This situation has been eating at me since yesterday, so I decided to write a personal message to that bearded guy. Yesterday, as you may remember, there was that “action by Sergey Sardelenovich” at Domodedovo Airport (Moscow). Chaos, shoving, and after brushing sausages off myself, I was understandably pretty irritated. Then this huge bearded man comes up to me, clearly looking like he was part of the same sausage-throwing crowd. “Alexei, can I take a photo with you?” Standing next to him was another big guy in a tracksuit. Given that five seconds earlier someone had asked to take a photo with me as part of their sausage-themed stunt, I figured this was just episode two. That’s usually how they do it—almost always several people throwing or splashing something, etc. So I said to the bearded guy, “Hey, keep going where you were headed. I have no desire to take a photo with you.” And I headed for the exit. The bearded guy followed me. At the revolving doors he tried again: “I want to take a photo with you.” And his jacket was bulging oddly too, like he had something in it. At that point I explained to the bearded guy, pretty rudely, that I was not going to take a photo with him. He said, “I might actually be your fan. I want to vote for you.” And I said, “Well then go ahead and vote, but don’t walk next to me.” So, in the end, I drove off a provocateur. But then I watched the video of the incident and saw that the bearded guy and his buddy in the tracksuit were coming out of the arrivals area behind me. Which means he couldn’t possibly have been part of the group of provocateurs. He was just a normal guy, supportive, wanted a photo. It’s not his fault he’s big and happened to run into me at a stupid moment. And I treated him so rudely. I feel awful about it now. So, bearded guy, maybe you’ll read this. I’m sorry. I was wrong.