The Giant Garbage Pit, or The Largest Diamond Mine in the World – Then, a Robbery and a House on Fire: My Travels in North Siberia: It’s what it sounds like. Writing for Catapult
At the airport, he said, they understood foreigners. They would know what to do. But he wouldn’t stay there and see, he couldn’t help me any more than he had. I shrugged and agreed. I noticed I was speaking in a flat, slow voice. He began to explain himself again, speaking quickly from guilt, looking directly at me over his shoulder as he drove. He added that he could not take me to his home, he was too afraid: If the police learned I had been there, staying with no entry stamp or official permission to stay overnight, it would fall on him in unpredictable ways. He had an apology in his voice. Something like this, I thought, had happened to him before.