In the autumn of 2009, a new chapter of my life began. Everything that had surrounded me before—my job, my environment, my familiar daily routine—changed abruptly, as if the past had become distant and unreal. These changes burst into my life like a storm, sweeping away my usual landmarks and forcing me to search for myself again in this new, unfamiliar world. Amidst all these changes, my breakup with Masha turned out to be an unexpectedly painful blow. With each passing day, her absence deepened my inner emptiness, like a wave washing away everything I had considered solid and reliable.
Losing Masha meant not just the end of our relationship, but also the loss of everything that had given my everyday life meaning: our trips to the country house, warm evenings after work, the opportunity to share my time with someone close.
In the new company, I was an outsider—a random person among strangers—and this feeling only intensified my loneliness. At my previous company, where I had spent four years and where I was helped to cope with my father’s passing, I was surrounded by people who had almost become family. Now, I was alone. Lyosha, my friend, sometimes kept me company on weekends or in the evenings, but it wasn’t the same as before—without Masha, her friends, or her family.
I felt lonely, and this period was especially difficult for me, as if all the joys of the past were slowly fading away, leaving me one-on-one with emptiness.
I lost my sense of direction. I used to live by Masha’s advice and the goals she helped me set. But now, I was completely lost: what goals should I choose? What should I do next? This uncertainty only made things worse. At that time, Slava A. tried to support me: he invited me to the sauna, spent time with me, and insisted that I needed to forget about Masha. I agreed with him, though deep down I still hoped she would come back. But overall, I understood this was the sunset of one stage and the beginning of a new life.
One evening, coming home from work, I happened to run into Vasya. He was in a good mood, and we decided to chat for a bit. The conversation was relaxed, and at some point, Vasya suggested we go to his place. I agreed—his home was cozy, and he even made tea. We had a nice talk, discussed life, shared news, and this interaction felt very warm.
Masha was no longer in my life, and I felt empty inside. I tried to cope and keep it together, but the pain was still there. Then Vasya suggested we go to the balcony and smoke some weed. At first, I hesitated a bit—though I already had some experience, I was never much of a fan. But in that moment, I decided to go along. We went out on the balcony, sat, smoked, and I felt that our conversation became somehow lighter and kinder. At one point, I even realized my pain about Masha started to ease a little, which brought some relief.
Probably, this was the moment when my relationship with Vasya started to recover. After I had stopped talking to him back in school, now we managed to find common ground again.
At work, I started smoking again, partly to socialize more with the new people. My relationship with Nikolai K., the contextual advertising specialist I’ve mentioned before, was getting stronger. He smoked, and I decided to join him for his hourly smoke breaks. We also started having lunch together regularly, exploring cafes on Maroseyka and Pokrovka. I stopped making lunches at home, like I used to do when I was dating Masha and working at my previous job. These lunch outings became a pleasant ritual and a way for me to distract myself.
Besides lunches, Nikolai K. and I sometimes stayed after work to have a beer. In summer, we usually went to the metro or one of the quiet courtyards in the city center to sit outside. If it was closer to winter, we found cozy cafes to escape the cold and keep chatting. We often discussed not only work but also his ambitious business plans and strategies. Kolya was full of ideas and even shared his favorite book—“Life Inside the Bubble” by Igor Ashmanov, which was about how Rambler was built and eventually fell apart. I ended up reading this book myself, and it turned out to be quite interesting. Many of Kolya’s business ideas probably came from there.
These evenings were another way for us to bond. Once, Nikolai K. invited me to his home. There, to my surprise, I learned that apart from regular smoke breaks, Kolya smoked weed and often did it right at work. This really shocked me—I thought I worked at a serious company with a professional atmosphere, and yet, here was this.
During our conversations, Kolya shared his ambitious plan—to oust the current boss and take his place. At first, I was skeptical. He was trying to make a good impression on upper management while discrediting our boss. That seemed odd to me: I had just started at the company, and here I was meeting someone who immediately admitted he wanted to take someone else’s position.
After a while, I learned that Kolya also smoked weed. When I first visited his place, he offered to smoke together. So, I started smoking weed with him. Later, I found out that he even brought it to work and sometimes smoked in secret there.
Through his schemes with the management, Nikolai K. managed to present himself well and discredit our boss, Alexander K. As a result, the company’s leadership decided to make Kolya the new head of the department. What they were planning to do with Alexander was unclear—maybe fire him or move him to another position. I remember we were waiting for him at work one day, but he never showed up. Apparently, he realized in advance that he’d been discredited and that something was being plotted against him.
However, Alexander K. didn’t just leave. He sabotaged us by encrypting the entire IT infrastructure of the company. The whole system was locked—we couldn’t start the servers, websites, or databases, as we didn’t have the decryption keys. It was a real crisis, and after work, Kolya, the management, and I stayed behind to figure out how to solve it. I started backing up everything I could save, trying to minimize the losses.
Later that evening, Kolya and I even went to Alexander K.’s apartment on Olimpiysky Avenue. We rang the doorbell for a long time, but no one answered. We stood around, discussed the situation, but got nowhere. The next day, the problem continued. Later, I found out that they had managed to contact Alexander and offered him a large sum of money to hand over the decryption keys. In the end, Alexander unlocked everything and returned the keys.
Nikolai K. always said he believed Alexander K. did it for the money from the start. I focused on making sure nothing like that could happen again. I completely reconfigured the company’s system to prevent similar attacks in the future. That was when I started to earn the trust and respect of the leadership.
Since then, Nikolai K. and I became true allies, managing the internet department. I also got a raise for this. Now I was basically acting as the deputy head of the department.
I remember how Nikolai K. often praised Igor Ashmanov’s “Life Inside the Bubble.” It’s a story about the missed chance to develop Rambler, and Kolya especially liked the parallels between the book and what was happening at our company. Ashmanov, a well-known linguist and entrepreneur, worked on projects like Rambler and Kribrum and was a recognized expert in internet technologies. Kolya often drew analogies between the problems described in the book and the real situations we faced. Inspired by his stories, I decided to read the book myself and never regretted it.
Time passed, and the winter exam period at the university was approaching. I needed to take my finals. It was during this time that I became more interested in Russian rap. Before, when I was with Masha, music played only a small role in my life, and I hardly listened to it. Although before Masha I occasionally listened to ST1M, his music would just pop up in my playlist from time to time and wasn’t a big deal. But now everything changed—music became an important part of my daily life. I started wearing headphones, listening to tracks on my way to and from work, finding my feelings reflected in them.
I was especially moved by Basta’s melancholic love songs, like “Autumn” and “Film Strip.” These tracks became a kind of soundtrack of that time, helping me cope with my inner turmoil and new challenges.
That winter exam period was special for me because it was the first one I took without Masha. I had to do everything myself, and sometimes it seemed hard. Without her support, it was especially tough. Before, I would often stay at her place, working on assignments in a cozy atmosphere, always surrounded by friendly company and a tasty dinner. Now, I had to cope on my own, and it felt unfamiliar.
But I wasn’t entirely alone—Slava A. supported me. The two of us, helping each other, managed to get through the exams successfully. It was an important moment when I realized that despite all the difficulties, I could cope and keep moving forward.
