In the Settlement
We really have ended up on some kind of landlocked, immobile Nautilus.
Everything here is seriously cool. The living space here is laid out as sensibly and pragmatically as possible, yet at the same time it's comfortable and even luxurious.
There's electricity here, and plenty of it. The power supply runs without interruption, which basically never happens on small islands. There's unsecured Wi-Fi covering literally the whole territory of the little settlement. And there's a big veranda with a pair of wide, heavy tables of dark wood and a bar counter. This veranda is where we are right now.
Take a look at the architecture and design of the veranda. It's as if Geoffrey Bawa built it himself. Or, at the very least, his best pupil.
There's a fascinating interplay between the semicircular, moss-covered concrete walls, streaked with damp, and the heavy, wild wood, the rough jute ropes, the dark metal.
Let's take a look at the fresco on the concrete wall. The fresco was undoubtedly created by a remarkable artist. It looks ancient and very mysterious. It seems the fresco depicts some kind of alien. Possibly an alien from Space, but for some reason it seems to me he came from the depths of the Ocean.
Combined with the cascading tendrils of climbing plants, with the fantastical flowers, in the deep orange light of sunset, this fresco fully confirms us in the conviction that there's no way we can be on Earth.
On Earth they don't build like this anymore. There they don't build for themselves at all anymore. There they build for others. To impress others or to attract others. To build something like this for yourself, you have to be a very wealthy man and you have to be a romantic. On Earth there are no more wealthy romantics.
We were offered dinner. Our food was brought by a very tall lady, black as pitch. Right now you can see her walking away, swaying her powerful, long hips, wrapped in striped cloth. It seems black-and-white stripes are the fashion on the island.
On the head of the departing lady is a heavy, tall green turban with an enormous, fanciful ruby brooch.
Dinner, like everything here, is luxurious. Each of us got a large parrotfish, baked in salt. Besides that, they brought us a wide dish of what's called som tam here. It's a very spicy and tangy salad made from green papaya. This particular som tam also contains salted eggs and small raw shrimp.
In addition to the above, we have a dish of seafood omelet, a dish of fried rice with shellfish, and a small saucer of "alternative salad" with tomatoes and, apparently, with squid.
The food on this table also distinctly recalls the diet aboard the Nautilus. It's predominantly seafood, though of course, unlike on Captain Nemo's ship, on Oleg Batygin's island they eat rice, birds' eggs, and fresh vegetables.
We're very hungry. We sailed the sea for more than six hours, and now we're going to fall upon the food. And not only the food. You can see on the table a long, five-liter transparent bottle of white wine. The kind usually set out in the morning on the tables of rural Italian homes.
…………………….
At last we see the master and creator of this whole small but extremely impressive little world. Oleg Batygin has come to us.
Oleg is a very self-assured, very athletic, mature man. He's dressed quite informally. He's wearing frankly Rasta-style dark cherry trousers with characteristic colored swirls and a light gray T-shirt with the word "Freedom" on it. He's brought a bong with him and some little box. It's quite likely that this kind and hospitable man will offer us a smoke.
"Hello, Oleg!"
"Hello, Stas!"
"As I understand it, you've come here to question me. What exactly are you interested in?"
"I'm truly, literally dying to question you. But I'm afraid that if I try to formulate some central question, I'll get hopelessly tangled up. Still, I'll try… I'm interested in literally everything I'm permitted to learn about you and this island. I'd like to know how this settlement came to be. How did it happen that you now live here in such impressive prosperity and obvious well-being?"
"All right. That, in fact, is why I brought the bong and a little weed. That way it'll be more interesting for you to listen and for me to talk. So let's start by taking a couple of drags, and then I'll gladly tell you everything I can recall."
"Let's…"