Part 2 – UAE: Landed for a Rotation, Never Rotated Back

My dear friends and readers, I’m back with Chapter Two! “The Girl, the Spanish Guitar, and the One-Way Ticket to the Desert”.

Thank you for the avalanche of kind words and feedback on the first piece—it truly gave me wings. That trial run was my little more than a test drive to see if anyone would even care to read till the end. Now I know you do, so I’m keeping the engine running, hopefully UAE adventures will be welcomed same way.

Abu Dhabi was my first expat landing spot, and like every “first” (first love, first tattoo, first car), it carved out a permanent corner in my heart. Yes, it’s corny—let it be.

None of it would have happened without one very special friend. Thank you, Nika (all names changed, of course, out of respect for privacy).

We go all the way back to school—same terrible teenage hair-dye disasters, same late-night debates on those clunky landline phones about a life we were 100 % convinced we had totally figured out. Classic late-90s teenage friendship that somehow survived everything. Thanks to Nika I got my first tattoo in Thailand, fell in love with Japanese art and culture, explored every corner of our own island and the Kurils before I ever left them, learned to step outside the box—whether it was painting, photography, trying weird Asian delicacies, spontaneous road trips to nowhere, eating fresh crab and shrimp right on the beach, jumping into the freezing Okhotsk Sea in nothing but underwear, hand-written letters she sent me in St. Petersburg while I was at university, little thoughtful gifts every time she travelled, endless support through the hard times, even buying my first snowboard gear when I was flat broke, exploring archery together, hunting down English bows online and assembling my first bow … and a thousand other things I could list forever.

She was the one who taught me that life is too short not to try everything at least once. And, of course, she was the one who dropped my CV into the right inbox and opened the door to Abu Dhabi.

After university I returned to Sakhalin; Nika had stayed and finished locally. We both washed up in the same oil & gas wave that was sweeping the island early in 2000s. She had this contagious itch with wildlife obsession—never met a frog or butterfly she didn’t stop to catch and show me, then unload a dozen facts about amphibians or any other living creature with the confidence of a Gen-Z gossip columnist today. Her mother, a legendary solo wildlife conservationist who spent months in tents on isolated islands with nothing but a rifle and a dog for company, had clearly passed this “Olympic torch” to Nika. Nika started in languages (Japanese/English), but the O&G boom needed English speakers yesterday, so she leapt in same way as I sometime earlier. Her environmental heart eventually steered her toward HSE—back then Health, Safety, Environment was three – in-one big happy discipline, so you inevitably picked up all three flavors and later specialised in the one that you feel like your “cup of tea”.

Nika drew her northern pipeline and offshore rigs “red”; I got the south-side LNG plant “black”. Rotations were brutal, but we grabbed every overlap to catch up. Years later, while the rest of us girls were on a lazy weekend trip near Prigorodnoye, Nika’s phone rang. A Russian EPC company offered her a spot on the Taweelah–Fujairah Gas Pipeline Project in the UAE—48-inch, 23 km of Fujairah’s rocky spine. She said yes. That call rewrote her life… and soon mine.

A few months later she messaged: “There’s a safety position on the client side. They need someone who speaks Russian fluently for the EPC crew. Send me your CV now.”

I wrapped up Sakhalin-2 at Prigorodnoye assignment and spent another two years supporting Sakhalin-1 logistics, including an offshore rig move. Timing was perfect. The owner needed a bridge between languages and cultures, and suddenly I had a contract in my inbox.

But before I spill the arrival chaos, here are two funny little spinoffs that still make me smile.

As I mentioned in Part One, the expat bug bit me early—pretty much the day I started in safety back in 2003. Once I had three solid years under my belt, I turned into a job-application machine. Rigzone, Workopolis, every portal that smelled like overseas opportunity—I was there, CV polished, hitting “submit” like it was my full-time hobby. Zero responses. Still, I kept going with the stubborn optimism of my friend who buys a lottery ticket every Friday: “If I don’t play, how will I ever win?”

I even went and got my foreign-travel passport. My old Sakhalin-2 manager tried to pull strings for a Qatar gig through his network. Nothing. The passport, issued in 2006 was intended for this unlucky application for Qatar, it was valid for five years. I remember thinking, “Well, if not Qatar, at least it’ll be ready for any other trip.” Fast-forward to 2011: I finally got a Qatar offer! The passport that I applied for Qatar job actually was used to go to Qatar after my UAE adventures!

Moral of the story? The power of putting the wish out there. Call it manifestation, woo-woo, universe-listening, whatever makes you roll your eyes least. It’s worked too many times for me to ignore. The trick I’ve learned: state the desire clearly, then let go of the “how” and definitely the “when.” Don’t micromanage the cosmos—just release the balloon and trust it floats somewhere good. Time is the one thing we can’t boss around (yet—give science a few decades and maybe we’ll add that to the wish list).

So, when that Abu Dhabi contract landed into my inbox, I didn’t overthink it. I just thought: finally. The balloon had landed.

But the universe, being a good prankster, wasn’t finished with me yet.

Visa photos were required, obviously. And the day before the shoot I decided—because why not?—to squeeze in one last snowboarding trip with friends. After all, I was about to trade Sakhalin winters for endless desert; who knew when I’d see proper snow again?

Well, I saw it up close that evening. Face-planted spectacularly, ate a solid mouthful of the stuff, and snapped my nose like a dry twig.

By the time we made it to the ER, the cartilage had already started healing—crooked, of course. Classic body efficiency at the worst possible moment.

I will never forget the scene: two beefy male nurses pinning my arms like I was a wrestling opponent, while a tiny, silver-haired woman surgeon loomed over me. She grabbed my nose like a plumber wrestling a rusty faucet and announced in that unmistakable Russian-doctor baritone, “Don’t scream and cry like a little baby. You’re a woman—you’ll give birth one day. This is nothing.”

Through tears and blind panic I croaked, “Yeah, doctor, but I’m pretty sure the baby comes out somewhere else, not through my nose!” She didn’t even blink.

Classic “tough love” medical care. Ten out of ten, would not recommend, but it did the job.

Long story short: my face ballooned to twice its size, two spectacular black eyes, full raccoon chic. The photographer did heroic work laughing all the time while taking picture of my face and saying he saw some funny faces for visas but this one he will remember. The image hardly was hiding the damage. The company needed the pictures immediately, so off they went: me looking like I’d gone ten rounds with Mike Tyson.

And then, the final nail to this story: on the visa paperwork someone typed my profession as Blast Engineer. Not Safety. Not HSE. Blast Engineer. The visa was approved anyway—broken nose, panda eyes, and apparent explosives expertise all stamped and official.

Time to pack.

I sold the car, sold my mountain bike, kissed Sakhalin goodbye. Only two non-essentials made the cut: my carry-on and my Spanish guitar (yes, I actually played back then—proper lessons and everything).

If you’ve seen Once Upon a Time in Mexico, you know the scene—Antonio Banderas walking through the airport with that guitar case that definitely does not contain a guitar… Well, I became the budget female version: scraped-up face, tight black jeans, leather jacket, wheeling a suitcase and cradling a huge black guitar case like a mob hitwoman. Airport security lost their minds at every checkpoint. Full search, same question every time: “Miss… do you actually play this thing, or…?” I’d strum a quick chord, smile through the swelling, and get waved through.

Blast Engineer with a guitar. The universe clearly has a sense of humour—dark, dry, and very Quentin Tarantino style.

Next stop: the desert.