We spent all the New Year holidays going for walks with Sonya and spending time together from time to time. She was taking her exams, and I kept telling her the most important thing was not to stress. Those days passed quickly but left behind many pleasant memories. We often discussed different topics, and our conversations helped me remain calm.
Sometime after the holidays, I unexpectedly received a phone call. It was from the magazine Vokrug Sveta (“Around the World”). They said they had come across my résumé, which had caught their attention, and invited me to meet and discuss an opportunity.
Eventually, I went for the interview, spoke with them, and headed back. But while I was on my way home, I realized I did not want to spend one and a half hours commuting each way every day. This started to really bother me. I began wondering whether it was worth accepting the offer at all.
I shared my doubts with Sonya, with whom I was actively communicating at the time. She looked at me as if I had lost my mind. “Igoryan, are you stupid?” she said. “You were offered a job at Vokrug Sveta, they’re inviting you, giving you an offer, and you’re still hesitating?” Her words made me reflect.
In the end, I accepted the offer, and on February 1st, I started my new job at Vokrug Sveta magazine. My role was to work on online travel guides. Thus began a new chapter in my career.
So, I got the job. To be honest, for the first time in a long while, I had a glimmer of joyful thoughts. I felt that this was finally a level worthy of respect. It was no longer something to be ashamed of in front of Nadya, and perhaps this step could redeem me in her eyes. But I did not fully realize just how much had already gone wrong and how difficult it would be to fix.
A month later, once I had settled into the job and felt confident that my employment was final, I decided to write to Nadya. “I lied about myself in a bad way. In reality, I work at Vokrug Sveta magazine.” She responded sharply: “Don’t bullshit me.” I lost my temper and replied, “I demonstrated how faith works.” However, she said that it still would not change anything. I tried to convince her I was telling the truth and even offered to prove it by editing something on one of the magazine’s web pages, but her reaction remained unchanged.
At some point, I suggested she listen to the song Kravts – Protiv Vetra (“Against the Wind”). Apparently, the song unsettled her, and she might have thought I was unbalanced. After that, she stopped responding to me.
The next day, I actually sent her a link to the edited page on the Vokrug Sveta website, but there was still no reply. It felt awful — I felt like everything had collapsed, and I had no plan for what to do next. I had gotten the job — but now what? I was at a dead end and had no idea how to proceed.
Meanwhile, my responsibilities at Vokrug Sveta were expanding. My main task — the reason I had been hired — was to create a tool for generating online maps. The magazine needed a unique instrument that could generate maps based on vector data at various scales with automatic coloring according to specified parameters. This was a crucial part of the development of their online travel guides.
To do this, I had to immerse myself deeply in the documentation. I went through everything I could find, researching tons of materials related to geodata processing and visualization. Realizing that I could not manage without additional knowledge, I learned Python in just a few weeks — it became the key tool for development. It was not easy, but persistence and the desire to succeed helped me make significant progress in a short amount of time.
Eventually, I developed an effective solution and decided to share my experience with the tech community. That is how my article on Habr appeared, where I described my process and approaches to map generation. It sparked real interest among readers and brought me quite a few positive responses, which reassured me that I was on the right path.
Time passed. I worked and gradually settled into the new job. Everything was falling into place: the salary was very good — 70,000 rubles, which was quite substantial for 2012, especially for a 23-year-old guy. I began to feel like things were finally going well for me.
At some point, I spoke with Nikolay P., who gave me a piece of advice: if I wanted to win Nadya back and have her see me as a worthy, respectable man, I needed to buy a car. He offered to sell me his Nissan for half a million rubles. I started thinking about it. My salary allowed for it, and although I did not have a driver’s license, I decided I would buy the car and get my license. It seemed like the right direction — to invest in such a serious purchase in order to show my best side.
But now, looking back, I realize it was an emotionally misguided step. I did not understand then that buying a car would not solve the deeper problems I was facing. But at the time, it seemed like a good idea. So, I took out a 500,000-ruble loan from Sberbank and bought the car from Nikolay P.
As for Sonya, I did everything I could to help her reconcile with her ex-boyfriend because I did not see a future with her. Although, as it turned out, she saw me as a potential partner. A year later, she confessed this to me. But back then, I essentially “sent” her back to her ex. Eventually, they got back together. I, on the other hand, bought myself a car and continued living as I had, making plans for the future.
However, the problems with Vasya and Zhenya persisted. They would occasionally try to visit me or contact me. I avoided them as best I could — taking detours on the street, not opening the door at home. But one day, they showed up at my place again. I tried to get them out quickly, but that day Zhenya stole a set of spare keys from me.
One time I came home and discovered that my laptop was gone. My brother told me he had seen Zhenya carrying my laptop toward a store as he walked by. I was in shock — they were not just bothering me anymore, they were robbing me. That was the last straw.
I reached out to my friend Lyosha, whose neighbor on the same floor was a police officer. I told him the whole story, and he referred me to the Department of Internal Affairs for the Southern Administrative District of the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia in Moscow, located on Kashirskoye Highway. There I met two officers. We got into a car and went to Zhenya’s apartment. When he opened the door, the officers burst into the apartment. Zhenya started yelling, calling for his mom, and although I felt uneasy, they detained him and took him away.
