Personal essay · Tokyo · 東京

I fell in love with Japan when I understood how it works.

For twenty years I designed systems: networks, clouds, infrastructure. Japan is the first system I fell in love with without having built it. This site is an engineer's attempt to take a country apart into components — and to admit, honestly, where the disassembly ends.

Start with the mechanics

Four ways of looking

From mechanics to the limit of understanding. The order is deliberate: first what can be explained, last what cannot.

Section essays · Russian only

01 — 仕組み

Systems

 Engineer · why everything works

The konbini as an edge node. Transit as orchestration. Omotenashi as UX designed before you knew you needed it. Japan, taken apart into working components.

Read 02 — 静寂

Silence

 Human · what cannot be explained

An izakaya down an alley where you weren't expected. A shrine at six in the morning. The city's rhythm that engineering language can't hold — and shouldn't. The part about what remains after analysis.

Read 03 — 食卓

Table

 Season · region · precision

Not "sushi and ramen." Seasonality as doctrine, regionality as character, kaiseki as composition. Japanese cuisine through the eyes of someone who takes it seriously.

Read 04 — 外人

Stranger

 Distance · honestly

What I, as a foreigner, will never understand — and why that's all right. The border that love does not cross. The most honest section of the site.

Read
To love a country from within is natural.
To love it from outside is a choice.

— manifesto of the 外から project · Moscow → 東京

Mixed-script test: at (Shibuya) the (Yamanote) train arrives every 2.5 min, and platform 1 empties in 40 sec.