
Annotation: What happens when a woman, mesmerized by the ideals of hippie youth, tortured by post-Soviet poverty, and unable to build relationships with men, leaves on a journey to India? In Irina Vasilyeva's ironic epistolary travelogue, the story of unrequited love for a distant (but, in fact, extremely close) person is superimposed on the conventional tale of a European pilgrimage to the East. The adventurous heroine plunges into the thick of dodgy districts in Delhi, Mumbai and other cities, which she describes without illusions and embellishments. Vasilyeva eventually finds herself the owner of an small store and the wife of a Krishnaite. Seeking to explore unknown territory within herself, Vasilyeva gradually discovers a new way of being that fundamentally changes her identity, as well as her experience of social and spiritual life.