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The story/testimonial was published in the two January issues of Odessky Vestnik. As it turned out later, I was actually doing Yevgeny a great disservice by assisting in the publication. He ran into troubles that forced him to emigrate – and I had no idea that this was happening, since I was absorbed in my own problems during my first years of life overseas.

Eight years later we happened to meet each other in the USA (if I remember correctly, in April 2004). We reminisced about Odessa, his appearance at the editorial office, and the long-ago publication. Yevgeny was preparing to leave for Vanuatu, an island in the Pacific Ocean. He gave me the address of a bank in Manhattan and the number of a safe deposit box that was paid for ten years in advance, where he kept the story of his life in America. He gave me the key and left instructions that if he did not return, the safe should be opened when the payment expired, on December 31, 2014. I don’t know why he decided to trust me; I suppose it had to do with the long-ago publication in which I was involved. Or maybe he wanted to leave something to be remembered by in case anything happened to him, or he wanted to settle a score with someone in hindsight – and it seemed to him that when I turned up at that time, I was suitable for this purpose.