He sat in the concrete hull of his shop, which he cannot afford to complete, and cobwebs covered his shelf of treasured Pu'er cakes.
Exactly a decade later and seven years after the fall of the Soviet Union, that aircraft carrier, by then renamed the Varyag, sat as a rusting hull stripped of its engine and rudder wasting away in a Ukrainian shipyard.
They have taken one point from nine and sit second behind Hull on goal difference; less than a month ago they had a six-point lead and a game in hand.
In one hull sits a man, in the other a pile of appleseeds, each balancing the other's weight, each an equal partner in the reinvention of the American landscape.
The aft half, meanwhile, is topped with a home-made structure of two-by-fours and clear plastic; down in the engine room, within the sloping riveted-iron hull, sits a collection of nonoperational machinery, including the World War II-surplus Atlas Imperial diesel engine that replaced the original steam engine in the 1940's.
The proof-of-concept vehicle is only about 12in (30cm) long and all the components sit in the hull of a model boat.
The wreck was recent enough -- the ship went down in 1991 -- that no one struggles to remember the lives that were lost as the ferry sank into the sea after striking a reef, but the wreck is already a huge attraction for divers, who can still see the luggage that still sits in the hull.
When the Soviet Union collapsed, the rusting hull of the Varyag sat in dockyards in Ukraine.
When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, the rusting hull of the Varyag sat in dockyards in Ukraine.
When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, the rusting hull - then called the Varyag - sat in dockyards in Ukraine.
