Dima got distracted by a passing woman who appeared to be slightly over 35 years old. She approached us and asked for a light, to which Dima, being a true gentleman, helped her with this request. After flirting with each other for about five minutes and exchanging numbers, the woman went about her business. Dima's subsequent monologue about this woman was not the most pleasant. I don't think it's worth describing it here.

Artem returned from the store, we got into the car, and we were ready to leave, but Dima received a phone call. The guy who called him seemed clearly worried and pleaded intensely not to leave without him. Dima turned to me and asked if I minded waiting for the guy. I, of course, had no objections because I had been in his position just an hour ago. Dima agreed to wait for him for an extra fee for one hour. We parked near the nearest shopping center next to the metro station.

After 50 minutes, he arrived, and we set off. My fellow traveler turned out to be a young lad named Vitya, who didn't look older than 22. Vitya studied the IT field on YouTube and, according to his claims, quite successfully. He had managed to get a job at some company by lying about his work experience.

Vitya tried to conceal the purpose of his trip, but Dima quickly figured him out, and Vitya confessed that he was running away to Kazakhstan.

During the journey, Dima and Artem shared the purpose of their trip. They were deliberately heading to a military recruitment office, even though they hadn't received any conscription notices. Dima expressed approval for the events unfolding in Ukraine. For about an hour, he talked about his anticipation of an attack on Kyiv, as it was the capital and there were many places where they could find supplies. At that moment, I realized that this person was not going there with the aim of defending the borders of the Russian Federation, but rather for plunder and looting. Dark thoughts, a dark soul.

I thought of giving Vitya some advice and handed him my phone with a note open, which read, "Try not to talk too much about the border, where you're going, and what you think about it." He wrote down his phone number and handed me my phone back. In our conversation, I told him that I was also heading to the Kazakhstan border. After that, Vitya and I decided that we would continue together towards the border because, at the very least, it would be easier and somewhat safer.

We had plenty of time to explore options for getting from Saratov to the "Ozinki" border. We estimated our arrival time in Saratov to be around three o'clock in the morning. We managed to find a driver who would take us to the border for 5,000 rubles per person. We didn't have any other choice since taxi fares were starting at 15,000 rubles, and many other temporary taxi drivers were charging at least 10,000 rubles. So we had to agree on the price of 5,000 rubles. Vitya arranged with the driver to pick us up at four o'clock in the morning at the Saratov train station.

We were driving fairly quickly and confident that we would make it on time, but we encountered some issues as darkness fell. We got caught in a major traffic jam, which later turned out to be caused by a collision between two trucks. Both of them were engulfed in flames, leaving only their metal frames behind. Besides the police and firefighters, there was no one else around. If there was an ambulance, it had likely left after taking care of the injured. Because of this traffic jam, we were already running late for our scheduled time, at least a couple of hours late, so we informed the next driver that we would arrive later.