Hello!
You know me: you are among the very few who sometimes manage to tear themselves away from the internet and stay for a couple of hours alone with their old, faithful friends—books.
And I am the author of this book. They call me a cheerful writer—don’t believe it. In essence, I’m a very sad person, and the only funny thing in my life is my own biography. For example, I hated mathematics since childhood, and I graduated from the Kyiv Automobile and Road Institute. (I won’t tell you how I graduated—because that would be not humor, but fantasy).
The teachers issued me a diploma, congratulated themselves on my graduation, and suggested that I choose a field of work. In those years there was such a practice: you were hypocritically asked, “Where do you want to go?”—and then they sent you where they wanted. I always liked cities with a double name: Monte Carlo, Buenos Aires, San Francisco—so I was sent to Kzyl-Orda. There, in Central Asia, I built my first and only bridge. (I won’t tell you its exact location: after all, the reader is a friend, and I give the address of my bridge only to enemies).
Having built my first bridge, I wrote my first play. People were afraid to walk over the bridge, but they went to the play. That’s how I traded roads for dramaturgy. Maybe that’s why there’s now such a shortage of good roads. (Though good plays too).