Before Arthur had even learned to read, he posed the very same question as had little Peter, the boy on the airplane. He asked the question again and again. His parents answered him – "When you grow up, you'll understand." As a teenager, he continued to ask the question to intelligent people, considered to be experienced and knowledgeable, yet none of them could tell him why we live.

Oh, sure, he got a bucket load of standard answers: "You'll find out when you get older," "Don't ask stupid questions," "No one knows the answer to that," "To strengthen communism," "To have children," "To live a life of virtue," "To be an example to the generation growing up under you," "To have your name written into history," and so on.

No one could give a concrete, unambiguous answer. He was all the more disappointed that religious leaders were unable to answer it, but also simply gave some general, banal responses. Arthur did not resign himself to this. He intuitively understood that our lives couldn't be meaningless. Even scientific disciplines demanding the most precise measurements recognize that everything has a cause. Assuming, for the sake of argument, that we are merely biomechanisms or chemical substances; nevertheless, we have a reason for which we are born or purpose to fulfill in this world.


* * *

One day, on a trip with friends to the mountains, he went off on his own and climbed to the top of the highest one there. From this vantage point a stunning, enchanting vista was laid out before him. A spectacular panorama for many miles was around him and far off from his camp below he saw a small town. The people were but tiny dots, the buses like miniature match boxes. Their rushing about from way up high seemed an unnecessary and humorous farce, especially considering that it was all being played out in the backdrop of mountains that had seen changing civilizations for many thousands of years.

Questions which had been festering for so long surfaced again quite suddenly: why is there all this hustle and bustle in life? Who created all this beauty? What's the meaning of all it? What's the reason for my life, and is there, in fact, even a reason for it?

The next thing he simply had not expected at all. He dropped to his knees and imploringly beckoned to… well, he didn't really know how to formulate 'to whom'… to some Higher Reasoning Being, to the Creator, who had made all this – all this vastness and beauty. The surroundings and loneliness had naturally induced his communication with Him.



"If you exist, help me understand – why do we live, what is the meaning of all it? I don't want to live in the everyday humdrum rat race. I am prepared to devote my life to the attainment of the purpose for which I am meant, to learn the meaning of life, if there is one. Help me; I have no one else to turn to…"


Having said that, he felt a great satisfaction and joy welling within himself. An unknown bird trilled out a sweet song that underscored his feelings.

As he began to climb back down, the sun dipped behind the hills and, although it was still early yet, it suddenly became dark. This darkness made the descent more difficult than the ascent had been. He almost fell off a cliff after stepping on a stone that slipped aside, but he saved himself by grabbing onto a prickly bush. It took him half an hour, slowly pulling himself inch by inch to steady ground from the looming sheer drop below him, before he could reach safe ground. After that, he was able to reach a plateau, from which a fairly level path led to their camp.

Once he had reached safe ground, his whole body began to shake. He realized that, until then, a sense of 'here and now' had taken over. There had been only the mountains and him – no past, no future. He remembered every moment and every movement. Even after he was finally back down, he was still experiencing what had just taken place. He suddenly remembered that he had passed the graves of several mountain climbers, and this only served to underscore his philosophical state of mind after a near brush with death.

In this state, he joined his friends, who were having a lively discussion about the latest news at school.

He ate, half-heartedly participated a little in the conversation, then crawled into his sleeping bag and stared for the longest time at the stars strewn about in the sky. In the mountains, stars seemed to be larger and to shine brighter and prettier. He remembered that he had read, or someone had told him, that to reach those stars would take many millions of light years, and he felt a sense of internal calm before that great vastness once again.

The more he looked at the stars and contemplated the vastness of it all, the more he felt a deep respect and spiritual presence around him.

His question about the meaning of life had become quite immediate, seeing as how he had almost died.



"Why is all this? Why was I born? What is the meaning and purpose of my life? I don't want just to exist; I am ready for anything so that I can learn the meaning of life and to live it," he thought.


And, drifting off to sleep, it seems he heard a voice, both internally and externally, a voice that spoke resolutely, yet with great love, asking him, "Are you truly ready to dedicate your life to the answer to these questions? Are you ready to go your own path?"

"Yes," he answered confidently.

A certain feeling of bliss in him became yet stronger; it seemed that the lights in the heavens became stronger, too, and they were answering him, "Be well! May your life be full." He looked at the depths of the heavens, but gradually it all became hazy and he fell asleep. Awaking in the morning, he threw himself into the flurry of daily activities and did not pay particular attention to the oath that he had sworn the night before, yet he had the feeling that his 'train of life' had switched to another track and was speeding onto a more interesting, yet more risky path. From that day on, the feeling never left him.




Chapter II

The School of Life Began in School


A few days after they returned, school began. It was their last year in school. There was a new girl now whose father was second-generation Korean. Her name was Lena. There was nothing particularly special about her; she was calm and hard-working. Arthur and Lena became friends. They both loved to read. At Lena's house there were a lot of books and Arthur's place also had its own library. They began borrowing each other's books and would discuss them during breaks. In this way, they came to have a common vocabulary… They read Duma, Stanislavsky, Stankevich, Jack London, Dickens, and many other authors of Russian and world-famous classics.

One day, however, something happened that brought their friendly talks to an end and left a bitter, bitter taste. Many years later they would meet and he would ask for forgiveness; when she granted it he felt a great weight had been lifted from his chest. But in the meantime…


* * *

After lunch one day, Arthur and some friends ended up in the park at the back side of the school – someone was sitting on a bench, someone standing, someone discretely smoking. They were carrying on typical macho guy talk: girls are bad and you just can't trust them, it's better to serve in the army without having a girlfriend, only men can be friends with men, girls are a lower form of life, and so on. In the distance, Arthur saw Lena leaving school. They started making fun of her in loud voices. The first frost had hit and she slipped on the steps and fell several yards apart. She got up with difficulty. Arthur's first impulse was to get up and help her and to stop the guys from jeering, but he didn't do anything; instead he just stood there, laughing, although not so loudly.

Once she got up, she saw that Arthur was part of the group. Even though they were far apart, you could tell that this initially hurt her some more. She then continued walking with great effort, limping painfully and holding her arm bent unnaturally.

She didn't come to school the next day. And only several days later did Arthur resolve to call her. But Lena would either not answer or she would hang up the receiver once she heard his voice. Her mother brought a doctor's note to school stating that she had severely sprained her knee and broken her wrist; in addition, she had gotten a cold while walking home and would not return for at least several weeks. She got a cast on her arm and leg and studied on her own at home.

She returned to school after New Year's break. As for her and Arthur, they basically never talked. Arthur had gone up to her and said, "Oh, come on, let's let it go…" but she gave him a long, hard look and calmly replied,

"You know, it's not important how much we read about honorable deeds, but instead how capable a person is of being a friend, and how honorable we are in our actions in life. Only animals, lowly animals, live by a herd mentality."

To hear 'honorable' cut him like a knife, and in a way it sounded new to him… He was ashamed, although she spoke plainly, without reproach. She spoke of how our character is revealed by our knowledge, our education, and who we truly are. Likewise, we are affected by our dependence on peer pressure and group influence over us, and no one loves traitors and cowards. We should learn to be friends and just good people instead of well-versed, arrogant and cowardly men.

He feigned a writhing pain in his face to try and make a joke of it all, but she left with a sorrowful look on her face. He felt an internal loathing of himself.

In the ensuing months he watched several films, all of which spoke of friendship, virtuous behavior, and honor, and derided cowards and traitors. The book by Kaverin, "Two Captains,"[1 - This book won millions of hearts with its sympathetic and incredibly noble heroes.] affected him especially deeply.

Arthur finished school but this lesson in life remained with him for a long, long time. From that point on he swore an oath to try and be honorable and never to let anyone down or betray them.




Chapter III

From Poor Student to Wealthy Entrepreneur


Arthur finished school among the top students, mainly thanks to his parents getting him a tutor. They dreamed of him being accepted into a respected college. He studied earnestly and, with his father's help, he entered a prestigious Moscow institute, what made his parents happy and proud.

His first year was hard but in his second year he was able to find some free time for himself. He started going to various parties with friends but they didn't particularly attract him or give him much pleasure.

The parties mainly revolved around irresponsible thrills – drinking, making low-class jokes, and spending time with some girl or other who was devoid of any moral standards. He'd wake up in the morning with a person who meant nothing to him and what he felt wasn't any personal satisfaction but more a kind of emptiness or dullness in his head. He thought to himself, "Is this really what life is all about?"

Just to get some animalistic sex, he would have to go to the other side of Moscow, breathe cigarette smoke, drink lousy cocktails, listen to dirty jokes, participate in dumb conversations, criticize someone or other, and discuss the latest gossip.

He really preferred to go to the theater and meet interesting people. Many of his fellow students would snicker at him about this, but it didn't bother him.

Likewise, his teachers caused him to think about the meaning of life. After all, they were people assumed, by default, to be leaders; they were expected to know the answers to many questions and to help society prosper.

They got a good salary with benefits at the institute, and it wasn't that hard to get their degrees. That's why many teachers, former students of the institute themselves, had been eager to work there after they finished their studies or, having worked for some time in their fields, they returned to the institute to assume teaching duties. Arthur observed that they were not the happiest of people.

To get on the staff, some of them resorted to ugly tactics: they would spread stories of something bad a colleague had done, scheme against them, and try to use their connections to get a position they wanted.

Over time, they became more bitter and dissatisfied; many began to drink despite their growing salaries and high degrees. Only two teachers differentiated themselves from the rest through their calmness and peacefulness. You could tell that they wanted no part of this "office politics". They came from good families.

One of the older teachers surprised Arthur. He had taught courses on scientific communism and often spoke of morals. At the very start of the perestroika[2 - Perestroika, literally 'rebuilding', was the period during which the Soviet Union changed its economy to a capitalist-style open market.] period, however, he left the institute and opened a bar. He sold liquor to students and made a number of shady deals.

Arthur thought about all these things many times and asked teachers about the meaning of life. They told him that the reason for being was to raise oneself in society's standing. "We should become socially successful individuals, accomplished professionally, becoming, for instance, engineers, officers, doctors, leaders…"

This was nothing new to him; they had said the same stuff in school. "All right," he thought, "So I devote from 20 to 30 years of my life to be a professor. And that's all? That's the meaning of life?

Once, however, Arthur was at a reception for a well-known artist who had attained everything he had dreamed of in his career – fame, fortune, devotees. Yet the artist himself admitted that he was feeling less and less happy about life, although he led an exciting lifestyle and increasingly received awards and gained new admirers. This all forced Arthur to consider and reconsider his future. At any rate, he knew that it was important for him to graduate, but then after that he would make a cardinal change in his life.

While still a schoolboy, Arthur knew that physical health was a requirement in life – without it you could neither attain much nor would you really enjoy it. He understood that you had to pay attention to your body. He was glad to do it: he actively played several sport games, hiked in summer, practiced bodybuilding and had a strong, tight body.


* * *

Just before Arthur graduated in the late 1980s, perestroika had begun.

In his last year, he read Solzhenitsyn's Gulag Archipelag. He saw the internal rot of the system which had inflicted its deceit, lies, and forced on tens of millions of people. He had no desire to work for the government, although he was offered work there, work which would've given him the opportunity to travel abroad regularly, a rare and special perk in those days. He readily rejected a number of tempting offers, some of which came as a result of his parents' connections and others which came as a 'package deal' from families offering a daughter. For months he had gotten a series of invitations from very influential people who offered him to get to know and marry their daughters. It turns out he was quite the promising bachelor: he neither drank nor smoked and his education promised an excellent career.

One well-connected man put it like this, "Look, as a wedding present I'll give you a new GAZ-24 car and keys to your own condo and I'll help you get ahead in your career." But he refused all the tempting offers and preferred to get his diploma free of any ties that would obligate him after graduation.

He passed his exams quite well, graduating with honors. He stayed in the dorm for several months afterward because he had injured his knee in sports.

Those days the first manifestations of freedom of speech appeared – television and newspapers didn't have communist slogans. Privately-owned stores and restaurants arrived, ushering in a new milestone in the economy.

One day at lunch in the institute's cafeteria, he met a man named Orlovsky. He offered Arthur a job taking care of certain boxes he would bring to him. "Hey, you can't walk anyway yet. May as well get paid for doing something," he told Arthur with a wink.

His last name of Orlovsky certainly fit him well – he looked like an eagle.[3 - Orlovsky, or Orlov, comes from the Russian word 'oryel', which means 'eagle'.] Although his name had Slavic origins, his ethnic origins were Jewish, a fact he did not try to hide.

When asked what he did for a living, he would say he was an 'entrepreneur' or 'businessman. Orlovsky's business within the institute was procurement of various types of commercial-grade equipment.

A month later, they once again met in the institute's cafe, started talking, and became friends. Orlovsky had remembered Arthur to be honest and responsible and offered him a job working with him for good money. The work was rather interesting and they travelled a lot. The essence of the job was first to buy something, and then to sell that 'something'. Entrepreneurial blood coursed in Orlovsky's veins; he knew what would be useful to buy or sell and from whom to whom.

He opened several underground shops, among which was one that made underwear. They were successful in selling their products and made a good profit at it. On top of his salary, with every sale Arthur got a good commission and within a year he had become very rich. He could easily make in a week what the institute's director made in a year. And he didn't have to go to any party meetings or participate in dirty office politics.

He bought himself a new Zhiguli car, a large, well-appointed condo in Moscow, and also one for his parents, plus, their lifelong dream – a weekend cabin.

And so it was natural that in one of their business trips, when joint ventures were just in their inception, he asked Orlovsky what this busy life was for. Orlovsky told him, "You can achieve some title or place in society, but if you don't have money, there's no point. If you have money, you can do what you want and own what you want." In this way, Orlovsky planted the seed in Arthur to have "money for money's sake."

Arthur decided to work a year for Orlovsky and then go his own way. He had gotten everything he wanted and he could take a vacation wherever he wanted. This was pretty much anyone's dream, yet still, he wanted more and more. He dived in deeper to this 'whirlpool of life', where money was the main goal, and from which it was not all that easy to get out. But in a year and a half something happened that sharply changed his life and the lives of all those connected to their business.


* * *

One night, he and Orlovsky got out of their car to have dinner. In front of them a new Mercedes and a new Russian car stopped and a couple of large guys got out. They grabbed Orlovsky by the neck and pounded him a few times against the wall.