“The city of my dreams is the one I want to get away from. If you don’t know where it is, I’ll tell you and point to it on the map. See, right here, there it is. Lower. To the right. Farther right and lower still. See that fig sign? That’s the small Turkish little town of V., located in the lowermost right-hand corner of the geopolitical map of the Russian Federation.
Everything here is Turkish-style and one big deception: even the New Year arrives not at midnight, as, for example, in Moscow or St. Petersburg, but seven hours earlier. They say it’s all because of the distances, but what fool would believe that the time from one holiday to another is measured in kilometers. However, the town of V., which defies understanding, can perhaps be comprehended with an arshin: indeed, it is so far away that its residents do not always receive letters they sent to themselves by e-mail.”