— I was born in Kazan, in the Moskovskiy suburb, and grew up there. There were factories nearby - Tasma, the gunpowder factory and Orgsintez, that were all beautifully lit up at night. We lived on the 12th floor, and at night there was always this purple fog and the smell of metal.

We lived on Kulakhmetov Street - it borders between the Kirovsky and Moskovskiy suburbs. The Yardem Mosque is located there now. Before, there were heaps of old houses and I'm sad that this section has disappeared. They were the remains of the Yagodnaya Sloboda settlement and we would often go past there on our way to school. It was very, I dunno, kinda like backdrops to Boris Godunov or something. They were old wooden huts. There's a communal standpipe there, and I remember how when they would turn off the water in summer, we would have to go there to get water. It was such an interesting time, we would have to carry it all in buckets.

Century-old birch trees, oak trees stood there. And in May, the deafening nightingale trills would fill the street. It was so very wonderful. But later the houses got burned down, and replaced with parking lots, and some other stuff got built too. Unfortunately there's nothing left there now. New houses got built.

My uncle would tell this story about how you could walk down even Sverdlov Street (it's now called Peterburgskaya, almost in the very centre), and see people playing dominos. It was such an interesting suburb. Now, I'm pretty sure there's only a couple original houses left there.

I was sort of an atypical child growing up, I mean, I didn't run around, or play soccer, I never had any sort of total boy things. I specifically remember though that I was never bored, even though I was an only child.

To me it seemed that the entire time I was living in some sort of inner world, I was always coming up with stuff.

The old radio at home was tuned to some sort of, I don't know…it wasn't like a FM frequency, but a radio station, where they would constantly be playing classical music concerts.

I always wanted to play piano, but we didn't have the means to buy one – there was no room, we lived in a very small apartment. My parents enrolled me into a class to learn to play the accordion. They thought that since the right keyboard is like the piano, then it's basically the same thing. Although, of course, it wasn't. So yeah.

I was fascinated by construction cranes. My dad worked at construction sites his whole life. And I would sometimes go with him to the site just to look at those cranes. I would make like exact replicas of cranes out of cardboard. I'd cut them out, glue them together, and make crane robots.

I also really loved trains. We would often go to Uritsky Park to walk the dog with my dad. If you go just outside of it, coming up near Levchenko Street, there's railway tracks. And my favourite pastime was to count how many railway carriages would go past. I was somewhere around 5 years old.

We would take the train to the village to see my grandma. I would be in a state of total happiness, standing on the platform, waiting for the train. I wanted to be a train driver up until the point when mum took me to the theatre.

— So when did she take you?

— Probably around 10 years old. Back then I found out what an overture was and why the orchestra is playing, but the curtain hasn't lifted. I thought maybe they just forgot to push the button. I really wanted to go and tell them to lift up the curtain (laughs). But it turned out that it was just the intro.

I didn't really like the first act, but the second – 'Carmen', there was this fiery music, this is exactly what I liked, and well, the backdrops and stuff. I was just blown away by that chic and glitter, fairy tale, I mean. I thought to myself: "Wow, how awesome, beautiful music". After that, mum and I would often go to the opera theatre and others.


I just remembered, how I'd be sitting in the chair at the dentist's office, and it's painful - they're drilling into my tooth. And those 90's machines, which, like an actual drill, would be connected to a cord that's vibrating the whole time. And the machine would loudly hum. Just that sound was scary, it seemed as if it would fall apart any minute. But that machine was fixing my tooth.

I grew up in the 1990's, the good old reckless nineties, as they're called. In 1994 I started school. I attended a Tatar-Russian grammar school – that's how it was called, a mix of stuff. It also had music schools, a school of the arts and something else. We were supposed to take part in everything. It was a time of experiments, and each school, as far as I know, would create their own curriculum. We had some really unusual subjects: Turkish, Arabic, German, English. I got put into the Arabic group. I was in the Tatar class until 9th grade.

I hid my love of classical music from my friends.

To me it seemed that listening to classical music was somehow weird and everyone would think I'm some sort of nerd. Although everyone knew that I was studying at the music school.

Later I started taking concurrent piano lessons, just by myself. Everyone would go home, but I would take the key from reception and stay back. I knew that I needed to do my homework, but I don't have an instrument at home, while here, I am able to play. Later, of course my parents bought me a small keyboard, but it cannot convey the sound of a real piano. Because of that I kind of kept staying back after school.

I never participated in any kind of contests, I never had any goal to become a musician. It was simply just a part of me. And it still is. It was simply, probably, a way for me to withdraw into myself sort of.

We were the only Tatar class in our year and we weren't very popular because we were teachers pets. I know for sure that our guys (we were just 7 guys and 17 girls) didn't belong to any cliques.

I remember that the guys from other classes would write offensive stuff on our blackboard, like "Oi, you Tatars". But for some reason we didn't take that personally. We didn't see that as an attempt to offend us because of our nationality, but rather an attack on the fact that we were the A-stream. But like the further you are away from the 'A class', the number of such cool guys increases. Like the last stream was like E or something I think.

In school I was actually this geek. A nerd. I always wore a white shirt, in a suit. I always carried my textbooks with me. So like everyone sort of shared everything somehow. But I didn't have that. I always carried everything with me. I loved chemistry and when we'd get assignments, I would get a stack of papers from my peers and I'd even have time to do their work. And that probably annoyed a lot of people. Especially the guys from other classes.

There was some sort of competition one time, and we were sitting there on the bleachers and this boy sat in front of me. He sat there specifically so I couldn't see anything. I asked him a few times to move a little bit because I couldn't see. He had been bullying me for ages. And something came over me and I hit him really hard. It was just one time. Back then I got really scared of my aggression. Then a whole group of us took it to the back of the school to sort it out. But then the girls came to my rescue.

It was really interesting. Although nothing came of it. It was like the Great Stand on the Ugra River. We just stood there for a bit and then everyone went their separate ways.

Dad, of course wanted me to become a boxer. He made me box at home. Oh my God, those were testing times. My father is quite quick-tempered, strict. That is, you had to be very careful, as if you're at an exam, so yep. But I think father simply wanted to fulfill his own ambitions, because he had quite good abilities but somehow he didn't manage to build a career out of it. And to me, it seems that he wanted to somehow spark that interest in me to it.

— How did you choose your profession?

Well, that was much harder. For a long time I couldn't decide where to go. The nineties, most popular professions: economists and lawyers.

But there was no internet back then.

My teacher took me to an accordion class at a music school, to some tutor. He said that I have absolutely no chance at becoming a musician. None whatsoever. He advised me to find something else. I still remember that. It was such a traumatic time for me. Because there's like this massive, like, wall in front of you and this person is hiding behind it and doesn't want to help in any way. I of course understand that I also somehow chickened out, I folded.

I refused to continue on with music because I now understood that I wasn't super talented.

And, well, my parents also wanted all the best for me and they advised me to study accounting or something. So I dedicated my 10th and 11th grade years to tutors.

I had an 80-something professor from Kazan National Research Technical University, who would give me totally difficult problems, and I didn't understand anything.

However, I discovered a talent for languages. Literature was already my favourite subject at school, I read a lot, but I wrote with mistakes. And so I went to see my Russian language tutor and she asks "Tell me, how do you write?" and I say "I trust my intuition". And she's like "Right. There's no such thing as intuition. We are going to learn the rules with you". But she somehow sort of delivered it in such an interesting way, it was all so logical.

Difficult, incomprehensible grammar of the Russian language with a million exceptions suddenly all lined up in a precise, transparent, crystal clear system. We dedicated the first hour to grammar, learning the rules, practice, and the second – to reciting and essays. You needed to be quick at writing. She would read the text aloud, and from the style I could guess the author (90% of the time I guessed correctly). I don't know why, somehow it all came easily to me.

Even the Russian language school teacher, who would say to us things like "You just made four mistakes in the word 'Mama'" or "They should have drowned you all in the toilet", who at one point hated me because one time I accidentally swung open a door and hurt her hand, even she changed her views about me. She took notice of my abilities and changed her attitude towards me. By the 11th grade I was her favourite student.

But for some reason even back then I had already come to terms with the need to study economics. I applied to Kazan State Finance and Economics Institute. Those were the worst years of my life. The thing is that I didn't get into the free, daytime classes, but was accepted into distance learning. So, well, distance learning isn't the same. And the tutors look at you as if you're a passing face, a second-rate person.

We had a somehow totally bewildering tutor, who simply hated her students.

And at the same time, there was still the question of the army. I'm an only child in my family, my parents, of course didn't want to send me off anywhere. But we don't have money to like pay someone off.

I made a radical decision. I said: "Mum, an Islam University just opened up in Kazan. They teach Arabic. I want to study Arabic. It's free study, and if I am accepted for daytime classes, then they won't take me away to the army".

My parents were surprised and were like "What, so you're planning on becoming a Mullah?"

My decision was also influenced by the fact that even at school, I found myself in an Arabic language class and we had this teacher (it was so unusual, she wore a hijab) who was so kind, gentle, affectionate, she was like a mum to us. And it was just so cool to listen to her, so nice. After 16 years I accidentally ran into her in Malaysia. It was so cool, like something out of a Bollywood movie.

So yeah, I studied parallel both here and there. Graduated both universities.

I learned Arabic, without leaving to travel anywhere, to the extent that I could write articles, news in Arabic. I surprise myself thinking about it now, I think 'damn, how did that even happen?'.

The plot thickened when the Islam University offered for me to go study in Malaysia or Turkey. Because I had an economics education, I was told: "What about trying your hand in banking and finance?". Especially since at that time it was developing, and Islamic finance was popular.

I wasn't alone when I went, I left with two other guys and only one of us knew English. We spent a month following him like baby elephants follow their mother, holding onto her tail.


I specifically didn't read anything about the country ahead of time, so I wouldn't create expectations, false ideas. So that it wouldn't be like that movie '500 Days of Summer' (in it the guy imagines a whole bunch of stuff and then reality turned out to be different).

My first impression of Malaysia: busy, dense, stuffy, muggy air which envelopes you like a towel at a barbershop. I probably spent about two weeks getting used to that air. You're constantly sweating there, even if you're just walking, not in a rush. Even at night. Because it's 25 degrees at night.

I contracted a tropical fever, my temperature was almost forty, and that can cause internal bleeding. People die from it, there's no vaccine for this virus. But everything ended well. However in Malaysia I rarely got sick, but as soon as I returned to Russia, I am constantly getting sick.

— Was it scary to leave? What were your feelings about it?

There was a feeling of being lost, helplessness and shame. I was ashamed that I didn't know English. Because I had a talent for languages, but I never learned English. It was also difficult to leave my parents, in any case I'm all they've got, and I left. My mum and I are actually very close. Mum always supported me, understood me. It was hard leaving her. We are best friends, in actual fact, mum and I.

— Where in Malaysia did you live?

People go there because of the warm weather, a country of eternal summer. It's cheap enough, I think. In addition, beautiful nature, inexpensive beaches, good infrastructure. They have really good roads, toll roads. The capital is quite well developed, a modern city, its downtown area has skyscrapers. The public transport system is well developed, apart from buses, probably. But apart from that, you can easily get to any part of the city on the underground network. Cheap English language courses, the entire Middle East go there to study. A lot of Kazakhs, like really, a lot. Sometimes you go to some club and there'll be some Russian music track playing. And the Kazakhs will be dancing to it (laughs).

— Scriptonite or maslo chernogo tmina! [musicians -Ed.]

Something like that, yeah. It's really interesting.

— You say you were planning on going there for 2 years, but you stayed for 6. How did that happen?

I thought that yeah, I'm going away for 2 years. Formally speaking I left to continue my study there, and by the way, I was a good student, it was surprising. I had really good marks, but I didn't get any joy out of it. I don't know, all those 6 years…I'm not the sort of person, who could show off about any sort of achievements, I'm a person without a sail, being thrown from side to side.

The thing is that you could extend so I took the maximum. And everything was going well up until the moment when I had to write a thesis about crowdfunding. At first everything was going well, I defended my thesis with the highest mark, but understood that I took on some sort of impossibly big job. I didn't have the data to complete this work…I became depressed.

Why did I study so well at all? Because I simply put in the effort. And I just got bored of this whole subject. Islamic finances and everything else. It was one and the same, one and the same.

I realized that I was at a standstill. I started to gradually listen to myself. I kind of looked back and realized my God, how many years have been lost. I remember mum would call and say "You know, I'm so sorry that I made you go and do stuff. I think I stole those years from you". And I would reply: "Nah mum, everything's fine. Nothing was in vain, some things came in handy somewhere – here and there." I could go anywhere and find a topic of conversation. But in my heart I knew that I had to do something, but where to go – I didn't know.

Internal issues started from my wish to do something that was mine, and from peer pressure: all your friends are graduating university, getting degrees, have achieved something.

If I walk away from all of this, where would I go? To me it seemed that I would never return to Russia. What? To Russia? "Our Crimea" is there… When that entire thing happened after 2014, I didn't want to return at all. And I thought that if I give it all up now, my only option would be the exit, back to winter, the eternal winter. So I'm like, no. And I somehow managed to pull myself up and finish.

At around that time, near the end of my study I got to know some musician guys. We became really good friends and started to just play some covers together. What was interesting is that they were both from Bangladesh. They were Bengali guys. They helped me discover something, some stuff I helped them discover. I'm a person disciplined in classical music. But they opened up a world of alternative music, alternative rock and their own national music for me.

I traveled to Bangladesh, it was a really cool experience. One of my most colourful life experiences was the trip to Bangladesh. "What?! Bangladesh? Third word!" – is usually the typical reaction. It all somehow lined up, I got really involved in the culture, the history of the Indian continent, not only Bangladesh but also India, Pakistan. I started to study it all. It was probably like an act of replacement. I needed to fill the void.

— Sublimation.

— Some sort of sublimation happened, yes. And so they invited me "Come see us during the holidays, we'll hang". For me Bangladesh is a world of scary contrasts, crazy traffic on the roads, scrumptious food and very free youth.

In general, Bangladesh is a country which was built by students. Because Bangladesh was at some point part of Pakistan, it was called Eastern Pakistan and Western Pakistan wanted to impose their own language onto them – Urdu. The thing is that territorially, Bangladesh is a very small country compared to Pakistan. But they have a bigger population. And they have their own language: Bengali, Bangla.

They were banned from teaching in that language, to speak in that language. They started a revolution, civil war broke out. They gained independence, and it all started with a university. I visited that Dhaka University, which was the source of it all, of the first student protests.

Freedom coupled with risks. For me, Dhaka University brought the same feelings. That massive campus, not very clean. Everyone is hooning around on motorbikes, real cool guys. On every corner people strumming guitars, playing Pink Floyd, such a sense of freedom. They're all obsessed with classical rock for some reason. They have heaps of their own bands, they play, in my opinion, incredible music. They have their own national music which is really cool. Bangladesh for me is a kind of India, except without tourists, hardly anyone goes there.

Dakha, is of course, not a very nice city – dust, dirt, but that gives it a kind of madness, its own charm. You won't see a single dented car there, or a single traffic light either. Everyone drives really carefully there. It's astounding. Crazy traffic! How they drive around each other, is just a scientific mystery.

For me, Bangladesh is also very beautiful nature. When you drive out of the city and see those…they still have those houses made of clay, straw. People still live there, how they lived a thousand years ago. Totally abandoned places, where no tourist has ever set foot before, roughly speaking. And a massive love of their language, of their culture.

And I think: damn, what a wonderful anthem. It's a remarkable country. And that's probably one of the warmest memories.

When I returned back to Kazan, I started to look at foreign students differently, because I understood how difficult it is to be an international student.

I wouldn't say that Malaysia is one of the most tolerant countries, but in any case they have a respectful attitude towards tourists. Tourists. It's a different story when you're a student and every day you come across red tape, bureaucracy.

The bureaucracy there is worse than ours. The thing is that they are raised that way. For us, it's like: if there's something that's taking a long time to do, people will give a bribe to hurry it along. But that doesn't work in Malaysia. They are used to following a ready process. Unfortunately it's a problem, everyone is always concerned with what those above them will say.

It even happens in McDonald's. For example, if you don't want a salad in your combo, but want something else. And the server will just be lost, the salesperson, and he will go to his manager to solve the problem.

You can't simply get a certificate note, which you can just print off on a computer (to say that you're studying there, for example). They say "Goodness me, we don't have a form for that", and that suddenly halts everything. Terrible bureaucracy.

In Malaysia, I would say, there's also stereotypes.

And they should definitely get to know you, because it's awesome – to be friends or in a relationship with a European-looking person.

Really terrible police there, they are constantly trying to cash in on tourists. I was arrested a few times.

— Tell us more.

— Twice I was arrested. The first time because of a knife. I bought myself a knife at the market. It's this fruit knife to peel mangos. I forgot about it and it stayed in my bag. One time the police stopped our car, they did a search and suddenly they find that knife, which is 3 years jail time, plus also scourging.

And I had never given a bribe in my life, especially to a Malaysian police officer. I just don't know how to do it. My friend had some cash, a large amount, and they're like: you've got cash, and here's a knife… They just started looking for a reason. We finally managed to get rid of them. We gave them a big enough sum for them to leave us alone.

The second time was to do with work. The problem in Malaysia is that students aren't allowed to work in most places, you can work a certain amount of hours part-time, but it's not enough to survive. And I was finishing my study and I really needed the money. So I thought, damn, why don't I become an office worker. I started working illegally in an office – as a copywriter.

I worked for this one Chinese guy.

You even have to work holidays. I had two colleagues – Malaysian girls. My boss would raise his voice at them, but not to me. Maybe because I looked European (they still treat them more respectfully).

Apparently, they (the girls) weren't too happy about me being held in higher regard. So they just informed the police that I'm working illegally there. And one day, the police came into the office and arrested me. Fortunately, my boss paid my bail and they let me go the same day.

I continued to work from home for some time, but then quit because the requirements were too intense, I just couldn't do it. I'm not the sort of person who would do anything for money. I value my own time too. So I left. So that was my interesting experience.

— Wow, how did that happen?

— I was just kidnapped on the street. A car stopped, they asked how to get to an address. They shoved me into the car and drove away, told me to sit still.

They took me to some kind of city outskirts – they have these kinds of places, like slums. There's hardly anyone there in the evenings, you can yell and shout, or not, no one will take any notice of you. They took me into some apartment, a totally empty apartment. I also remember as we were going up the stairs, someone was going down, and they exchanged greetings. But I was too scared to say anything at that point.

And so they brought me into an empty apartment. Tied me up, searched my pockets, took out my bank card. They had knives and they demanded I tell them my PIN number. But I forgot it out of fear. Because I remember it mechanically when you push the buttons. So I closed my eyes and tried to imagine that I'm entering it in. And I'm thinking "Oh God, I hope this is the correct PIN". Because if it's not the right one, they will probably say "We're just going to kill you, it won't cost us anything".

The PIN turned out to be correct, thank God.

They looked like Afghans or Pakistanis and spoke Urdu. I knew a little bit of Urdu, like a tiny bit. And I tried to use everything I remembered from my friends as much as I could. I know that language can be really influential: when you're able to say something in the language of the other person, they will look at you differently. Not as if you were some random.

I sat there like that for a few hours with closed eyes. It was really stuffy. They didn't hit me. I was figuring out what to do. Like "OK. If they start cutting me up now, what do I do? Struggle, fight, resist? Maybe untie my hands a little bit".

I couldn't see anything, but tried to create the image by the sounds. I heard everything, like I've never heard in my entire life. I tried to look at the room: what's happening, where the person is standing, what he's doing at that moment. At times I would get panic attacks.

And so when I started to pray, one of them hit me over the head once and said, so I would be quiet, "We're not going to kill you, we're not animals, we won't cross that line". He said "We just need money". So yep.

— How did that all end?

— I heard how people would come into the room a few times. Then they led me back.

They took me out into the light and took off what they covered my face with. But I tried not to look them in the eye on purpose so I wouldn't remember them. I kept looking down at the floor. And they sorta said "Thank you". And what's more, it was a polite "Thank you very much". They patted me on the shoulder and were like "We're going now. You can leave in half an hour". And I heard how they were also talking to other people. There were three other people sitting there in the room with me. They said the same thing to them. They just threw a key at the floor, but our hands and feet were tied up. I was the first to free my hands, and helped them. They all left, ran away.

Can you believe that later I found out that the Police Station was literally around the corner. And the police didn't help me at all. Possibly they might have even had some kind of arrangement...it was, of course, horrific.

For a period of time that made me go off the rails. It was so strange, I kept wanting to talk about it. To me it felt like every time I talked about it, the load got lighter. Then my story spread around the university and many would personally ask me about what had happened.

I was a bit of a crazy person: I loved walking around the city, just everywhere, any time of the day, I really loved walking. And I was totally unafraid of walking down random isolated places. I mean, everything was interesting to me. I wanted to see the glossy side of the city and the other side of the city. Those two contrasts is what I really liked. It was interesting to see that very vibe, what kind of vibrations go on in the air (laughs).

So, you see, there's a price for that.

— When you came out and realized that they didn't kill you, what did you think about?

— I didn't get what was going on. I remember that very night. Just darkness and emptiness. I didn't know what to do, where to go, what to say, who to turn to. I immediately went to my guitarist friends. I told them everything first, and we went down to the police station. But the police, of course, didn't do anything.

With time, this experience gets more forgotten, but do you know what's the most interesting thing? I still remembered one of them. And I saw that person on the street a year later. But I just walked past. I didn't have anything for that person, no feelings. Well, what can I say? That's just how they live, and I can't change that alone, of course. So, I just made my peace with it and tried to forget.

That's what I remember.

— How did the idea of coming back to Kazan come about? Was it after this?

— No, not after that. I stayed in Malaysia for a long time after, about two years. I was basically living there, doing visa runs. You know, it's when your visa is running out, and you travel to a different country and then come back again.

I was cast in films there as an extra. That's how all the students from Russia and its neighbouring countries, the West, and eastern Europe countries make extra money. So it's nothing special, in actual fact it's just an experience. And well, interesting in its own way. I even happened to play some episodic role of a police officer in an Indian film (laughs). I still laugh when I think about it, because when I saw it up on the screen…

— What's the movie called?

Oh, don't watch it. It's, you know, a stereotypical south-Indian movie, where a person flies back 20 metres when someone punches them (both laugh).

Yes, the movie is about a superhero. And it was so weird – seeing myself on screen, because all this time we were being filmed as extras. But here, for some reason they didn't have an actor for the policeman role and so they just randomly chose me, because I spoke English fluently.

One time, Hollywood came to film. The most interesting experience was specifically in Hollywood movies. Just to see how they work, how organized everything is and how they treat the extras.

We don't have names, or surnames, we don't show up in the credits, we might not even ever show up on the screen. But they would feed us, we had fried red fish, chicken, salads. We had a place where we could relax. Each of us had our own manager who would say where we needed to be and when. So like I saw that kind of respect for people there. That movie was being directed by Michael Mann, the one who filmed the movie about Muhammad Ali, and something else, that movie was called "Cyber" in Russia I think.

Everything works like clockwork: if you're told that you'll be called upon at this time, then that's exactly when you'll be called upon.

By the way, I can now compare how the Koreans, and southern and northern Indians film movies. What's interesting is that every state of India has its own movie industry, and they all work differently. The worst to work with are the Koreans, because they are very mercantile, they squeeze everything out of you and there's no respect for human dignity, they look at you like you're biomass.

Korean movie filming might not start on time, you're told you'll be working for 12 hours, but in actual fact you might be working 19 hours. You're paid peanuts, they feed you some kind of instant noodles, and there's not even a place for you to sit – you just sit on the floor.

And so at one point my visa expired. In 6 years I had gone back to Kazan only 3 times. I really regret that I didn't come back more often, after the situation with Crimea, the prices spiked and it was really expensive to fly to Kazan.

I regret that I rarely came back, because I didn't see my parents, they were very ill, both of my parents battled cancer, but they both picked it up early on and managed it without chemotherapy – they underwent operations at the right time.

So yeah, my visa expired and I said to myself: "Alright Aidar, stop with all the nonsense, it's time to get a real job".

I didn't plan anything far ahead, I was enjoying the moment: I'm alive right now, that's awesome, I don't know what will happen tomorrow, and that was exciting for me.

All this time my parents and friends would tell me: "You need to stop and think about something". But I can't and don't want to. I'm comfortable here and now. But that was awesome, I traveled a lot.

Then the money ran out, I needed to find work. I found a job in a good company, the salary wasn't bad, but my visa was expiring, and I needed to return to get a new visa. I took a minimal amount of stuff with me, all my books and main things, I left behind.

So I arrive to Kazan and suddenly I find myself in a totally different atmosphere: there's so many events happening here! Ugol creating something here, a Tatar house gig there, here's the 'ART-podgotovka', Kamal Theatre putting on 'Alif'…

And I really missed, it turns out, the Tatar language.

I met a friend who was getting ready to put on a play in Tatar and she says to me "Listen, I'm actually looking for a person for the main role in a Tatar play". And I'm like what, do I even need this… But then I thought: cool, I should try it. I came to the reading and realized how much of the language I had forgotten.

And so it's coming up to the time when I need to leave, but the premier is in May, but I still agreed anyway. My papers had just been held up until June instead of May. In May we performed the premier on the small stage at the Kamal Theatre.

Why is this experience so valuable for me? I was able to curb my fear. I would recite text in Tatar which I almost forgot, in front of an audience, even though I wasn't an actor.

For me it was important that fear was walking alongside me, and I was holding its leash.

Then there was 'ART-podgotovka', 'Mergasovsky', Lake Kazan also opened up, I understood, that I really missed the culture.

The thing is that in Malaysia, there are many cultured people, but no culture. In the sense that there's little rudeness in Malaysia – if you bump someone's shoulder, that person will even apologize to you. Everyone are also very polite on the streets, but not many cultural things, projects.

I was so starved of it that I realized: I had to stay. At home, of course, I was told: what do you mean, you've lost your mind, you'll be working for peanuts here. They said it was suicide, and plus I had given my word, the documents were being filed, money had been spent on me…

The hardest thing was the phone call to say "Sorry, I'm not coming". They were very upset with me, of course.

I started to get my Tatar up to scratch, I even worked at 'Tatar-Inform' for half a year in their Tatar department. I spoke, but I couldn't write anything at all, the editorial team would scold me pretty bad because I would write with errors. It wasn't a bad experience.

I spoke Tatar when I was little, we would speak Tatar, not Russian to each other during recess at school. But after school that took a backseat.

In Kazan, the only thing that's hard for me is the weather, but the winter was warmer this year so it was easier, last year the winter was cold and it was difficult. They found a rare lung disease, but they cured me. But winter for me is a bit hard.

Now I work at the 'Mechtay so mnoi' charity. The cause grants wishes of people with life-threatening diseases. The wishes are specifically intangible: to see the sea, befriend a favourite singer, ride a train, meet your relatives.

The cause focuses on human dreams, not on the diseases. It's all about how important it is to learn to live, live here and now, live your own life, dream, have fun.

The difficulty comes down to the fact that you think: ooooh, a charitable cause – that's cool. Yes, it's cool but you're working with people, and working with people is difficult. You need to be sensitive and attentive, because it's very easy to upset a person.

I am very afraid of professional deformation, I'm afraid that I will begin to perceive it as "wrote an article, handed it in". As in, stamping. Every time you get to work with real stories, I write about them. I'm very scared that I'll sink into some kind of template cliche. On the one hand, it's a defence mechanism when you don't let it affect you, but on the other hand, I'm afraid of cynicism and that it will just become my job (doing a good job - and that's all). That is the most difficult thing, probably – to stay human.

We had a girl in the project, a butterfly child – she couldn't go anywhere, and she simply wanted to blow bubbles. I thought, my God, here you are building kind of ambitions, dreaming, and there's a person who gets joy from blowing bubbles. And you understand how difficult her life is. She has a tube stuck into her, she can't move. I generally try to be happy about the smallest things, but here you also get to learn that everything can change at any given moment.

When I lived in Malaysia, I took notice of how my peers would dress: OK, like this here, and here, this here. But now I totally don't take notice of that, I look for joy in other things.

— What places in Kazan are important to you?

I have really fallen in love with the Hermitage garden. It's amazing that when I studied near there, I didn't go there at all. But when I returned back to Kazan, I discovered that place for myself again. I really like the embankment of Lake Kazan, especially when Radmila ran the cultural program there – that was especially great. Now I live on Dubravnaya, it's basically the edge of the city, and there's a forest, fresh air – I have really taken a liking to that place.

I love the square in front of Kamal Theatre, Tukaevskaya, the city centre.

But I went for the new skills, new experiences, and returned because I realized that I feel good here. And I understood that I need to be near my nearest and dearest, with whom I probably somehow lost touch over these years, and that wasn't good, I need to restore those connections.

I decided that freedom, probably comes down to the ability to let yourself go, and even, maybe, give up some ambitions, give up some things, which you thought you valued – in order to feel good. In the place, where you feel good.