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“Yeah, there will be a huge group of people coming with us,» Vadim told me a month ago, when I was buying my ticket to Chupa (a small Russian town near the Polar Circle). «You definitely should go, it`s a great chance to make new friends and to learn how to get a boat ready for sailing.» Now I am in a third-class sleeper. I am 22 years old, Chupa is waiting for me, but instead of a huge group of people we have Vadim, the guy-in-charge, he is 50, Marina, a diary-writer, she is 40, Valery, an Orthodox Christian, 55, and me. It is the beginning of summer, I don’t have a return ticket, but I do feel a bit suspicious. Valery pours me some train tea (it`s when you get to drink a brownish water with unforgettable smell of rust). Vadim unwraps a pale boiled chicken, takes a pinch of salt from a plastic bag, breaks a cucumber into halves. Marina writes something in her diary. Everyone is silent, the sleeper smells of socks, chicken, and cucumbers – this is the signature smell of Russian trains. Two month ago I was talking to one of my private students and mentioned that I wanted to have a once in a lifetime adventure for summer, so she remembered that her son`s favourite camp was looking for volunteers to get the equipment ready for kids coming. That sounded great -- Russian North, boats, small town, polar day, a chance of sailing, and, most importantly, a feeling of a real adventure, the one that I would tell everyone about, the step I had always wanted to take. To go, like an explorer, to the terra incognita, or, in other words, to Chupa. So, I bought the tickets. It is already June, but lilac trees in Chupa are still blooming. All roads are covered with mica flakes, they are sparkling like the sea on the horizon. We are grinding and polishing the boats, several huskies are keeping us company. There is absolutely nothing to do in Chupa, except for boats varnishing and bird watching, and after four days of work I finally decide that I had enough. I wanted to hang out with some cool guys and have new experiences, but instead I am stuck in the middle of nowhere with people twice older than me. My leap into the bustling unknown turned out to be a leap into the calm, boring routine like I have at home (despite all the scenery). Well, I think to myself, I should have expected that. On the fifth morning I wake up and go to the sea with Marina. On the pier I see a red-faced man with a beard and a woman in her thirties. They watch a small brisk yacht maneuvering, and it looks like a John Bauer picture – the noble-looking woman with curly grayish hair, the fairy-tale gnome captain, a small white boat glowing in the golden sun. They are smoking and sharing stories about everything. About what it feels like to go to the Arctic, being the only woman on a ship. About organizing a whole yacht-club for teens in a 2000-people-town and winning regattas several times. About writing and illustrating one`s own book. About creating a museum from scratch. About acting and not just dreaming, jumping right in the thick of things, changing everything and everyone around. I am standing there in awe, watching at this fairy-tale illustration, listening, remembering. Then, my life starts to click. In two months I am back to Chupa as an ecological camp counselor. In half a year I fill in a grant application to create an eco-school in Russian North. In a year I find a new job, as a teacher. I become a head teacher, stage a play, start writing stories, take part in everything I see, and it doesn`t work all the time, but now I am not afraid of it. Every day is the unknown I`ve been looking for, and if sometimes I feel a little bit scared, I just remember the pier, the boat, the man, the woman – and my longing for being a character from that picture – not just a spectator.