City of Dreams. NY

Why New York?

For me, New York has always been a city from music videos that I recorded on VHS tapes from the Viva channel and from photographs in the "Musical Newspaper," in each issue of which there was a section about graffiti and hip-hop culture. It was a set of decorations from Wu-Tang, Nas, and Big L videos, and I didn't need anything more than graffiti-covered subway cars turned into art objects. I imagined it as dirty, brick-filled, chaotic, almost always black and white, and smelly.

I caught my first glimpse of New York in Gomel when I came to take a math test. I stood at a busy intersection, the light turned green, and about 30 people started crossing the road towards each other simultaneously. "Wow, this vibe! Just like in New York!" - I thought at that moment with words more familiar to a school student from the early 2000s. And then I came to Minsk to apply for college and saw my first skyscraper in my life: the main building of Narhoza - it was definitely taller, more glassy, and more captivating than the buildings of Manhattan. Both cities were equally incredible, something from the world beyond the screen. But I suspected that if I left Zhlobin to live in Minsk, there would be no higher jump than that - only New York was left. And after more than ten years, I finally had the chance to live there.

The City That Has It All. Expectations vs Reality

I visited the city twice for a couple of months each time, and considering that it wasn't for Work and Travel and not just to visit museums, I managed to get a glimpse of what it's like to be a local. The first moment occurred when I saw a good orthopedic mattress left on the sidewalk and thought to myself, "Just what I need! It's a pity that transporting it from Manhattan to Brooklyn would cost half of a new one." In New York, people often move and simply leave a bunch of good things on the street near their home - it's easier and cheaper than hiring a moving truck every time. And you can furnish your apartment without spending a penny: just take a walk around the neighborhood on a weekend morning. And we needed a good mattress at that time.

The second time I felt like a local was when I considered a $5 beer at a bar an incredibly good deal. Usually, a glass costs $7-8, and it's hard to get used to it at first. The feeling was reinforced when I realized that we hardly ever cook at home and always either eat out or get takeout. It turns out that when you have five neighbors sharing the same apartment floor, cooking in the communal kitchen (which is also the living room) isn't very convenient. And that's what most locals do.

Loving New York

It seems to me that you can only love New York with one kind of love: masochistic love. Here, every aspect of life becomes a challenge. The climate, suffocating in the summer and bitterly cold in the winter, the public transportation that consumes a third of your life, the quality of housing and its prices, the lack of time and washing machines, the immense competition - it's no wonder that every encounter with Belarusian immigrants involved complaints about how they hate this city. Yet, each of them arrogantly took pride in being a local now.

It's impossible not to love New York for its countless delightful little things. For the delicious sandwiches from Delis on every corner and the selection of craft beers in each of them, more than in the entire CIS combined. For the dollar pizza and restaurants with cuisines from every country in the world. For the musicians in the subway, for the beautiful people and the eccentric ones, for the splendid parks and equally magnificent cemeteries, for the blaring music from passing cars, for the museums, photogenic scenes, the ocean, fashion, and trashiness, for the endless variety, for the impossibility of fully exploring it.

"It's impossible not to love New York for its countless delightful little things... for the dollar pizza and restaurants with cuisines from every country in the world, for the musicians in the subway, for the beautiful people and the eccentrics, for the splendid parks and equally magnificent cemeteries."

This city will entertain you to death, even if you don't have a penny in your pocket. You can simply walk through it - day by day, neighborhood by neighborhood - and it will never get boring, it will never be monotonous. It is divided by invisible boundaries: national, social, and economic, horizontally and vertically. Everything has blended together into a wildly rich salad, but some ingredients still don't touch, and not everyone can enter certain invisible reservations: in some, you simply won't be allowed, in others, you won't want to intrude. Many things are still determined by your income (primarily), education, job, and skin color.

5 things that make this city unique:

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2. Dollar pizza: The best street food in the city, where a slice costs just a dollar. There's a wide variety of flavors and toppings available, but the classic choice of tomato sauce and cheese is hard to beat. For me, it's a contender for the best pizza in the world, especially since it's always fresh out of the oven in a matter of seconds.

3. Laundromats: New York apartments don't typically have washing machines, so once a week, residents gather their clothes in a huge bag, collect their spare quarters, and head to the nearest laundromat in the neighborhood to wash and dry their entire wardrobe in less than an hour. It's a great place to interact with neighbors, but beware, clothes tend to shrink after using the dryers. Laundromats vary across neighborhoods, offering a cool opportunity to explore the cultures of New York's diverse communities.

4. Deli stores: These can be found in almost every block or neighborhood, providing all the essential items needed for life in the city: beer, chips, and rolling papers. Plus, they offer delightful sandwiches that can be customized like building blocks.

5. Brownstones: These two- or three-story multi-unit residential buildings made of brown bricks instantly make the city's architecture recognizable and incredibly charming. Moreover, most of them cost over a hundred dollars!

6. Melting pot of cultures: I don't know of any other place in the world with such an abundance of stunningly beautiful people, thanks to the mixing of different bloodlines.