with a small glass jar, and whenever he visited a new place, he would quietly "liberate" a handful of soil.
Over the years, judging by the neatly lined-up jars at his house, John’s little hobby had already caused a measurable reduction in the total landmass of at least a dozen countries.
Bumper sticker: mirror-mirror on the wall, where is the freaking liquor store?
When we arrived in Corning, it was time to say goodbye to John, hop on a bus to Rochester, then catch another bus to Buffalo.
From there, Niagara Falls was supposed to be just a thirty-minute ride away — a quick hop on a special transfer bus for a few bucks.
The bus from Rochester to Buffalo was nearly empty, and, out of sheer boredom, we started joking around with the driver and loudly commenting on the scenery whipping by outside the windows.
Laughing and cracking jokes, we rolled into Buffalo, practically vibrating with anticipation: soon, we’d witness the jaw-dropping majesty of Niagara Falls — the roar of the water, the towering rainbows, the breathless awe in front of nature’s raw power.
I still remember how Alyonka decided to grab a chocolate bar from a vending machine at the bus station and reached into her bag for her wallet.
As one of my friends once put it, "In a woman’s handbag, even a bobcat (both cat and vehicle) can get lost," so at first, I didn’t think much of how long she was digging around in there.
But when she finally muttered, "Huh... can’t seem to find my wallet," — that’s when something clenched in my Southern Hemisphere, so to speak.
The kicker was, we'd made the brilliant decision to pool all our cash into her wallet, thinking it would be safer that way.
And now, slowly being swallowed by panic, we upended the entire contents of her bag onto the nearest bench.
No wallet.
Gone.
Vanished.
Considering Alyonka had been clutching that bag like her life depended on it the entire trip, I had to give a grudging nod of respect to the sheer craftsmanship of the local pickpockets.
But in that moment, I wasn’t thinking about respect — I was thinking that whatever we had planned for this trip had just ended.
Something completely different was about to begin.
We searched every nearby trash can, hoping that whoever snagged the wallet had just taken the cash and tossed the rest — cards, IDs, all useless without the PINs.
No luck.
The criminal underworld of Buffalo, New York, had zero sympathy for two clueless Russian tourists.
The final tally looked like something straight out of a Blok poem:
“Night. Street. Lamp. Drugstore,
Meaningless and dim light…”
Two citizens of Alexander Alexandrovich’s homeland, stranded at a bus station two states away from "home," with no working phones, no money, and no charger.
Assets: a stubborn streak, a surprising amount of optimism, and 120 emergency dollars hidden in the secret pocket of my shorts.
A single bus ticket to Baltimore?
Seventy-seven bucks. Per person.
We flagged down a cop and, grabbing him by the metaphorical button, asked for help.
He shrugged and recommended we check out some shelter for the lost and the damned.
After squeezing some intel out of him, I learned that the I-90 East highway leads straight to New York City.
In the chirpiest voice I could muster, I turned to Alyonka and said:
"Well, Kalinina... looks like we’re walking home!"
And so, we set off.
There’s something very philosophical about trudging along the side of a highway on a humid summer night on a completely different continent.
Especially when your first destination is so far away it would take a fast car eight solid hours to get there.
We walked along the shoulder, counting the stars and the cars as they zipped past us.
Maybe some of those cars were fancy limousines carrying cold-hearted, golden-haired women inside — I honestly don't remember anymore.
After about an hour and a half of this philosophical hike, a beat-up old van pulled over beside us.
In American movies, vans like that usually promise free ice cream and deliver nothing but unspeakable horrors.
But reality turned out to be far more mundane:
Behind the wheel wasn’t some greasy creep with a trench coat and chest hair — just a regular working-class American dude, with his kid riding shotgun.
After giving him the condensed version of our tragic situation, we piled into the van and got a lift — blessed, glorious lift — to the nearest gas station.
Nearby, there was a lot where a bunch of long-haul truckers were camped out.
Feeling inspired by a couple of iconic scenes from the movie “Brother 2”, I decided to go and try my luck — maybe hitch a ride east.
Apparently, Lady Luck was on her lunch break.
Or maybe she just didn’t like Russians that day.
Every single trucker, without exception, politely but firmly turned us down.
And so — back to the side of the road, back to introspective nighttime thoughts.
Bumper sticker: I don't stop when I'm tired, I stop when I'm done
After another hour of forced long-distance hiking, yet another car that was overtaking us flirtatiously blinked its turn signal and pulled over a little ahead. Our spirits lifted — naturally, we assumed it was another kind-hearted American moved by our tragic plight. In a way, we were right: this American was concerned about us, just... professionally.
Turns out it was time for us to make the acquaintance of a member of the police department.
Politely greeting us, the officer slyly asked if we were drunk. Maybe, he suggested, we’d taken something “special”? And what exactly were we doing walking alongside the highway?
We had nothing to hide, so we spilled the beans: we’re Russian tourists, someone stole our money and tickets home, and out of sheer despair and helplessness we decided to walk to New York City.
From the look on the officer’s face, I could tell he’d never heard a story quite like this one.
After a couple of clarifying questions, he gallantly invited us into his car. Alyonka, as the prettier one of the two of us, got the honor of sitting in the front seat. I got the back.
By all appearances, our road ranger had no clue what to do with us. He radioed the dispatcher, briefly explained the situation, and asked how he should proceed with two Russian students caught on the side of the road in the middle of the night. Judging by the burst of staticky laughter that came back, the dispatcher actually woke up a little hearing that. Then she double-checked if this was some kind of prank. After that, sounding more serious, she asked if the unfortunate Russians had any kind of ID.
Since our passports and visas were perfectly in order, we had nothing to fear and eagerly handed them over — not exactly itching to spend a dozen hours at the station while they figured out who we were.
The officer passed our details to dispatch, and the three of us settled into an awkward silence.
With nothing better to do, I started studying the car interior — and with some surprise noticed that there were no handles on the inside of the passenger doors, either left or right.
And considering that a tight steel mesh with a tiny window separated me from Alyonka and the driver’s seat, I suddenly realized, with a creeping unease, that the only way for me to get out was from the outside.
Not the most comforting thought when you’re sitting in a police car with a cop who still looks at you a little sideways.
However, my budding paranoia didn't have much time to bloom: the dispatcher soon confirmed that the two Russian losers were on U.S. soil completely legally, and no crimes had been registered to their names.
Feeling bolstered by the fact that we weren’t about to be arrested just yet, we tried tugging at his heartstrings and asked if he could give us a lift, at least to the state border.
The officer said he couldn't abandon his assigned patrol area — but also couldn’t just let us go, because, as it turned out, walking along the shoulder of a highway in New York State is technically illegal!
Never mind that their shoulders are wide enough to drive a tank down — dura lex, sed lex, as they say.
In short, the officer drove us to some roadside motel, let us out, and after wishing us luck in the absence of money, he drove off.
After a short debate with Alyonka, we decided to continue our pilgrimage and started walking back toward the highway exit.
We had barely a few meters to go before getting back onto the main road when suddenly there was a short burst from a siren behind us.
Our old friend, that cheeky bugger, barked at us through his loudspeaker, asking where exactly we thought we were going.
Now, the “smile and wave” tactic made famous by the penguins in “Madagascar” animation movie is often a great survival strategy when dealing with people in uniform.
So I slapped a wide-eyed, idiotically enthusiastic expression on my face and declared, “Oh, no-no-no, Officer! We weren’t planning on stepping back onto the highway at all! Heaven forbid! We just came this close purely to improve our chances of hitching a ride!”
Whether it was thanks to my Oscar-worthy performance or because he was just tired of us, the officer finally left.
Tempting fate didn’t seem like the best idea anymore, so we stayed by the side of the road and started hitchhiking.
Good thing we weren’t in the Middle East — where sticking your thumb up could’ve been interpreted... rather differently.
Let me tell you something: trying to hitchhike on a not-so-busy road at 3 a.m. on a Sunday night is a solid one star out of five experience.
The few cars that did pass by weren’t exactly lining up to pick up two random strangers standing in the middle of who-knows-where.
After about forty minutes, the grip of desperation was starting to feel less like a metaphor and more like an actual chokehold.
We were starving, exhausted, and seriously considering just laying down and dying.
Between the lingering stress and multiple adrenaline crashes, my thoughts had turned into thick, sticky molasses.
Maybe that's why it took me a moment to realize that yet another car, whizzing past us, had actually slowed down, stopped, and was now honking at us to come over.
Like two half-dead moths drawn to a porch light, we stumbled toward the car.
Behind the wheel was a young guy who looked at us with mild curiosity and asked what the hell we were doing out here at this hour.
After I gave him the abridged version — stolen money, stolen tickets, the great quest to get home — he stared at us like we’d just landed from Mars and told us to hop in; he'd give us a ride.
Thanks to my recent trauma of being stuck in the backseat of a police car, I had developed a short-term aversion to backseats in general.
So I put Alyonka in the back and climbed into the front passenger seat myself.
Despite everything we'd just been through, I still found it incredibly hard to shut up, so within five minutes I knew that our savior’s name was Phil, he was 22 years old, and he was studying to be a veterinarian at the University of Rochester.
When he heard that our plan was to get to Rochester first and then head to New York City, he gave me a skeptical look and asked if we were seriously planning to show up at the Rochester bus station in the middle of the night.
When I nodded enthusiastically, Phil immediately shot back that there was no way we could do that — and that he would take us to the house he was renting with a bunch of other students, where we could crash until morning.
The hypothetical promise of a soft bed and — dare we dream — even a shower was enough to counterbalance the very real fear of being trafficked for organs.
So we agreed, and about twenty-five minutes later, we were pulling into a suburban neighborhood.
We were walking up the path toward a house that would look instantly familiar to anyone who's ever seen even five minutes of American Pie movie: a decent two-story suburban home with that unmistakable aura of student life hanging over it.
The feeling only got stronger once we stepped inside.
Apparently, not too long ago, there had been a serious party here — the kitchen was a chaotic masterpiece of plastic cups, pizza boxes, chip bags, and an almost alarming number of empty vodka bottles.
Looking closer, I spotted, with some fondness, that it had been strawberry-flavored Nemiroff.
Catching my gaze, Phil chuckled and said that was "girl vodka," then dramatically opened the freezer and pulled out two three-liter bottles of Russian Standard, making it abundantly clear that this was the kind of vodka you could drink without losing your dignity.
While Alyonka was busy washing off the dust of American highways, I helped Phil set up the couch and an armchair for us to sleep on.
At some point, blushing a little and for some reason dropping to a whisper, he asked if we were, you know, "a couple," and whether he should make up a bed for us together.
I assured him that even though Alyonka was a "girl," she was strictly a very close "friend" — not a "girlfriend" — so separate beds it was.
Before the situation could drift into awkwardness, there was a massive crash from the staircase leading upstairs, and something heavy and shapeless tumbled all the way down to the ground floor.
That something then gradually reassembled itself into the shape of a human being who looked at me with understandable confusion.
Phil quickly explained that this was Eric, his housemate.
Eric hadn’t gone home to Wisconsin for the summer and was currently spending his days in an intense, full-time combination of procrastination and alcohol consumption.
I gave Eric the short version of our misadventures, to which he responded with a drunken hiccupped, "Cooool," and wandered off into the kitchen to suck greedily on the tap water.
Without another word, he disappeared back upstairs.
By then, the exhaustion had totally taken over, and after wishing Phil a good night, we both collapsed into a dreamless sleep, the kind you only get when you're completely, utterly wrung out.
In the morning, on the way to the bus station, Phil bought us breakfast, brushing off our half-hearted protests.
As we were pulling up near the station, he pointed at a tall building next door and said something along the lines of:
"This is exactly why I didn’t want to bring you here at night. Pretty much that whole building has turned into a brothel. And the pimps? They like to swing by the bus station, grab a coffee from the vending machines... and maybe do a little shopping for new clients or 'merchandise,' if you catch my drift..."
A little stunned by such honesty, I thanked Phil out loud — and silently thanked Lady Luck too, who apparently had returned from her lunch break and was back to watching over me like she was supposed to.
I remember standing there in the parking lot, totally at a loss for words, not knowing how to properly thank Phil for his kindness and help.
At the time, my worldview could be neatly summed up with the phrase "Homo homini lupus est" — man is a wolf to man.
I was soaked through with youthful arrogance and very much a preacher of the "every man for himself" gospel.
But in the past couple of days, I’d been forced to radically rethink that stance.
In the end, all I could manage was:
"Phil, buddy, I honestly don’t even know how to thank you."
He just smiled and said,
"You don’t need to. Just help an American if he ever ends up in trouble in Russia. Don’t leave him hanging."
And right there, in the parking lot of the Rochester bus station, New York State, without any grand speeches or ceremony, I swore to Phil that I would.
After a heartfelt goodbye to our American benefactor, we went to check the ticket prices.
There, another surprise was already lying in wait — and honestly, this one could easily qualify as a medium-sized miracle.
Next to one of the buses stood a driver.
The driver.
The same one who had taken us from Rochester to Buffalo!
He recognized us too and, with a surprised look, asked why we were standing here instead of admiring the waterfall.
For what felt like the hundredth time, I launched into the story of our misadventures — but now, after a good night's sleep and a solid breakfast, my delivery was supercharged:
I showered the tale with metaphors and hyperboles, gesticulated wildly, acted out different characters, pitched rhetorical questions with dramatic flair, and sprinkled circular narrative references left, right, and center, whether they made sense or not.
After listening to my drama-soaked monologue, the driver gave a brief, stunned assessment.
In the politest version, it went something like:
"Man, what a mess. Some folks really do catch all the bad luck."
And then he left.
Alyonka and I exchanged glances, each thinking the same thing: all my theatrical effort had been for nothing.
But life already had another twist loaded into the chamber.
A few minutes later, the driver came back — this time accompanied by an older man in a uniform, clearly some kind of station administrator.
The old man gave us a stern once-over from under his bushy eyebrows and asked, briskly:
"These two?"
After a satisfied nod from the driver, they led us over to one of the buses.
The white-haired officer turned to the driver already sitting behind the wheel and said:
"These two are riding to New York for free."
Then he tipped his cap to us, spun neatly on his heel, and marched back into the terminal building.
In a state of near-moral collapse, I vaguely remember thanking somebody — anybody — while Alyonka practically shoved me into a seat.
I remember sitting there, repeating to myself that this simply couldn't be happening.
That things like this just don't happen.
But there it was — stubbornly, undeniably real.
The entire worldview I'd so carefully built was coming apart at the seams.
There was just too much kindness from strangers, too much simple human warmth and care for it to hold up.
Too much to rethink in too short a time.
As with most free things in life, this ride came with a catch.
Instead of taking the shortest route to New York, the bus zigzagged like a rabbit leading hunters away from its burrow.
The trip that should’ve taken five or six hours stretched out into a grueling fourteen.
During one of the stops, I went to grab some food for Alyonka and myself, and one of our fellow passengers — a Mexican guy — tagged along.
All the way from the bus to the snack bar, standing in line, and back again, he sang the praises of Niagara Falls like a nightingale:
"Eeeeh, hombre! You have no idea how beautiful it is. It's huge, the water just roars! So many rainbows! I'm telling you, amigo, if there’s a super-romantic place on this planet, that’s the one..."
The universe really does have a wicked sense of humor.
But everything ends eventually — and finally, finally, we made it to the Big Apple.
We had zero desire to take a bite or admire the sights: the second day of our Odyssey was coming to a close, and we still had to get to Baltimore — and then to Frederick.
At that point, we didn’t even know who had less patience for tears: Moscow or New York.
Here, they just brushed off our international student IDs, which — at least in theory — were supposed to get us a discount.
By then, I had ninety dollars left in my pocket.
Even that modest fortune had to be bled dry: sixty bucks for two tickets to Baltimore.
Which meant we’d be arriving there in the middle of the night.
It was 2008.
Back then, Baltimore ranked either second or third on the list of America’s most crime-ridden cities.
And even though our sense of danger had become pretty numb over the past forty-eight hours, we boarded the bus with heavy hearts.
Let me tell you: taking a nighttime scenic tour of Baltimore’s industrial areas is something you should get paid extra for.
A grim forest of smokestacks, blast furnaces, and filthy warehouses stretched in every direction.
Add heaps of industrial and regular garbage, a nearly 100% Black population, and shady characters shouting things like:
"Hey kid! Where ya rushin'? Come over here, buy some hash!"
You’ll understand why we bolted into the bus station like two panicked wild boars and made a beeline straight for the ticket counter.
And that’s where a little fiasco was waiting for us.
One ticket to Frederick cost sixteen dollars.
I had thirty.
Our attempts to soften the ticket lady’s heart crashed and burned spectacularly — she coolly advised us to either cough up thirty-two bucks or stop holding up the line.
Our bus was leaving in seven minutes.
The next one wouldn’t be until morning.
Spending another night god-knows-where... no, scratch that — spending the night at the Baltimore bus station wasn’t something either of us could stomach.
And right then, my brain — flailing around in a tsunami of panic — dredged up a simple idea.
See, I'd been guarding our remaining money like a fierce matron watching over a pretty maid: tucked in my shirt’s breast pocket, where any would-be thief would have to strangle me and rip off the whole pocket to get at it.
In all that vigilant paranoia, I’d completely forgotten that — hello! — I had a wallet too.
And inside it, peacefully nestled, were a few forgotten dollars.
I let out some kind of guttural, primitive whoop of joy and, ignoring Alyonka’s bewildered look, sprinted to the counter, shoving aside half-asleep customers like bowling pins.
I slapped my crumpled bills onto the counter with the proud ferocity of a conquistador laying claim to new land.
After an Oscar-worthy pause, the cashier finally asked:
"So... where you headed?"
And that’s when it hit me: blinded by the ecstasy of financial triumph, I had completely forgotten to say where we needed to go.
"Frederick," I breathed out, savoring the name like the sweetest word in the English language.
Mademoiselle Ticket Lady took her sweet time processing our purchase, but finally, finally, we clutched our two precious tickets in hand.
Meanwhile, the clock showed 0 hours 0 minutes till departure.
And just to drive the point home, we heard the rumble of a bus pulling away outside.
I wasn’t mentally prepared for another gut-punch from fate.
I shot out of the gate like a bullet and — without thinking — planted myself right in front of the departing bus, arms outstretched like some crazed traffic barrier, silently pleading:
"Either stop or run me over."
The bus — all gleaming chrome and polished glass — clearly had a driver who didn’t want to spend his evening scraping my "inner world" off the bumper.
He slammed on the brakes and, looking at me the way Lenin probably looked at the bourgeoisie, launched into a tirade that definitely wouldn’t qualify as "refined speech."
I silently flashed the tickets and shrugged: what can you do, my man, duty calls.
Grumbling and shaking his head at the madness of humanity, the driver opened the door, and Alyonka — who’d just caught up with my impromptu performance — and I clambered into the welcoming belly of our final bus for this saga.
An hour later, under the dim light of pre-dawn, we stumbled off the bus at the station in Frederick.
Running purely on autopilot, we dragged ourselves home.
After everything we'd been through, the little streets of this sleepy American town felt as familiar and dear as the streets of Lipetsk.
Bumper sticker: I have a lot of proof that the world is conspiring to make me happy
Once we had eaten, caught up on sleep, and retold our adventures a few times over, Alyonka decided she'd had enough of America. She changed her flight date and headed back to her beloved birches and aspens.
I, however, decided to stay until the end, flying out as originally planned — on September 2nd.
The time I had left, I spent doing one of my favorite things: wandering aimlessly around the city, deep in thought. It was almost time to head home, and I still couldn’t quite believe I was actually here. In that America — the one I had read so much about, the one I had seen a thousand times in movies.
It might sound cliché, but those three months had flown by with indecent speed. People, places, events — there was so much of everything, and it was all wildly different. From the downright awful to the absolutely breathtaking.
And as I checked my luggage one last time, a piercing thought hit me: I didn’t want to come here for just three months. I wanted to stay for five years.
One of the most atmospheric final touches of this whole trip was my bus ride to the New York airport.
Back in the day, I’d worn out my VHS copy of “Brother 2”.
Sure, many criticize Alexey Balabanov's film for pandering to fans by painting Danila as a flawless hero — but I loved it all the same. Not least because of its divine soundtrack.
Which is why I nearly howled with joy when, just as we were pulling out of New York, with my music player clinging to its last bit of life, I heard that familiar intro. And then Lyoha and Shura from B-2 belted out: “Bolshie goroda…”
Even now, it still gives me chills.
Looking back, I realize this trip became my personal "vaccine against the fear" of traveling.
It made it crystal clear: the world is full of amazing people; there are a billion ways to travel.
If you plan things right, you can go anywhere, for however long you want.
And the memories you bring back — those will stay with you forever, turning into epic stories you'll later share with friends and family.
And when you see their eyes light up with excitement and just a hint of envy, you'll know it was all worth it.
And you'll start planning the next trip.
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