Once we went to Slovenia, and from there decided to go to Venice for a day. One day. All would be nothing, but in the first three hours of tourism, we were robbed. Everything was taken out of the bag: credit cards, cash and passports. Passports with VISA, and worst of all, an English visa, for which I had to fly to London in three days to sing a performance. Coronation of Popeya Monteverdi. One of the main roles. Replacement of the fearsome singer economical English did not dare to get.

I had a nervous breakdown. We immediately called the consulate (the nearest was in Milan), but summer, summer, summer! The consul is on vacation. by LOL.

We were attached to the International Police in San Marco. This is the international police in Italy. There they do not speak English. I did not speak Italian at the time. What to do? My boiling from the heat and adrenaline moss gives an original decision: to try to explain with carabiners phrases from the opera (good I always literally translated the texts of the parties).

I started with a mixture of the Coronation of Popea and the Glukovsky Orpheus:

I am despised and consoled! Io manco, io moro (I am all denied and reluctant! I am losing consciousness, I am dying.

The police officers would be happy to blow up in my face, but seeing my scratched body and my general hysterical state, they sat down and gave me water. Then we had to describe the essence of the problem. I decided to continue on Orpheus and Eurydice, especially since in my view the words "Eurydice" and "passport" were interchangeable.

What would I do without my passport? Dove andro without my passport? What will I do without a passport? Where can I go without a passport?



It has worked. The police activated. They began to show me pictures of various thieves and thieves until I saw a lady in a hijab who hit me from all over the bridge.

This is the damned woman. Vorrei smembrarla! This is the damned woman! I want to split it!)



After recovering from the shock, the policemen gave us a certificate, according to which we were to be transported free of charge to our place of departure (Trieste), gave us water and a dry paddle, and promised to keep us informed. All the way to the station, I prayed to the spirit of Monsieur Monteverdi, whose opera was supposed to be left without primacy.



Already at the station a call - an agitated police officer asked to return to the station. When we got there, all the policemen stood up at the entrance with happy hands, shocking our passports – it turns out, the thief threw them out along with the credit cards in a male toilet in San Marco, where they were found by a boy from Bangladesh who brought them to the police.



dying of the happiness that suddenly fell upon us, I shouted:

Lord the Cavalier! Vi benedico per la vostra bella e gentilezza! (Sir Knight, I bless you for your kindness and kindness!)



The police officer said goodbye to me:

Your language is very elegant. You have a very elegant Italian.



c) Maria Ostrouhova