THE HOTEL WAS LOCATED in a most exclusive area of the city. To get there, one had to follow a winding road through a pine forest which led down to the waterfront. It was a gray, cool day in Alaska, but that hadn’t discouraged the fleet of news vans and journalists from milling by the chain-link fence that had been installed. There were other parties, cult members, UFO truth seekers with binoculars around their necks, true believers, true doubters, and just random indigent folks who had, exhausting the homeless encampments down south, worked their way up the coast to the pristine nature surrounding Anchorage and Cook Inlet.
Luckily, I was accredited to cover the summit, but that didn’t mean I was free to roam the premises. After being let through the first gate, I was ushered into a tent, where a man in a military uniform sat at a desk. I showed him my Edasi press card, but as I looked up and down the table, I noticed that there were various tubes and lateral flow tests. I wouldn’t be allowed anywhere near the summit unless I submitted blood, saliva, and urine samples. “You have to be kidding me,” I told the man in uniform. “Putin is a war criminal and you’re afraid that I’m going to get him sick!” “This is standard procedure for the Alaska Summit, sir,” said the uniformed man. “We want Mr. Putin to feel comfortable, welcome, and entirely at home here in the great state of Alaska.” “No, no,” I said. “I refuse to submit any samples to anyone,” I told him. I exited the tent, which oddly was unguarded, allowing me to creep closer to the hotel.
At this point, some musicians from Estonia who had also breached the security perimeter encountered me. They had planned an intervention along the road leading into the hotel. We wrapped ourselves in Ukrainian flags and lied down in the road in the rain, only to see several small armored vehicles approach. “Disperse!” one of the commanders shouted from somewhere. “Disperse! You are disrupting the high-stakes Alaska Summit!” The musicians groaned on the asphalt, but did not move. Then came the bursts of and blasts of tear gas. There was a scramble, some chaos, and in a moment of fear and cowardice, I stood and fled and was followed by some others. I ran toward the hotel complex, turned toward a posh waterside café.
There, behind the café, there was some space between two stone walls. The walls were made of beige brick decorated with natural motifs, such as bears, whales, or caribou. I hid myself between those walls and groups of soldiers went marauding by. I put my head down and realized that my journal was still there in my bag. My precious journal, purchased last September at Rahva Raamat. I pulled my journal from my bag and decided to write a little.
north! 