When you are about to become a professional linguist you are becoming
more “serious”. You start looking for a job and…Bingo!.. the job itself finds
you. But then it turns out not to be the job of your dream. I was about to join
the army of secretaries when my whole nature rebelled and this very second the
phone rang and a voice on the other side started to apologize for rejecting my candidature
in Moscow. However, they still wanted me…in Vyborg! The very name of the city
induced a pleasant thrill in my stomach. Thus, Vyborg has become my Choice (in
Russian the words “Vyborg” and “choice” sound almost the same). It should have
been a challenging course for the young wrestler in the world of financial sharks
where they intended to introduce me.
Meanwhile Vyborg’s nature, its legends and
people concerned me much more than tobacco, chocolate and perfume which I had to
sell. I plunged eagerly into the magical world of the water town where all
roads led to the Vyborg Bay, part of the Gulf of Finland. One day wandering around
an abandoned mansion, the former catholic monastery in the city center, I approached
its window looking at the whole city through the nests on the roofs and there up
in the sky above deep waters of the Vyborg Bay I felt that this window of the decayed
monastery in which one could hardly recognize a religious building and which
had seen both Finnish, Swedish and Russian princes and princesses would be My
window to Europe. Then I could not even imagine the prophetic power of my comparison.
As very soon I was asked to work on the ship with the name mocking at me - “Princess
Anastasya” as my name is exactly the same (except for the title, of course). The
Russian Titanic sailed between St. Petersburg, Helsinki and Stockholm, all the cities
whose marks Vyborg combined in its small green harbour from Moscow fuss and
rush for money. I was again back on the road only this time my road passed over
the seas.
