How I lost my friend from greed

Samizdat, Perito Burrito and Megafon launch a cycle of stories about traveling, in which everything went somersault, because someone did not dare to make roaming. “Batenka, you are a transformer” publishes the very story of Grisha Tumanov, in which Czech absinthe and a broken heart force Yegor’s journalist in a panic to run along the night prague from skeletons and golem, and his friend to suffer from greed and do nothing, hoping for the best.

The disheveled Yegor mechanically interfered with his coffee without sugar and could not stop talking. Prague only woke up, in the coffee shop, where we met at breakfast, besides us there were only a few visitors - two Czechs on tweed caps and a couple of tourists with backpacks, inclined over the map of the city. My friend overwhelmed the hangover and impressions of the terrible yesterday’s night, he told and told while the toast with ham was cooling nearby.

“Please, Sir! I Need More! Ahahaha, ”Yegor headed the entire hall. He considered it important to reproduce the threatening intonations of a homeless madman as important as possible, who the day before pursued him along the streets of the Czech capital, covered in fog. Then, listening to him, I thought that this story was about the dangers of alcohol and substances, about the unsightly aspects of Eastern European tourism, but after years I understand that it is completely different.

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It was 2012, Yegor and I worked in the same newspaper: he spoke about multimillion -dollar transactions and engineering in the business bloc, I wrote in public about politics, people and strange bills. The lanky Egor was always dressed as a successful manager, I - in an eternally stretched sweatshirt: the environment of professional communication affected everyone. However, we were united by a love of similar literature and strange jokes, so we disappeared together for hours in an editorial smoke.

In the area of ​​noon, Yegor returned to work from Pushkin, where he had breakfast with a source in some corporation, and I finished calling the next deputy from the Duma, and Yegor and I went to tremble-about, for example, as the poet Verlaine spent time-until both of us were pulled out of the smoking room. In a word, it was a pretty friendship, so when my first wife and I decided to go to Prague for the second time and searched for someone else for the company, Yegor came to my mind first.

He was very fun, while we were going, he said that I immediately began to read Golem Gustav Mayrink, who beat the ancient Prague legend of the Jewish clay cyborg, shook the list of brothels, which was shared with him another top manager from a large corporation. Although why did he need this list, if he flew to Prague with a girl he met a couple of weeks ago, it was not quite clear.

The list of ancient brothels no longer seemed to a comic artifact, but began to resemble a plan

However, everything that could go wrong went. A dark autumn morning, one of the most disgusting airports in the world is Domodedovo. The situation is no less disgusting: there are only three of us, and the girl at the last moment decided that she was not on the way with my colleague not only in Prague, but also in life, so she simply did not come to the airport. The list of ancient brothels no longer seemed a comic artifact, but began to resemble a plan; Somewhere in the next world, Verlaine grinned; The plane gained height, calculated time in flight - two hours fifty -five minutes.

If you are a tourist, then, most likely, you see only one part of Prague: Karlov Bridge with musicians, tired men in skeleton costumes who call on excursions in mystical places, Kafka’s grave in the old Jewish cemetery, Vaclav Square and the famous synagogue, in which, according to legend, they blinded that very goal. Although this is just a legend, for some reason, the staircase to the attic is protected in a special way. What else? In the light of the day, you, of course, stumble upon a huge number of street eatery with hot wine and trdlo, drink beer, jamming with monstrous Czech specialties, ride a tram, come on foot to the upper city, then go down and fall into your hotel. Not the worst plan, but, as it turned out, when there are three of you in this city and one heart is broken, Prague can be seen in a completely different light.

Also normally walk

Our friends from Perito Burrito, together with Megafon , made a chatbot, which will suit you vacation exercises and drive you through dozens of typical situations on foreign trips. Find in a foreign city, choose a dish in a menu in an unknown language and competently turn a conversation with a mother who does not know that he is calling you abroad. Try to get out!

Man, where are you?

From the outside, it was more like a variation of the film "Eurotour": Yegor and I found an institution with the strongest absorption in the city, drank it all and stepped into the night.

A dense fog was descending to the gloomy streets of the Upper City, so we decided that it was time to visit the golden street-the same one where the devil, with which the devil had to be copied, is at the house without a lantern, and then some kind of damn thing will begin. The visit was certainly disappointing: having grown through the turnstiles (and the day access to this street is paid), we wandered a little past multi -colored houses and went for a walk on without finding the mysticism so attracting us. By that time, my friend had repeatedly escaped somewhere to run away: although he did not remember the way at all, Absent clearly told him the routes leading to adventures.

Strictly speaking, before getting lost completely, Yegor disappeared from sight twice. The first time my wife and I did not manage to catch up with him on one of the massive stairs of the old city, and we did not dare to call him due to space prices for roaming. He was found when we went to some square and encountered two American students. "Is this not your friend accidentally hides behind that column and barks at us?" They asked. At that moment, Yegor suddenly looked out from behind the column and banged invitingly. From that moment on, Prague began to open for us from his dark side.

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The fog was thickening, and we walked past the empty wooden stalls, in which in the morning we traded gingerbread, magnets with kafka on the refrigerator and other trinkets. It seems that in the bowels of one of the stalls two made love, and for some reason the third shone on them with a telephone. At the intersection along the way to the student dormitory, where our new friends called us to continue the evening, young British urinated us.

The student hostel was noisy in the lobby, an auto-tier hip-hop came from the columns, and red wine poured as a river. For some time we were mastered in the company, until again we lost sight of Yegor. It was not up to savings - everyone understood that the longer the evening lasted, the less chance to find our friend, so I decided to give a damn about roaming and call him.

I went outside, clutching the phone to my ear. Long beeps. Starting to go around the hostel building in a circle, I heard that Yegor picked up the phone. "Where are you? I'm looking for you at the exit! "

The answer to me was the sniffing and the noise of the street. Continuing to go around the building, I listened to the noise, trying to determine where my friend could be. At some point, a roar and moans were heard in the dynamics. I accelerated my pace until I realized that I hear these terrible sounds free from my phone. Yes, here he is, Yegor: he bowed in three deaths, not letting go of the pipe from his ear, and released the contents of the stomach. I figured out how much I paid for the opportunity to listen to how a person tears, and shuddered.

I figured out how much I paid for the opportunity to listen to how a person tears and shuddered

My friend came to his senses a little, but still refused to go to the hotel with us. A completely impenetrable fog fell on Prague, Yegor waved the telephone, pointing to the list of brothels, explained that he would easily ask the road with passers -by, and asked him to leave him alone. My wife and I shrugged and realized that it was useless to fight, all the more so since he nevertheless gradually came to his senses, and the road to the hotel, lying through Vaclav Square, was indeed quite simple.

When we entered the room, I noticed that even the lamps were not visible outside the window: the fog finally absorbed the city. “Probably, Yegor is beautiful there now,” I thought, and soon fell asleep.

Egor made his way around the city almost by touch: all the streets turned into continuous milk, stories about golemus, addresses of brothels and a sad scene in Domodedovo popped up in memory. Suddenly for himself, he emerged to the very Vaclav Square - it seemed to move to the hotel the right way. Most of all, he wanted to collapse into bed and not think about any brothels. The first ones he met was two dark -skinned guy in skeletons costumes - it seems that their working day, during which they called on excursions in the mystical Prague, ended, and they decided to demonstrate a real macabra to the guest.

"Excuse me, and I am right to the hotel to such and such and such and such?" - Yegor asked in English. Either the language barrier is to blame, or the fatigue of the interlocutors of the journalist from idle tourists, but everything that he made in response was: “What did you say there? I will destroy you now, come here. " Not understanding what he angered new acquaintances so, Yegor began to back in the fog, and then ran where his eyes looked. Behind him, he still heard curses and the clatter of the pursuers, but soon he managed to tear himself away.

Approaching the building shrouded in fog, Yegor realized: running away from the “skeletons”, he found himself at the same old synagogue, where the defender of Prague Jews was sleeping. Interesting, the journalist thought: his legs themselves brought him to the point on the map that he recently read about. By the way, why do the rabbis still hold the attic closed, if, as they write in guidebooks, there is nobody there? Reflections interrupted the approaching shuffling. “Please, Sir! Do you have a cigarette? " - the homeless appealed to Yegor. He had a massive bare forehead, tangled beard and absolutely empty eyes. It seems that he was even a cut above the journalist. In any case, at that moment Yegor seemed like that. He handed it to the homeless cigarette. He immediately grabbed her and put it in his pocket, after which he moved to a night traveler with wild laughter and breaking through it “please, sir! I Need More! ” Yegor turned around and quickly began to move away, but the homeless moved after him, and then moved to the run, not stopping repeating the same phrase.

The pulse went scooped up, the streets were wriggling, and Yegor fled, dissecting the fog, and hearing that the homeless, met by the old synagogue, did not think to lag behind. Maybe that's why the rabbis and held the attic locked? The sounds of the persecution behind his back were subsided, and Yegor joyfully realized that he had again caught up to that very Vaclav Square, which means that he was a stone's throw to his hand. If not for one but: the “skeletons” he met before did not disappear. “Ah, is it you again? Well, come here, ”one of them shouted, seeing the journalist. He again ducked into the fog, not analyzing the road. After all, you can’t pave the route to the hotel: there is nowhere to catch wi-fi and once, and the very first attempt to turn on the Internet on a mobile in roaming will simply eat all the money-you won’t even call friends.

It seemed to Yegor that he was rushing along the foggy Prague streets of eternity. All the excesses of this evening disappeared, either skeletons, the silhouette of the homeless golem, were confused everywhere, the addresses were confused in the head. It seems that through this street he just left the hotel, which means he is on the right track.

"Do you think Yegor has already come?" - my wife asked. I shrugged. "Not good ... maybe you can check?" She said. Pulling the sneakers, I went out into the corridor and knocked on the door of the next room. It was quiet. “Please write how you get it,” I sent SMS to a friend and returned to me. At this time, Yegor had already seen the outlines of the hotel and never felt such relief. Having instantly ran to his floor, he burst into the room, threw off his coat and collapsed onto the bed. Somewhere in the grave, Verlaine grinned.

“It seemed to me that I spent three hours on the street! The main thing is that this homeless really looked like a golem and was not going to lag behind! Well, just imagine, it doesn’t happen: the synagogue, in the attic of which the golem rests, and here this one comes out of the fog. At first I thought that I was driving. The main thing is that even the cards are not at hand, but you can’t turn on the Internet. It seems to me that I ran on adrenaline, ”Yegor said excitedly in the coffee shop, waving a fat burger excitedly. From neighboring tables, they squinted at us every time he reproduced the terrible laughter of the homeless, and I thought: how different could be Prague for a married man - and a man with a broken heart.

A few years later, we changed the work, went to different places and from the decadanse lovers turned into those very Muscovites who, accidentally encountering the boulevards, pronounce the mantra: “Let's call you and see each other in a week” - and never see it. However, both were warmed by the general story experienced in Prague, and for sure each of us today asks the question: how is the cursed gumble of tears from the attic, if there was no stairs?

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