“I’m one of those who is never lost, wherever he is”

Eduard Limonov’s declaration that he is never lost wherever he goes becomes more than a claim of self-confidence in the prison chapters. It names a capacity to approach other people and find his footing among them—one that the narrator recognizes as a strikingly grounded side of Limonov.

The Expression in Context

Limonov writes of prisoners who have killed and are now tormented by the state, identifying himself with them as a fellow inmate: “I’m their brother, a little muzhik like them, buffeted by the bad winds of prison.” He says he does not judge them and is writing for the people who asked him to write. The expression belongs to this account of solidarity: his sense of belonging is grounded in shared circumstances, not distance from the men around him.

Approach and Recognition

The fuller statement gives the declaration its distinctive movement: “I’m one of those who is never lost, wherever he is. I approach other people, other people approach me. Things fall naturally into place.” Its successive clauses describe reciprocity rather than mastery. Limonov does not claim that every place is familiar; he describes a way of entering into relations through which a place becomes navigable.

The narrator sets this self-description against his usual impression of Limonov, whose courage and vital energy can seem to carry him far from reality. Prison reverses that impression. There, the narrator says, Limonov is not “way out in left field”: he knows where he is. The expression thus gains force from the setting and the narrator’s judgment alike. It is not simply a boast about being unshakable, but a concise account of how Limonov finds orientation among other people when confined among them.