The earliest evidence of human presence in what is now Tuscany dates back to the Lower Paleolithic era. The oldest known human inhabitant of this region was Homo Heidelbergensis, whose stone tools have been unearthed in great numbers in the Valle dell’Arno and the coastal areas around Livorno. Traces of his presence have also been found in Garfagnana, Versilia, and Lunigiana.
Everyone has their own relationship with business trips. Some people sigh wearily as they pack for yet another one; others race around the house like overexcited puppies, quietly whimpering with joy.
If you asked me which of these two extremes I belong to, I’m definitely closer to the second.
And the fact that this particular trip was taking me not just anywhere, but to my beloved Italy, made even the idea of complaining utterly ridiculous.
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The original plan was for three of us to go: two professional welders and me, acting as the interpreter. But during the paperwork stage, it turned out that one of the welders couldn’t make it — he had already scheduled his vacation.
And, of course, when you’ve prepaid for a relaxing week in Gelendzhik, who the hell needs some scruffy trip to Italy, right?
So, it ended up being just me and Kolya — a man in his early fifties who had never, not once, ventured beyond the borders of Mother Russia.
He was buzzing with excitement at the new adventure, although he was also a little nervous.
I, on the other hand, was buzzing with considerably less joy and a lot more anxiety.
My fevered imagination conjured up terrifying visions of just how clumsy, helpless, and hopeless he’d be abroad, and how much hand-holding I’d have to do.
However, as soon as we arrived at the airport, it became clear that Kolya, though inexperienced, was no fool.
With just a few quick explanations from me, he breezed through passport control with a well-placed smile, got his luggage checked without a hitch, and even resisted the lures of the flashy duty-free traps like a seasoned traveler.
In short — the man was a champ.
Our flight was set with a layover in Munich.
I had passed through that airport a few times before and knew that with nearly three hours between flights, we’d have the perfect window to hit up a little café and heroically tackle a couple of glasses of quality German beer.
Kolya was initially thrown off by this turn of events — after all, weren't we on a business trip? Wasn’t this supposed to be serious business?
And yet, here we were: kicking back with beers and a giant salty pretzel, chatting about life as if we had all the time in the world.
Luckily, the fine German hops worked their magic pretty quickly.
By the second glass, Kolya was laughing deep from his gut and half-jokingly pondering aloud whether he should apply for political asylum right then and there.
Italy, as always, did not disappoint when it came to first impressions.
From the flawless, cloudless weather to the taxi driver holding a sign with our surnames (which he kept flipping and twirling in his hands while humming a tune known only to him), it felt like we had landed in a dream.
We quickly loaded up into the taxi and headed out toward our hotel.
It was going to be a decent drive, but the driver's chatter and the rolling landscapes outside made the time fly.
You see, we were headed to Siena — a small town with about 50,000 residents.
Small, yes — but planted right in the heart of Tuscany, birthplace of some of the most celebrated wines on the planet. Like the legendary Chianti.
The taxi driver, it turned out, was a passionate soul.
As soon as he found out I spoke Italian, he launched into a full-blown wine-gastronomy-terroir monologue.
I learned a surprising amount about the lives and struggles of various grape varieties.
Apparently, some of the top vineyards have their visiting schedules booked out years in advance — filled with Tom Cruises, Barbra Streisands, Timberlakes, and Ronaldos of the world.
It felt less like a car ride and more like a guided tour of an art gallery — only instead of paintings, the driver pointed to hillsides and raved about the shades, undertones, and half-tones of the finest wines Italy had to offer (his words, not mine).
The hotel we picked wasn’t actually in Siena proper, but tucked away in a tiny village nearby.
It stood there like a lone outpost of glass-and-concrete urbanism amid a sea of pure pastoral bliss — which probably explained why it tried to hide itself shyly among the vineyards.
Still, despite its oddball presence, it had its charms: a sauna, a gym, and a sleek outdoor pool.
There was something delightfully sybaritic about it — after a day’s work, to lazily melt into a lounge chair, sip on some local wine, and occasionally flop into the pool to drift slow, lazy circles across the water.
Our commutes quickly settled into a simple, comforting routine.
Every morning, a taxi would pick us up and ferry us off to the factory.
The drivers changed daily, which meant we had to keep hitting "play" on the same little synopsis: who we were and where we came from.
Without fail, every driver, upon hearing that we hailed from a "small" town of around 500,000 people, would clutch their head with one hand (the other still on the wheel) and dramatically cry out to the heavens:
"Mamma mia! Madonna santissima! Half a million — and that’s ‘small’!? That’s nearly a quarter of all Tuscany! We can’t even scrape together 400,000 in Florence! You people… you come from a big country!"
Once the suitably flabbergasted driver deposited us at the factory gates, we’d be briskly ushered onto the brazing floor — the place where we were to learn the fine art of welding copper and aluminum together.
As the experts explained, when you connect these two metals, you create what’s called a "galvanic couple."
Without diving too deep into the chemistry, let's just say: copper and aluminum do not get along.
They oxidize each other with gleeful malice, and stopping this process requires special soldering techniques.
Complicating things further, copper melts at a scorching 1085°C, while aluminum gives up at a mere 660°C.
Balancing the two is like orchestrating a high-stakes tango — but with acetylene torches.
Enter Alberto: the factory’s master solderer, and unofficial guardian of every imaginable fridge repair.
Basically, a man as capable as a Shiva with eight arms.
The original plan was simple: Kolya would learn, and I would "facilitate intercultural communication."
But Kolya turned out to be a terrible student in the best possible way — he grasped the concept immediately, mastered the nuances in no time, and started cranking out one flawless welded joint after another, like a machine.
He asked exactly two questions. One about the weather, one about the local wine.
Soon enough, they set up an impromptu workbench for him right on the assembly line and said, "Just keep going until you’re tired."
Poor souls. They had no idea.
Kolya is stubborn like… like alkaline acid. Like Soviet-era brilliant green antiseptic.
He tweaked the torch, experimented with different techniques, soldered standing up, sitting down — short of welding mid-air, he tried it all.
Alberto couldn’t stop showering him with praise, clicking his tongue approvingly every time he inspected Kolya’s work.
Riding the wave of my compatriot’s triumphant success, I quietly begged for a crash course myself.
For the first time in my life, I held a torch and solder in my hands.
To avoid ruining Kolya’s winning streak, I practiced on a separate stand.
Out of fifteen welds, twelve were deemed up to full factory standards by Alberto himself.
He even said that if I ever got bored of translating, with a little training I could easily pivot to a career in soldering.
Given that this was my first day, my ego inflated to the size of Machu Picchu and briefly blocked out the sun.
At the end of the shift, when they checked the refrigerators Kolya had graced with his handiwork, the final tally stood at:
2 defects out of 307 welds.
Show-off.
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After work, we decided it was time to get better acquainted with Siena.
While we roamed around, Kolya was snapping pictures of practically every building, eagerly asking me to take photos of him too, and peppering me with a flood of questions.
I was pleasantly surprised by his behavior, since it didn’t quite fit the mold of a Soviet-raised guy on his first-ever trip to Europe.
At one point, he playfully confessed that he had a secret passion... architecture.
And the older, the better.
In that case, he couldn’t have landed in a better city for his very first business trip.
According to official sources, the first settlement where Siena now stands dates all the way back to the 9th–5th centuries BC, during the Etruscan era.
And the first written mention of the city appears in manuscripts from the 70s. Not the 1970s, and not even the 970s — just... the 70s. As in, year 70 AD.
So when it came to the "breath of the ages," Siena had it in spades.
Being passionate about architecture and not visiting a place like this would be like flying to a coffee plantation somewhere in Ethiopia or El Salvador — and settling for instant coffee.
An unforgivable, indelible shame, basically.
Wandering through the city, weaving our way along those intoxicatingly crooked and narrow cobblestone streets, you couldn’t help but overhear the chatter of tourists who had come either solo or in groups.
With Siena’s own population barely brushing 50,000 (half of them students), the city welcomes around 180,000 to 200,000 tourists every year.
After a long stroll, Kolya and I fully understood why.
For such a modestly sized place, Siena is absolutely stuffed to the brim with history.
Everywhere you turn, you hear guides explaining things like:
"This town hall took quite a while to build — from 1297 to 1310. That tower over there? Wrapped up in 1348. And this library? Practically a newborn — founded in a mere 1495."
Every Sienese resident will proudly tell you that the entire impeccably preserved city center still breathes the air of the Middle Ages.
Any sort of remodeling, even just touching up the interior, is strictly forbidden to protect the cultural heritage.
If something must be done, it requires permission from a mountain of different authorities.
And rightly so — when you're valuable enough to be under UNESCO protection, no matter how famous the interior designer, no one's allowed to so much as repaint a wall.
Pretty much every road in Siena leads you to Piazza del Campo, the square that hosts the famous Palio horse race twice a year.
Ten riders compete, completing three laps around the square — roughly a kilometer in total.
They race on behalf of the city’s 17 contrade — districts — each with its own proud symbol, vibrant heraldry, and rich history.
Ten districts are chosen by lottery; the rest cheer on their champions and boo the competition.
The goal, obviously, is to cross the finish line first.
Fun fact: it's not uncommon for jockeys to tumble off their horses during sharp turns — but the horse keeps running.
There have been cases where a riderless horse crossed the finish line first.
Victory was still counted, and all the glory and prize money went to the horse, while the unlucky jockey got nothing but teasing and side-eyes.
Unfortunately, we didn’t get to see the race ourselves — we arrived smack in the middle of the gap between the two annual Palio events.
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The story of the Palio was destined to have an unexpected sequel.
The next day, while Kolya was whistling some Slavic folk tune under his breath and honing his soldering skills, Alberto and I were deep in a good old life chat.
When the conversation touched on the horse races, my Italian mentor lit up like a bonfire and confessed that, during one of the Palios, he had served as an assistant to one of the jockeys.
At some point, the excitement around him reached such a fever pitch that he couldn't help himself — he started running alongside the horses, just to let his emotions explode outward.
When I laughed in disbelief, he whipped out a YouTube video to prove it.
And sure enough, there he was — or at least someone who looked uncannily like him — tearing after a pack of madly galloping horses at full sprint.
After I clicked my tongue in admiration, Alberto rolled up the sleeve of his T-shirt to reveal a tattoo of a rearing ram — the proud symbol of his contrada.
In response, I grinned, hiked my own shirt high, and showed him the ram inked on my shoulder blade.
If there was ever a way to become blood brothers in under a second — that was it.
Alberto let out an inhuman howl of delight and yanked me by the arm across the shop floor to his colleagues.
Beaming like a supernova, he dragged me over and barked, "Show them!"
During the grand reveal, the enthusiastic remarks from his buddies were completely drowned out by the whistles and excited shouts from the girls in the quality control department nearby.
Summing up their reactions: they weren’t politely asking if I had any more tattoos — they were demanding a full inspection. And if there weren’t more? Well, they still wanted the show.
After a workday packed with so many unexpected twists, my plan for the evening was simple:
Stay put in the hotel until morning.
Specifically, I intended to create my own private Bermuda Triangle — bar, sun lounger, pool — and happily disappear into it for three to four blissful, vegetable-level hours.
I was already savoring the thought of this noble mission when a knock on the door pulled me out of my reverie.
Standing on the threshold was Kolya, practically dancing with excitement.
Without even greeting me, he blurted, "Artyom, we need to talk!"
I braced myself for anything — from the thriller-style "I can’t find my passport," to the overly dramatic "We need to break up."
The truth, however, turned out to be even more interesting.
Kolya didn't want to waste a single moment — he was burning with the fire of discovery and wanted to wander Siena some more.
Knowing full well about my Bermuda Triangle plans, he asked me to explain how he could get to the city and back on his own.
Not wanting to spend half the night sprinting through Tuscany screaming, "Kolya! Koooolya! Come back, I forgive you!" I gave him a serious briefing on taxis, buses, and walking routes.
Once thoroughly instructed, my enthusiastic colleague headed off to his midnight date with medieval architecture, and I sank blissfully into full-blown sea lion mode.
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Midnight was approaching, and I was nervously pacing in circles around my hotel room.
Kolya hadn’t come back by 10 p.m. as we had agreed.
Nor did he show up at 11.
By the time my mental list of creative murder scenarios had reached the thirties, the door suddenly shook under a barrage of frantic knocks.
I shot across the room like a bullet and flung it open —
there stood a man who had clearly journeyed into the Unknown, found both Good and Evil, and thoroughly acquainted himself with all of it.
And judging by his face, he had absolutely loved the experience.
His hair looked like a lone brigantine after a hurricane, all devices with built-in cameras were completely dead, and his hands sagged under the weight of bags stuffed with meat, cheese, and wine.
Funny, isn’t it?
Here was a guy who had never set foot outside the country before, didn’t speak a word of anything but Russian, visiting a foreign land and a medieval city for the first time — and none of that had even remotely fazed him.
The thirst for discovery had completely swept everything else aside.
In the face of such enthusiasm, scolding him felt almost sacrilegious, so I simply asked, "Happy?"
Kolya, his voice now a low, enlightened rumble, replied, "Mhm!"
Since his gaze was gently out of focus — aimed somewhere around Betelgeuse rather than at me — I decided to let him be.
Tomorrow would be our last day here; let it be packed with as much experience as possible.
While Kolya was busy throwing the Italian welders into a sacred state of shock and awe with his skills, I found something to keep myself occupied with.
Due to a slip-up, a few dozen freezer chests had been fitted with the wrong control blocks.
The mistake had been discovered — albeit a little late — and now it needed fixing.
All it took was unscrewing two self-tapping screws, removing the block along with the thermostat bulb, grabbing the correct block, and screwing it into place.
Not exactly a tricky job, but pretty monotonous.
Alberto quickly showed me the ropes, and within minutes, armed with power screwdrivers, we were swapping out the wrong blocks with brisk efficiency.
And naturally, we talked while we worked.
As it turned out, during our short stay in Siena and its surroundings, Kolya and I had already become somewhat of a local sensation.
People recognized us everywhere, eagerly sharing their impressions of where we'd been, what we'd seen, what we'd bought, and so on.
Provincial life at its finest.
As the number of freezers needing repair dwindled, Alberto mentioned that he was inviting Kolya and me over to his place for a family dinner, since — in his words — we were "top guys" and he wanted us to meet his loved ones and have a proper chat in a more relaxed setting.
I saw no reason to refuse — our taxi to the airport wasn't scheduled until well past midnight, and this way we could kill the waiting time far more pleasantly.
When it came time to sum up our work, the Italian plant management found themselves in a bit of a daze:
out of the more than 800 refrigerators Kolya had welded, the only defective ones were the two from the very first batch on our first day.
We had set a record among all the groups who had come there for training.
Well, strictly speaking, Kolya set the record — I mostly helped by staying out of the way.
Soon, suggestions started flying around:
maybe we should confiscate Kolya’s passport, put him on the payroll, and not let him go home at all.
They proposed he could train the local welders while they found him a nice little hacienda where he could eventually bring his family.
And if he didn’t want to bring them — well, they could easily find him a worthy local bride, and fast.
Kolya, blushing shyly and laughing nervously, mumbled that he had a wife and kids back home, and, well, you know — Motherland is... it’s kind of a sacred thing...
with the birch trees... the familiar aspens... all that good stuff...
Truly — to each their own.
Despite Alberto’s enthusiastic assurances that we didn’t need to bring anything to the table, we grabbed a couple of bottles of wine and handed them over to Micaela, his bustling, cheerful wife.
Helping with the preparations was Irina — a petite Polish woman who had moved to Italy nearly twenty years ago but still spoke surprisingly decent Russian.
She was Micaela’s colleague and had taken it upon herself to gently initiate Kolya into the subtleties of European life.
Thanks to her, I could finally have a proper chat with the Italians about life, rather than doubling as an off-hours interpreter.
We talked about everything: politics and climate, prices and everyday realities, friendship and leisure.
At some point, the conversation inevitably turned to the Palio.
Alberto once again recounted his adrenaline-fueled dash and once again showed the video.
This time, we dug deeper into the coats of arms of the contrade:
the Eagle, the Caterpillar, the Snail, the Owl, the Dragon, the Giraffe, the Porcupine, the Unicorn, the She-Wolf, the Seashell, the Goose, the Wave, the Panther, the Forest, the Tortoise, the Tower, and the Ram.
Each animal (or not-quite-animal) has its own story, stretching back hundreds of years.
And so do their historical rivalries.
For example, the Eagle is friends with the Owl and the Dragon but is at war with the Panther.
The Snail cannot stand the Tortoise but is allied with the Porcupine, the Panther, and the Fox.
Meanwhile, the She-Wolf has no allies at all, and her only sworn enemy is the Porcupine.
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We chatted for so long and with such enthusiasm that we nearly missed the time to call a taxi to get back to the hotel and pack our things.
We signed the bottles of wine we had brought (Alberto said he would open them a year later, on the anniversary of our meeting), hugged each other warmly, and kept waving goodbye from the car window for a long time.
On the way back, the exhaustion hit us both hard — the driver had to physically shake us awake once we reached the airport parking lot.
The journey home went by uneventfully, and soon enough Moscow was greeting us warmly — with a drenching rainstorm.
After waiting for forty minutes by the baggage carousel, Kolya and I exchanged confused looks and realized that our suitcases had apparently decided not to return to their homeland.
Together with a few dozen other passengers, ranging from mildly bewildered to outright furious, we thirsted for any information about the fate of our luggage.
The information desk attendants, with voices full of regret, informed us that half the baggage from our flight had gotten stuck in Germany.
While an operation titled "Sturm und Drang" was being hastily organized to liberate our bags from the German stronghold, we were invited to fill out official lost luggage forms.
Once all the paperwork was completed, they gave us a hotline number and promised to keep us informed.
I still remember Kolya and me nervously joking on the way to the train station that at least we’d be traveling light on the way back.
Credit where credit’s due — Sheremetyevo Airport staff worked fast.
Just a couple of hours later, a pleasant female voice on the phone informed me that our luggage had been found, was already en route to Moscow, and would then be forwarded to Lipetsk Airport for pickup.
Thus, the following day, I set off for a long-awaited reunion with my suitcase.
There, I discovered that beneath Lipetsk Airport lay a sizable network of catacombs filled with locked doors and sterile, whitewashed corridors.
Maybe that's standard under every airport — I have no idea.
Either way, my prodigal suitcase was found and awaited me, festooned with bright orange tags and plastered with stamps.
After presenting my boarding pass and passport, the stern airport employee agreed to return my property.
Back home, after a brief inspection, I confirmed that everything inside had survived all the flights and transfers intact.
Kolya wasn't quite as lucky: one bottle of olive oil had apparently lost its will to live and broke clean off at the neck.
Fortunately, thanks to Kolya’s foresight and thoroughness, the rest of his luggage was spared, since the bottle had been carefully wrapped in fabric and several layers of plastic bags.
Still, even the untimely demise of that bottle couldn’t dampen Kolya’s enthusiasm for Italy.
For months afterward, whenever we crossed paths at work, he would resurrect memories of the gelato, the architecture, or our evening at Alberto’s place, and he swore that those memories would stay with him to the end.
And honestly, it made me damn happy to see someone fall head over heels for a country I myself had been hopelessly in love with for a lifetime.
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