The author

Hi Michael,

My name is Andrey Markelov. For the past N years I’ve been traveling a lot and writing stories about it. I know every other blogger does that now, but I do it much more interesting, sharper, and dramatic. If you want to see what I mean, try starting with Varanasi or Iran. Though the loudest thing came out when I pretended to convert to Islam and went to Medina and Mecca disguised as a pilgrim.

Of course, not all my stories are equally strong. Sometimes I write routine travel reports too. Over time there are fewer of them. Still, nobody else on Patreon, Medium, or other facebooks can really afford true literary narrative, dramaturgy, great photography, and especially interactive effects inside their stories.

I can afford. Because my goal is to show the world to the Reader, not to stamp out template posts for ad money. Writing plot-driven stories is hard, so I write slowly. Everything you see on this site is made by me alone: I am the traveler, the photographer, the writer, the designer, and the programmer. That’s just how it is.

On this site I also publish my essays on design, and other projects.

P.S. Of course I don’t actually know your name is Michael. Statistically, it’s the most common name in the US. I just thought someone would be very surprised when he reads it.

All of my photographs are released under a CC BY license — meaning they can be used for any purpose, including commercial use, as long as I am credited. Occasionally, some stories include third-party photos that I have purchased for illustration purposes. You can tell them apart by the filename: all of my own photos are named IMG_XXX or P_XXX — those are the ones you are free to use.

Social networks

I don’t run Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and YouTube because I am too lazy. When I have become not too lazy, I will for sure start running all of them. In the meantime, reach me out by email: [email protected].

Btw, laziness doesn’t exist, it’s a social construct. So there must be other reason.

Compiler A. V.

Back in the days before compilers existed, there was a special person: Mr. Compiler. One contacted him when needed and said, “Mr. Compiler, dear Alexander Vasilyevich, could you please come over?”

The Mr. Compiler came over, was handed the program text, went into a special room, and compiled the code manually, writing it out byte by byte. If there was an error in the program, he gently scolded: “Well now, you see, there’s a type mismatch here, error 2015 — one ought not to do such a thing.”

Even earlier, before calculators existed, there was a Mr. Calculator, though whether his name was Alexander Vasilyevich is not exactly known. Before him there was some other Mr. someone, and before him another Mr. somebody, and so on.

And then everything started spinning: calculators, compilers.

You see, the secret of all great inventors is that they always knew who was that Mr. at the moment.