FROM THE HISTORY OF THE BAND 'OBLACHNY KRAY'. CHAPTER 14: WHY THE HELL DO WE NEED THE WEST

The band Oblachny Krai – Aria of the Varangian Guests.Life in the studio is half positives and half negatives. It's good that in the studio you are always at your workplace; you can always get some work done. But it's also crap because you have to be there while others are recording, when you aren't working but simply marinading your ears and testing your nerves. It's great when musicians leave their instruments overnight—you aren't going to lug a case all over the city if you have to bring it back to the studio again tomorrow. I took advantage of this quite often, because I didn't have an instrument of my own, aside from a pair of pliers, and I still don't. It sucks when you finish your shift, but you have nowhere to go and nowhere to rest; there's nowhere to tuck yourself away—everywhere this hostile, alien music is blaring. It seeps into every crack, and there is no escape from it. At times I tried renting apartments, but that just led to a whole new pain in the ass: either I had no money for the commute, or I had so little that it was only enough for port wine. The cheapest port wine costs twenty-seven rubles (in 2008 prices – SR), while the subway and a route taxi there and back costs seventy-two. Scrounging up twenty-seven around the neighborhood is easier than scrounging up seventy-two. Because of this, when living in rented apartments, my access to the studio was disproportionately smaller. Cancellations happened often, and I booked them all for myself, since I was constantly at my workplace.