The teacher asked wards what the meaning of life was. They began to put forward versions. Only the failing student, sitting at the last desk, was sil… - Viktor Pinchuk

Death will come for me somewhere in the African jungle. I hope the negatives will be handed over to their homeland, and someone will make a posthumous exhibition. But another option is also possible: my photographic films will be hung on a palm tree by the native people, celebrating some local holiday, and they will smash coconuts with my camera.

Dedicated to eccentrics, madmen, residents of the Far North — heroes of Russian anecdotes, as well as to all those who died while climbing Mount Everest. (Dedication of the book)

Native penates. Semi-annual trip behind. Woke up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat: it seemed as if there was money for the next travelling and the hour came. Mentally howled in horror: «Orderlies, give me an injection of selfishnessI, don't want, tired! » A moment later, returning from the ghostly drowse to dull reality, as if the ice swimmer from the «February heat» club, diving from an ice crust into a hole, remembered that there were no funds yet and, therefore, a trip was impossible. This is the joy of a soldier looking closely at a small hole from a bullet (a second ago whistled over the ear) in the wall of the trench: it means that there is still time and you can again go on the attack, fight with the remnants of philistine, selfishness and laziness, who, like a tiny pygmy, lodged inside me.