The plane touched down early in the morning, while the capital was only beginning to wake from the night — yawning through traffic lights, stretching with the first trams, squinting into the pale October sun. Marina stepped out of the jet bridge with a small rolling suitcase, a backpack over her shoulders, and that rare lightness that belongs only to the start of a trip, when everything still lies ahead and nothing has had a chance to go wrong.
She had flown for more than six hours. From a city where autumn smells of cedar and river water, where the sky is so wide and deep blue it feels as though it might press down on you if you stare too long. She had come at Svetlana’s invitation — a distant cousin she had last seen eight years earlier, at a relative’s funeral, and before that at a wedding she could barely remember anymore. But at the end of summer, Svetlana had written out of nowhere: Come visit, we’ve been meaning to see you for ages. Stay with us — there’s plenty of room. You’ll get to know the city properly. Marina had thought it over for a long time, reread the message more than once, and finally agreed. She took time off work. Bought the tickets.
On the metro, she sat with the map open on her phone, watching stations with unfamiliar names slide past. Everything felt foreign, and because of that, exciting. She loved that feeling — being new in a city, not knowing which way to turn at the next corner, discovering simple things as if they were revelations.
When she got off at the right station, the first thing she did was step into a small shop near the exit. She understood she was going into someone else’s home — even if it was family, it was still someone else’s space. She picked out a large pack of expensive cheese, sun-dried tomatoes in oil, two kinds of olives, crisp artisan crackers in beautiful packaging, a bar of dark chocolate, and a bottle of white wine. Not too much — she did not want to overwhelm the table or seem pushy. Not too little either — you do not arrive at someone’s home empty-handed. She chose exactly what decent people usually bring. She packed everything into the paper bag the cashier handed her and stepped back outside feeling perfectly at ease.
Svetlana met her at the door — a heavyset, energetic woman around fifty, with chestnut-dyed hair and a voice that always seemed to arrive half a second before the rest of her.
“Marinka! My God, you’ve lost weight! No — actually, you look wonderful! Give me that, come on, let me take it,” she rattled on, grabbing the suitcase and dragging it into the entryway. “Kolya! Kolya, come here, Marina’s here!”
From deeper inside the apartment appeared Kolya — Svetlana’s husband, a big man with a kindly face and a moustache that seemed to have a life of its own. He shook Marina’s hand and nodded approvingly.
“Well, after a journey like that, tea is exactly what’s needed.”
The apartment was spacious, though weighed down by the sort of household clutter where every object is obviously important to the owners, but no one else could possibly explain why it is needed or why it sits exactly there. Marina was given a small room with a sofa bed and a view of the courtyard. She unpacked the basics, washed up, changed clothes, and came out to the table.
She laid out the things she had bought. Svetlana looked them over with a polite smile.
“Oh, olives — nice. Kolya, look, olives.”
Kolya glanced at the olives without much enthusiasm, but nodded anyway.
They drank tea and talked. Svetlana spoke about her children, now grown and living elsewhere; about her new job, which she already regretted taking; about the upstairs neighbors who had been renovating for nearly two years. Marina listened, nodded, answered questions about her own life. Everything felt pleasant enough. That evening they had dinner and opened the wine Marina had brought. Svetlana said, “Not bad,” which, judging by her tone, was apparently high praise.
Later Marina went to bed and fell asleep almost at once — the early flight had caught up with her.
The second morning began with the creak of parquet outside her door and hushed voices in the kitchen. Marina lay there for a moment, listening to the city beyond the window — it sounded nothing like her own city, denser somehow, more hurried — then got up, dressed, and stepped out.
Svetlana stood at the stove stirring something in a pot. Kolya sat at the table with a real newspaper — actual paper, which surprised Marina. When they saw her, they exchanged a quick glance. It was brief, but she noticed.
“Good morning,” she said.
“Morning, morning,” Svetlana answered. “Sit down, breakfast is almost ready.”
They ate. Marina asked about plans for the day — she wanted to see a few museums, wander through the older districts she had only seen in photographs. Svetlana nodded vaguely. Then, after Kolya stepped out onto the balcony for a cigarette, she suddenly leaned her elbows on the table and looked at Marina with an expression that took a second to decipher.
“Listen, Marina,” she began, “I wanted to ask you something. You understand how all this works… I mean, you’re staying with us, that’s fine, we’re glad to have you. But yesterday — the olives were nice, of course, but… We thought you’d buy groceries. You know, for everyone. Wine, something decent for dinner. Desserts. We do have expenses, after all…”
At first Marina did not even understand what she meant. She asked blankly,
“What do you mean?”
“Well, you came to stay with us for free,” Svetlana said calmly, almost in a businesslike tone. “The proper thing would be for you to cover the table. Groceries, wine, maybe something sweet for tea. We are hosting you, after all. The apartment, everything…”
Marina was silent for a second. Then another.
She wanted to say: I flew six hours to get here. I bought a ticket that cost quite a lot. I brought exactly what people are supposed to bring when they visit someone’s home. I did not ask to stay — you invited me. She wanted to say all of that. But instead she said only,
“All right. I’ll go to the store.”
At once Svetlana’s face brightened.
Marina put on her jacket and stepped out into the hallway. She stood on the landing for a moment. Behind a nearby apartment door, someone was watching television — melodramatic voices, swelling music. She breathed in, steadied herself, and headed downstairs.
At the store, she wandered through the aisles with the peculiar feeling of someone who has just been robbed in broad daylight — politely, so politely that she had not quite realized at what exact moment it happened. She bought bread, cheese, sausage, eggs, milk, cookies for tea, and a bottle of red wine. All of it was perfectly normal, not even especially expensive in itself — it was simply unpleasant to understand why she was buying it and who had decided she should.
That evening Svetlana laid the table with the proud air of a hostess throwing a celebration. Kolya ate heartily. The conversation drifted toward politics and summer cottages. Everything felt almost normal.
That night Marina lay awake for a long time.
By the third day, she already knew something else would go wrong — it was in the air, like that stillness before a storm when even the birds go quiet.
At breakfast, Svetlana said casually, as though she were mentioning the weather,
“Marinka, you wanted to go to museums, right? Kolya and I would like to come too. Haven’t been in ages. More fun as a group.”
“Of course,” Marina said. “That would be nice.”
“Good. Then you can buy the tickets.”
Marina looked at her.
“The tickets… for all of us?”
“Well, naturally,” Svetlana laughed. “You’re the guest. So in a way, you’re inviting us. If we’re going with you, then it’s on you.”
The logic was so completely upside down that Marina had no answer. The guest invites the hosts. The guest pays for the hosts. The guest who was invited becomes responsible for everyone’s expenses.
She bought three tickets.
At the museum, she wandered through the galleries and looked at the paintings, but her mind was somewhere else. She kept thinking that Svetlana no longer saw her as a guest at all — more like a convenient source of funding for their cultural outing. And she kept thinking that perhaps she herself had allowed it to happen by staying quiet, by being polite, by feeling awkward.
Kolya stood for a long time in front of one painting, his head tilted to one side.
“I don’t really get what’s supposed to be in this one,” he said at last.
“It’s Impressionism,” Marina explained.
“Oh,” Kolya nodded. “Well, that explains it then.”
After the museum, Svetlana suggested lunch. “There’s a nice place nearby — I’ve wanted to go for ages.”
The place turned out to be a restaurant with linen tablecloths and menus printed on thick paper. Not outrageously expensive, but certainly not cheap either. They sat down and ordered. When the bill arrived, Svetlana looked at it, then at Marina, and said nothing. Kolya said nothing too.
Marina picked up the check.
Walking home a few steps behind them, she thought — calmly, almost academically — that this was exactly the point at which people begin to hate their relatives. Not because the relatives are monsters. But because they are perfectly decent in their own way, and that “own way” has absolutely nothing to do with yours.
All the way home, Svetlana chatted about the restaurant — that the meat had been a little dry, though the sauce was all right, and next time they should really try the fish.
Back at the apartment, Marina went straight into her room, closed the door, and opened her phone.
She found a hostel almost immediately — close to the center, in an old building with high ceilings and peeling walls someone had clearly attempted to paint in cheerful colors without much success. But the reviews were good: quiet, clean, nice kitchen, friendly guests. Marina read several of them and studied the pictures.
Then she opened her chat with Svetlana and stared at the screen for a long time.
She could have told the truth. She could have written that she felt uncomfortable, that she had not expected this version of hospitality, that in her understanding of things, when you invite someone to stay, you do not then make them cover the family’s expenses. She could have said all of that — politely, without anger, simply as fact.
Instead, she typed: Sveta, I found a place closer to the areas I want to explore, so it’ll be more convenient for getting around. I’ll move there tomorrow morning. Thank you for your hospitality.
Svetlana replied almost at once: Well, do as you like. We weren’t throwing you out. A little hurt, to be honest.
Marina put the phone away and lay back on the sofa, staring at the ceiling.
Hurt. They were hurt.
She stayed there for half an hour, then got up and carefully packed everything back into the suitcase — all the things she had already begun placing on shelves and chairs. When she was done, she set the suitcase by the door. It stood there ready, like a faithful dog that always knows when its owner is about to leave.
The next morning felt entirely different.
At breakfast, Svetlana was distant — not rude, never that, she was far too much of a polished lady to allow herself outright rudeness, but distant in a cool, controlled way: short answers, eyes sliding elsewhere. Kolya, apparently unaware that anything was wrong at all, ate his eggs with the contented expression of a man for whom life remained perfectly fine.
When Marina called a taxi and rolled her suitcase into the hallway, Svetlana finally came out of the kitchen.
“Listen,” she said, “there’s one thing I don’t understand. We invited you here, welcomed you like family, and you…”
“Svetlana,” Marina interrupted gently.
“No, let me finish. We invited you to stay with us, but we expected you to buy food for everyone.”
This time the complaint was spoken openly, and there was something in that sentence that suddenly made Marina understand with perfect clarity: Svetlana truly believed what she was saying. She was not pretending. She was not cynically manipulating. She honestly thought this was the proper arrangement. That a guest should pay. That arriving in someone’s home meant taking on the expenses of the people who let you in.
Marina looked at her and thought: This is not a cruel person. This is simply a person with a completely different map of the world. And that was all.
“I did buy things,” Marina said quietly. “On the first day, and the second day too. I paid for the museum, and for lunch. I think that was fair enough. But I’m glad I got to spend at least a little time in the capital. Thank you for having me.”
She said it without sarcasm. Almost without sarcasm.
Svetlana pressed her lips together, but said nothing. Kolya waved to her from the hallway — sincerely, without resentment.
The taxi was waiting downstairs.
The hostel was on the fourth floor of an old apartment building, reached by a broad staircase with cast-iron railings. Marina climbed slowly, dragging the suitcase over each step, and thought that it was actually rather beautiful — such a staircase, in such an old neighborhood, on such a gray October morning.
At the reception desk sat a young woman with a long braid, scrolling through something on her phone. She looked up at Marina without much curiosity, but with easy friendliness.
“Checking in?”
“Yes.”
“Make yourself at home, and have a lovely day.”
The room was small — designed for several people, though on a weekday it was almost empty. Only one person occupied the farthest bed, sleeping under a blanket pulled completely over their head. Marina chose the bed by the window, dropped her backpack there, and set down her suitcase.
She looked outside — into a courtyard well, laundry lines hanging between windows, a cat perched on a sill opposite.
Suddenly she felt something close to relief. Not joy — relief. The kind that comes when you have been carrying something heavy for too long and finally put it down. Not because it was unbearable, but simply because… why keep holding it?
She took out her phone, opened the map, and began deciding where to go that day. The embankment. A small print museum someone had once told her about and she had written down. The old market that only stayed open until noon.
If she left right away, she could still make it to the market.
The market smelled of apples, spices, fresh bread, and something faintly sour — the way a real market always smells, where people are selling not for tourists, but for locals. Marina wandered between the stalls, touching the cold sides of pumpkins, tasting honey from a wooden spatula, chatting with a woman selling homemade cheese who called every customer dear heart.
She bought a little of everything — for herself, and for no one else. A piece of cheese, a handful of dried figs, a small cabbage pie wrapped in paper. She found a bench in a nearby square, unwrapped the pie, and ate it just like that, watching the pigeons and the people passing by on their own errands.
It was quiet. It was good.
She thought about Svetlana — not bitterly; the bitterness had already passed, or perhaps had never really had time to take shape. She thought instead about how differently people can be built on the inside, and how that is not always anyone’s fault but simply a fact you have to learn how to live around. Svetlana had seen Marina’s visit as an opportunity of some kind — and perhaps that too was honest, in its own strange way. The problem was simply that they had never agreed on the rules in advance. Each had assumed her own version was obvious.
What is obvious is never the same for everyone. It is worth remembering, especially with relatives.
One pigeon came very close and looked up at her with a bright orange eye — brisk, businesslike, unafraid.
“No,” Marina told it. “You’re not getting any pie.”
The pigeon lingered for another second, then flew off.
By evening she returned to the hostel tired and content — in that rare proportion where tiredness feels pleasant because something real stands behind it. She had walked eight streets she had wanted to see. She had stood by the river. She had visited a tiny gallery where a young artist was exhibiting watercolors — blurred cityscapes that were not really about any one city, but about the feeling a city leaves behind. She bought a postcard.
In the hostel kitchen, someone was brewing coffee — the smell drifted through the corridor. At the table sat two people: a guy with dreadlocks reading something on a tablet, and a girl with a backpack by her feet writing in a notebook. They paid Marina no attention at all — and that, too, felt wonderful.
She set on the kettle, took out her figs and cheese, sliced some bread.
No one looked at her expectantly. No one silently calculated whether she had brought enough. No one felt offended if it was too little, or grateful if it was a lot.
She was simply a person in a kitchen, eating her own supper.
Outside, the capital hummed with its evening noise — vast, layered, indifferent, and therefore liberating. Marina watched the lights in the building across the way and thought that she still had several days left, and she would spend them exactly like this: on her own, for herself, at her own pace, without accounts owed and without other people’s expectations — or her own.
She opened her notebook and began writing down what she had seen that day, just for herself. The pigeons. The watercolors. The cat in the courtyard window. The cheese seller who had called her dear.
This was her trip.
And it was only just beginning.
