I grew up in this professorial family. In principle, I had a harmonious enough environment in which I lived, I got lucky with my family and surroundings. I never had any kind of big dissonance with Kazan. Even by the time I was in middle school, I had traveled quite a bit around Russia: the Golden Ring, St Petersburg and surrounding areas, Astrakhan, I had seen a large portion of our strip so I had something to compare with.

At school I never had the idea of leaving Kazan to go somewhere else. Although the guys who I studied together with, back then started seriously considering Moscow and St Petersburg – that was the first generation who could sit the first trial versions of the USE.

Many of the guys would leave not for something, but in spite of. They were leaving to get away from something. Yeah. I didn't have anything that I needed to get away from, and therefore I thought that it would be fitting to organize some sorts of things here.

When my parents got the chance to start to travel, although it was quite late since back then the financial situations were as such, people had only just started to travel. And so in the early 2000's, when money started coming in, more than enough to go to Turkey, mum and I started to travel to places in Europe – she would take me with her to even some work trips, tours. She would take me, how I would call it "to carry the suitcases".

Do you remember some of your first impressions during your travel?

The first time I found myself abroad was in 1998 – mum took me with her on holiday to Croatia. Croatia back then was such an accessible country, because it was only just recovering from military conflict. We traveled there on the eve of the default which happened in 1998, and we were getting phone calls back then saying "Everything is closing down, price tags are being re-written, and you're just sitting there".

The second impression was – more cleanliness and light, big windows, a lot of sunshine. Clean streets, not many people, no rudeness, there's no kinds of aggressive conversations or aggressive behaviour on the roads. Everything is so calm, orderly.

I remember when I was in my senior year, mum and I ended up on a work trip in Turkey (she would take me because I already spoke good English, and she would bring me along as a translator).

We never had anything like it, we have the opposite – when people board a bus, it's a huge crowd charging at it, but there it's like actually alongside the bus stop, everyone stands there and waits their turn. To me that was phenomenal.

I got really lucky with my school. I studied in the No. 9 English School, during the term, we had an in-depth focus on English. We studied a lot of not just language but Western-European cultures, it was such a broad level which you absorb as you study the language. That's probably why I have always been such a pro-European type person.

We celebrated Halloween, back when not many people here knew what it was: and we'd always come to English class wearing costumes. Through school we found out about St Valentine's Day. Even before school, my parents sent me to all sorts of kids centres, kind of like electives of preschool education, where I also got lucky with my teacher who taught language specifically through culture.

I remember that in high school, the thing that left an impression on me was history of the Middle Ages. Back then we were crazy interested in pop culture stuff about the Middle Ages, like The Lord of the Rings, followed by songs, like a type of English minstrels, those kinds of projects. I recall how we would even learn the language through these songs, because there's many unfamiliar words in them, like with references to the Middle Ages.

My friends and I were really interested in sci-fi, which also comes as part of the western culture.

At the end of the 10th grade I had a big talk with mum about what I wanted to do next. Back then I had to choose between subjects, what subjects to sit at the USE, just like students have to do now almost at the end of their 9th year. But I needed to choose more or less, which university to apply to. I liked what my mum did, how she talked. She had a PhD, and worked at university for a long time. Now she's the Director of the Economics Faculty at Kazan Federal University. When I was at school, she also worked at Kazan National Research Technical University and was the head of the Marketing Department there. In many ways that's probably what influenced my choice.

Back then, at home, the first editions of Kotler and other marketing classics began to appear. It appeared interesting to me, and I decided to go down the familiar path, applied in the direction mum was spearheading and become a marketer, to understand what it is and how it actually works. It was a fairly new concept for Russia. Back then, the sad Russian level of service was going through its heyday.

It's probably part of my personality: I was always interested in things that no one else was doing. So yeah. I never experienced any fear in that. To be honest, at that time I didn't have any understanding where I would work, how I would apply for jobs.

At the same time I was also accepted, as Kazan National Research Technical University allowed this opportunity, to study a second degree 'Translator in professional communication'. And because I didn't want to quit learning the language, I applied and was accepted into there, they had a really good language school. I knew that at the very least I could sing for my supper and I could make money by doing translations, because I already had my first job assignments. And well, during the student years, you'd always want a new cell phone or a new iPad. That's why I would write articles or summaries, translate all sorts of things. Sometimes they would need like, for a delegation coming in, they'd need to be met with a translator and stuff, because back then there weren't many people with good English – that's why that all somehow harmoniously integrated. I had a car back then too, so I could be like an intellectual aide. So the money from jobs as a translator was at least guaranteed.

What age were you when you got your driver's license?

I got it back when I was at university, at Kazan National Research Technical University they had their own driving school, and so in the evenings there would be evening classes, back then you only needed to do 3 months of learning. So basically, I turned 18 and I immediately went there to apply at the end of the first year and got my license.

You always seem to end up overshadowed by your parent. Especially when it's some sort of successful person and there's always the dominating comment like "Genius skips a generation", so like whenever something isn't going your way, it's always "Oh well, at least see, everything's good with your mum".

Sometimes there were comments from peers or certain sideways glances, but it didn't bother me at all, my position was always "Well yes, I got lucky. As in yes, my mum works at the uni, I'm studying in the program that she runs. So you're trying to say that I'm not good enough? Well, here's my teachers who have a certain opinion of me, here's my intellect, here's my knowledge, my language, try see if you can argue with any of that".

I cannot say that for me it broke me or anything like that. Because my friends I had during my student years, they were people who, well, didn't care who my mum was, and they were never the kinds of people who used this or tried to exploit this.

Did you talk to your mum about these issues?

We discussed it. It's not like I'd come to her to complain, but I would just tell her about certain things, I'm sure that back then some situations were hurtful. Mum would relay, first of all this following opinion: "Do what you feel is right". That's why I say that I got lucky with my parents and I was lucky to have built quite a good partnership relationship with them.

In the mid 2010's, new projects were starting up by the Ministry of Education around the integration of Russian education into this big international system, when our education was becoming as open as possible. Everyone were moving to the Bologna Process system, grants started to appear for international projects.

And so me and one other girl made the final cut in terms of the level of language and academic achievements. I went to Finland for one semester. That was during my 2nd or 3rd year, I don't remember exactly.

It was quite strange, but it was a really awesome experience.

Were there many who wanted to get in on that program?

In actual fact, back then, no. Because there were two things. It's amazing to think that it wasn't actually that long ago – in 2006, that's basically 14 years ago. But back then there was no Booking.com, Airbnb, no extensive online service capabilities where you can, I dunno, like, easily buy a ticket on Aviasales. And that's why there were many steps, that would flow into like, resistance I guess, a kind of fear in terms of safety of everything going on.

For parents it was kind of difficult to send their kids over, as in the overall concept of overseas education was perceived as something prohibitively expensive, accessible only to the chosen few – those who would basically be sending their kids off to study in London with a chaperone nanny. But in no way would they go just for a semester.

Then I returned to Kazan from Finland. I remember the time when we were sitting some translation tests (we were obligated to sit them for our major) – for me that was the first contact with the huge potential, specifically of the American world of marketers, and access, like, to that level of information. And that's when I started to understand that unfortunately, the way that lessons take place here, and the way of the approaches we have, they do not correspond to the way the rest of the world lives right now.

I chose America because I knew that marketing is something that came to us from the USA, and that if I was to go to a program to do with marketing, then it had to be there.

I understood that I couldn't qualify for some Ivy League school or something else. Because that means exorbitant fees. The way I chose the uni, to be honest, was simply based on what my family could afford. I applied to a few universities, and three responded to me. And so in the end, somehow everything came together with one university. And, well, then I received a letter from them that everything was OK.

What did you experience in that moment?

Well, it was 'WOW'. It was, of course, as if I got a bucket of cold water tipped over me, because it suddenly became a reality and it was decided that that's it, I'm going. To go live in another country for one and a half years, to a totally different part of the planet.

That was the year 2009. It was really scary. Very wild. You're traveling totally alone, to some random place, and totally don't know what's there. There was also a bit of a circus with getting some medical documents, because American universities demand certificates about your vaccinations. That was all fairly difficult, the entire process took me about half a year.

And no matter how supportive your parents are, or like friends, it's truly hard. Especially when you leave at such a tender age. How old was I…21 years old. Around about then. So yeah. I arrived there almost on New Years, alone, to the student dorm.

In the Facebook group I got to know a Russian girl, who studied at that university, which I was accepted into, she had graduated from it. The girl was from Kazan, she went to my school and was 2 years older than me. It was simply out of this world. And she and her fiancée met me at the airport and took me to the dorms. We got talking, became friends, and still keep in touch to this day.

I had never lived alone before then. And that's when you start trying to figure out documentation, what you have there, some sort of local registration of residence. Do the registrations myself. A whole heap of admin issues, which you have to solve, starting from dorm room keys to like, 'how to correctly choose your papers, which you will be studying', how to not lose anything, how to pay your fees on time. So, basically, insanity.

I actually learned how to cook in America. Once I caught a cold and I realized that I needed to sort of make myself some soup, to get better. I found a recipe, took a 5 litre pot because I was following the recipe and it was a family serving. The whole dorm probably ended up eating that soup afterwards. What else do you do, you must adapt.

I lived in a small town in New England, very calm, with a bit of an older populace, where the population is primarily white, with a higher education and speak very good and correct English, just like in our textbooks. They still, for example, don't lock their doors there. It really surprised me. It's not New York where you get blown away by the range of accents. That's why my adaptation went quite well.

I bought a used car there – the used car market is very developed there. You can actually buy it for peanuts, a student will drive around a $500-$1,000 car, and then sell it. I bought myself a cheap car, drove it around for a year and then sold it back to the same place where I bought it. And during that entire time I didn't go to a car wash the whole time I was there. Although they have 4 seasons there too.

The drivers there don't have any aggression, especially in such a calm region, everyone drives very calmly. I really liked the roads there, those massive highways, exit systems, the traffic systems, which is a little bit different. There's a lot of cool and simply comfy things for life there. That of course amazed the imagination, because you think "well how is that so".

But when you're studying with a big amount of international students, who all make mistakes, and react to it like it's no big deal, you realize it'll all be OK. All the tutors were highly tolerant and patient about the fact that you might speak with mistakes. Furthermore, I really liked their philosophy, they would say to us: "You didn't come here to learn linguistics, so the fact that you make mistakes in your writing is not a big problem. It's more important that you don't make mistakes in the things related to your profession". That allowed us to concentrate on what mattered.

What was the most valuable thing that this experience in America gave you?

The main thing was that it sprouted, let's call it, independence. That independence of thinking and independence to make decisions. Graduate school is based on the fact that a lot of your time is spent on doing things independently. You're constantly given different layers of information that you have to process, read, study on your own, in order to be ready for the next lesson.

In Russia, the education system back in those days was based on the relaying of knowledge. But in America – it's about the search for knowledge, about the fact that you must form your own opinion. And that's like a huge difference.

And well overall, you can't put the responsibility of your decision onto someone else, where to go, what to do, and most importantly, you can't ask anyone, anywhere, for help. You're there by yourself, alone. That's it.

When I would go to New York and I'd walk and see those amazing big American cities, it was very cool. But for some reason I never had the desire to stay. It was largely connected with the fact that back then I had formed certain ambitions and I knew that I probably couldn't stay there to work, probably, at that level that I would have wanted to. And potentially, imposter syndrome played a part.

However I knew that I would come back and I would have so many more opportunities here, here I would be a girl with an American education – that would be so 'wow'.

Many of my friends would say: "Aida, what are you talking about, in America, in New York you can even…what's even the difference! Even if you're a waitress, you'd still get to walk past Central Park every morning!"

But I knew that that wasn't enough for me. I couldn't break myself like that. Even if it's in order to walk past the Empire State Building every morning. I couldn't.

My family was basically like that, they would never hide me away from difficulties and I knew that behind every episode of 'Friends' and that entire image of how cool it is to live in New York, there's always reality, which comes down to the fact that you don't live in Manhattan, you live devil knows where.

My stepdad lived in American for 12 years, and he knows this system really well. And on one hand he really wanted me to stay, probably. On the other hand, I heard many stories from him about the hardships which await you there. And I didn't have any illusions about how I'm going to stay, for example, there, to live in New York, for it to be like something out of 'How I Met Your Mother'. I understood that there's a lot more beneath the surface.

And so I understood for myself that I will return: I had this like Don Quixote idealism that I'll come back and be one of those pioneers who change the system, to integrate that whole idea of forming critical thinking, independence, all of that here. Even more so, the migration towards the undergraduate and graduate programs had just begun and that meant that, well, I could be an ambassador of that system, I already knew how it works, how that system is organized abroad, so, I could actually bring about some changes.

But there was one factor – I was proposed to in Kazan, I was getting married. And that played like a final role.

You came back and immediately carried out your idea of a revolution of the education system? Or how did it happen?

That's a very cool question, in actual fact, if I were to dive in and give a deeper answer, it's something that's still happening, in fact, to this day…

It doesn't happen in the way that some good people get together, break everything and build something cool, it doesn't work that way.

So well I started teaching because I was in graduate school and some things I initially tried during teaching. When I arrived, I started building up lines of communication with the audience, back then it wasn't the accepted norm, when you ask all sorts of questions. You don't stay behind the podium, but you're, there, walking through the rows, I dunno, talking to them. Then I really liked, which I took away from my study in America, when the tutor gets to know everyone during the first class: "Guys, share why you decided to study here, what are you, like, wanting to do, blah, blah, blah". I started asking them and it turned out that it was such a huge shock for students: "There's a connection being made with us".

Overall, teaching is this drug, because when you work with students (of any age), you see those glowing eyes, and you get fully addicted to that feeling that you're the person who is inspiring them. Leaving that is of course very hard. For many people it's very hard.

So did you leave?

No, I still teach, but as a rule, I don't run many courses, because after I defended my Candidate degree, I started to work a lot on many different projects, take on organizational activities. I really started to like it. At the university.

I knew that within one course it's impossible to change the system, I could do all sorts of cool things with the students, but if I want to mirror the knowledge I received abroad, I have to do it there, where I can influence some of the decisions. So yeah, and gradually I started working on some programs, suggest different options in order to change the education plan and learn to find ways around the strict rules that exist.

And so I had to learn to somehow create opportunities inside all of that so that the guys could travel. It's difficult but possible. That is exactly what I was doing. As in when you create some sort of partner relationships with overseas universities, you invite them to teach here, organize all of it so that our guys will have the opportunity to apply for grants, travel abroad. I had to convince them that they absolutely need it, because even now, not everyone is ready for it morally.

Then when I started working at the State University, we did this thing: we totally divided up the educational levels and created like a separate deanery for each direction, level of education. Before the programs were all within faculty departments, so like you're studying in your department, you only have your circle of people and that's it. But we took those programs out of the faculty departments, and gave them to awesome people. And that allowed new blood to come in, and change up the system a bit.

We were for maximum openness between the administrative side of things and students, to create such a system where students can solve any problems on the fly, using like, I dunno, online system, servers in the cloud, and other stuff. To make life as easy as possible.

I ran that Graduate Centre for 3 years and we created this one program there, which they started to run fully in English in the Graduate School.

It's really cool when June comes around and that period of defending diplomas starts up: the guys come to you, and say 'thank you'. And you understand that you work hard all year so that people could actually, genuinely be grateful to you.

They fully became like family to me. Like younger brothers and sisters, who think of you as a friend, a mentor. And so I have the warmest feelings connected with these guys. There were many stories, good ones, like in the graduate school, where the students are older, pregnant girls on their last months of pregnancy, for example, and instead of them, like, their husbands start to attend, and you help them with stuff. They're like "Well she's been checked into hospital, but she has to defend her diploma, what do we do?" All of that stuff. And well, you start to somehow help them, make agreements, like, let's do up the documents like this, but she will actually come at a different time, we'll come up with an assignment for her, because you have to be, like, humane when helping people, what else can you do.

And then it happened, it was about 2 years ago I think. My tipping point happened when I separated from my husband – that was probably this first big step, and I seriously started to think about what I'm going to do next. And I started to look for some sort of opportunities/options, another project, in order to, like, bring something new into my life. And then my friend, Tanya Yakovleva, says: we want to put together a new project Siyai, join us, we'll see if our energies fit. And that instantly just captivated me, everything came together, to this day it all works.

What can you say about Kazan clients?

From what I see – people have a very high level of readiness to get ingrained with the subject of marketing, but the financial resources are not always there. People only just started to understand that between the words 'marketing' and 'strategy', you can put a big equals sign between them. Because marketing is not just about advertising, and about setting up some sort of sales funnel, but a way of thinking: how the company works, how it builds its business operations. And for many it's a very difficult transition point right now, to admit, that as the company founder, it all comes down to you needing to change the gears in your head. Right now people aren't ready for that. You end up having to explain that it doesn't always start with "let's come up with an ad and people will come". And also, many, of course have this "we don't have competitors, we have a unique product".

It becomes difficult sometimes. I clearly remember this one time which shocked me. In the States it's accepted to hold open the door. It doesn't matter if there's a boy or girl, you walk through and see that there's someone behind you, you wait until the person comes closer so that, God forbid, you don't hit them with the door. When I had just returned, I would often get hit by doors (Laughs). Because here, unfortunately, it's different. I see how that's changing now. Because people watch better TV probably. They travel more. You want to live in a more kind, comfortable world. We're gradually adapting to that.

Did life in other countries change your attitude towards Kazan? If yes, how so?

My attitude like really changed. Before I was pretty straightforward – the city is just a city. Then I traveled around Russia and understood some things in comparison. Then when Kazan started hosting more sporting events, the roads started changing.

Dear Lord! I lived on Chistopolskaya Street for 20 years, when we moved there in 1996, our house was the last one where civilization ended. That's it. Past that it was just sand, Kazanka River and the private sector. During those 20 years when I lived there, that suburb grew right in front of my eyes into what is there now. And similarly that's how the rest of the city also evolved.

What are your favourite places in the city?

Definitely that old professorial centre, around Chekhov's market, Aivazovsky suburb, Zhukovskogo, Bolshaya and Malaya Krasnaya, Tolstogo – as in all those streets that are near the universities. Kremlevskaya – like that entire section there. I really love simply walking around in summer. And after I came back, now I live on Chekhov Street and with my great pleasure I park my car and walk to work.

I really love Gorky Park, even in that truncated state which it ended up in after they built Korston, because I remember it as this super big place, when they had the Kazanskiy sanatorium, something from my childhood, there was even a ferris wheel, it's just a cool place to take a stroll. The squares, which are near my house – Aksyonov and Yershov squares.

I have a few places there, which I just really like. Well, you know, I won't hide it, I really like the shisha culture in Kazan.

Why do you say 'I won't hide it', as if it's something to be embarrassed about?

Because we recently, alongside the guys from 'Be Bright' celebrated their birthday, and they were making some materials for some local media and were talking about different stories about gifts. There was this topic that they were talking about including about a gift, which they gifted me, and it was in a shisha bar, and the editorial team changed it to say that we were supposedly at a cafe. When we saw that, we were surprised of course.

There's a shisha bar near my house which I really love which I visit all the time, where I'm, God forgive me, a VIP client, which I really like. As in there's this kind of unique place of power, which I call 'my time' – a place where I can go after work, come alone, sit and read. And I really like that there's places like that in Kazan.

That's an experience which, at the very least, enriches you. Because, yeah, you become more mature, a more independent person, when you don't have a crutch. You build character only in some kinds of challenges. You must try it for yourself and then decide for yourself if you want to return or not.

But there's another thing you have to understand: you can never run away from yourself, no matter how far away you go. Many make a colossal mistake – they leave in order to find something. You will never find anything there, there you will only be left by yourself with your demons. But you'll only be able to find what you're looking for inside yourself.