[05:27 - 08:02] The Mystical Lighter and the News of Yuri's Death

And also everything is somehow strange. I am not prone to mysticism, but on March 8, 2003, Yurka gives me a gorgeous lighter. Well, because I smoke endlessly, I have lighters, then matches. And Yura is also quite a guy, if no one has lighters, you have to go to Yura and empty his pockets, because he never thinks, he smokes everywhere, but back then it was allowed. And so he stood up, took it, lit a cigarette, put it in his pocket. The next time he forgot it was in his pocket, took and got the next one, saw it, lit it. And then he says, "Yes, that's it, we all live, live, live by the rules, here's a wonderful lighter." A luxurious Japanese mother-of-pearl lighter. It has a 100-year mechanism, they just have a guarantee. I forgot, but it's lying with me, this wonderful lighter. I used it, used it, and then its mechanism stopped working. And Yura tells me: "I'm such a scatterbrain, don't lose it." "Where," he says, "is the lighter? Where?" So I take it out, it's fine. Then, where's the lighter? "I lost it." I say, "Listen," I say, "something's broken there." He says, "There's a 100-year warranty, nothing could break there." I say, "No, no," I say, "something's broken there." And suddenly, when Yura ends up in the hospital, and I keep saying, "take this then, fix it, fix the thing!" Yura ends up in the hospital, I take this lighter, it's always in my pocket. It doesn't work, it lies in my pocket. And at some point I'm sitting at home, I take out the lighter, automatically light up, and it works. I start smoking with this lighter. So this is mysticism, suddenly it starts working again. But part of it is mother-of-pearl, and part is a silver-plated body, and it's a very high-quality, specially made alloy, silver with something, because silver is brittle, and suddenly it all starts to peel off like skin. This part, the metal, it just starts to peel off, like the thinnest skin. And I think, probably, my sweat has changed. I don't want to admit that it's such a metaphor, the lighter is burning. When on the 3rd, at 7 AM, on July 3rd, Muratov calls me, I already see his phone, 7 AM, I already understand everything. And he tells me, well, very gently, like, "And tonight, our boy is gone."