Mosaic of small things

The genre of travel notes is a kind of optical test. In the descriptions of different people, the same event, place, city, or country are often devoid of common features. The uniqueness of one's point of view is similar to fingerprints or the movable diaphragm of the eye: it allows for the unmistakable identification of a person. "The Mosaic of Small Things" is a diary that the author kept from February 27 to April 23, 2015, while in Paris, St. Petersburg, and Moscow. What he saw could only have been seen by him - whether it was a monument to Joseph Brodsky on Boulevard Saint-Germain, a flowery snowfall on the Moskva River bridge, or the difference between a Tajik in Moscow with a broom and one in St. Petersburg. For forty-five years now, the author has been writing in a language different from what he hears in everyday life: on the street, at work, in the family. In this book, the linguistic element, the world of direct speech, voices coming from outside, once again merge with the author's inner voice.