Tell us about your childhood?

I was born in 1984 in Kazan in the maternity hospital on Chuikov Street. When I was one, my parents took me to Uralsk, a city in Kazakhstan, where we stayed for about a year and a half. Then my dad, who was in the military, was transferred to Saratov, where we lived for the next seven years. Saratov is a city with a rather peculiar layout. Its downtown is located on the bank of the Volga River; the further from the river, the more marginal the area. We lived right on the outskirts, a kind of industrial zone with, like, automobile junkyards, next to secret and semisecret military units. In the midst of all of this, we saw no other life except for the life in our sector. The officers' residential area was a universe unto itself. The outside world did not affect us at all.

And this was the late 1980s in the Soviet Union. One of the most powerful military empires in the world is collapsing, and I, a small boy, am inside it, watching how everything is rolling into the abyss: crime started cropping up, people started stealing, people started opening up "lumps" (that's what they called commercial kiosks back then) ... My dad, a Soviet officer, walked around holding his head: "What's going on?"

He wasn't paid his salary for a year and a half. A colonel in the armed forces of the Soviet Union didn't get paid for a year and a half! He had to survive somehow (everyone had to survive). So, he, the deputy commander for political affairs, started drawing custom pictures. At this time, there was a kind of Tatar diaspora in Saratov (Saratov is really a Tatar city; the name comes from Sary Tau, which, means "yellow mountain"), and my dad took part in it as an artist, decorating for the sabantuy [Tatar festival] and other things.

Cool grandma!

Yes, my grandmother is very cool! It was about 1992. I arrived in Kazan at a very specific time for the city, when criminal groups were just beginning to blossom. I was seven years old, and for me it was a completely new, unexplored environment (there were no organized crime groups in Saratov then).

This lasted for a year and a half, until a group of older guys beat me up and I became disillusioned by all of it [laughing].

I have an older brother, Artyom. When he was eighteen, rave culture became the craze in Kazan; the first nightclub was opened, called Bald'n'Max. They had Technics turntables, and it seemed like it was the coolest thing in the world. I went into this little room, my brother had some kind of agreement with them, and they gave me the opportunity to play a record with crappy techno or Klubbheads or something. And it was incredibly cool!

The music back then all pretty much the same: some guy said something very quickly over an accelerating rhythm. But, despite everything, it just blew my mind. I literally lived for it and felt like I my life would be forever connected with music. I was really into collecting music back then, and you have to keep in mind that there was no Internet and finding interesting music was akin to hunting.

At the same time, like everyone else at that age, I was going school. I butted heads with teachers, because I had and, in part, still have this thing:

You can guess that a lot of my teachers didn't like that. As a result, in one year I got five F's. Really! Five 5's! A catastrophe! The administration and teachers tried their best to force me to leave school, but my parents came to an agreement with them and the kept me. I myself understood that it was time to cut it off, to finish school, so I tried to stay. I freaked out a little as a child. Now I have calmed down.

Despite that, I had the appearance of a very positive boy. I wore glasses; I was always in a jacket and a tie. A charming chubby kid from an intelligent family: grandmother is the boss, mom is smart, and dad is in the army and comes from a long line of military men.

Among teenagers and young people back then, there was a division between the underground alternative scene and gopniks. In my heart, I always considered myself to be closer to underground and alternative-thinking people, but I found myself being bored with those from that scene that I knew, and I definitely didn't like the music they listened to (and music for me, like you already can tell, is an extremely important factor in differentiating friend from foe).

I liked different music, and I didn't really fit the standards of underground culture. Therefore, I was friends with the gopniks. It was more fun with them. They had money for beer, and you could skip classes with them, have a good time. That was amazing. The alternative kids only had sad guitar songs [laughing].

How did you choose your university and major?

I didn't really choose anything. My major was, so to speak, "recommended" to me by my parents. For me, at that time, life was, you could say, a stream flowing in which there was no question about the future. It seemed like everything was happening right here and now, and I had to seize the moment. The future will come later, when I will be completely different and be able to make the right choice.

I remember how I got to work on the first day, got ready, took out my CDs, and I was surrounded by totally naked women. That was really cool.

I quickly got tired of this work, because there was no creativity at all. And I quickly got fed up with naked girls. I wanted something more.

I started looking for this "more." I tried to go wherever I could find something unusual, talk to anyone who could tell me something interesting. There was no Internet; I had to live and act in the real world.

For example, a new club called Banzai is opening up; you should definitely go there!

And during all this searching, I'm sitting there at a lecture, looking around and thinking: how many really talented students are in my class? I counted only three who were studying because they wanted to, and not just because it was prestigious or they needed a higher education. And there were eighteen people in my class.

Then it dawned on me: what am I doing here? I realized that I was wasting time, because I wasn't going to be a great specialist in this field, and anything less wasn't worth the effort. And I never went back.

What about your parents?

My parents ... it was a complete disaster! I had greatly disappointed my parents (and that's putting it mildly).

The fact that conscription had begun and I would have to join the army added to it all. My stepfather (a military man, like my father) came up with a genius idea: so that I wouldn't go into the army as a soldier, I had to go to military school.

When handing over my documents to the military registration and enlistment office, I put on a whole performance: "Yes, I want to join the army, please, take me," I said, "just not as a soldier, but as an officer, because I have a military pedigree that stretches back to tsarist times, a whole dynasty, and I dream to continue the work started by my ancestors. " The military commissar was delighted! I passed the commissions, tests ... and then it was time to move to the tank school, to settle in there in tents, and take entrance exams.

I left home for a few days, and my friends and I had a lot of fun. But it was time to go back. On the way home, I passed the intersection of Pushkin Street and Profsoyuznaya Street, where a new club called Jolly Roger had recently opened, a place where they combined jazz and electronic music. It was very cool place, very important to me. The president of this club was Vova Chigarev, who played an important role in my life and became one of my closest friends. I went in, found someone I knew there and told him: "Listen, I'm in a pickle ... I just screwed over my parents, who had spent so much energy on me, and I can't just go home as if nothing happened. I need to do something, and the best thing would be to get a job." And this friend helped me out.

I returned home, and no one would even talk to me (naturally). I said: "Look, I know I did a bad thing, but I got a job and will take full responsibility for supporting myself, I won't let you down any more."

I worked at Jolly Roger for two years. At first, of course, I worked as a DJ, but a lot of people were ready to DJ for free, so they didn't pay me much money. Then I they let me be a lighting designer and technician's assistant. That was a great experience! I really enjoyed working there.

It was there that I met the people who later would take part in the creation of Svetsky magazine. Vova Chigarev called me: "We're putting together a magazine here. We need a designer who can make cool photo collages. Can you do that?" You have to remember that this was 2003, and no one knew anything about Photoshop yet, but, without hesitation, I answered: "Of course I can." And that fantastic movement began.

What did they write about in Svetsky?

Anything you could think of! Starting from etiquette (how to properly hold a fork or spoon) and ending with topical satire. They wrote about architecture and contemporary art. I even had my own column, called "Inspector Gadget." I wrote about all sorts of things, like the cone of happiness, a battery-powered vibrator which, according to rumors, gave women wild sensations. Readers even wrote in about it, asking where they could buy one, and men were also interested.

Despite the glamorous bent of the magazine, the people who made it were intellectuals, well-read, and diversely educated, and they managed to put quite deep meanings into this very light form of entertainment sometimes. And there was a sea of creativity! In the magazine itself, in our workflow, and in everything that happened then in general.

For example, we had a rush job, working at night, and I fell asleep at four in the morning on the sofa; at six in the morning, I wake up wearing a Medal for Merit in Space Exploration [an official medal from the Russian government recognizing achievements in the space program], which our literary editor, Dima Ivanenko, had pinned to me while I was sleeping. I can't even imagine where he got them [laughing]. It was great!

We managed to create a magazine that everyone dreamed of being featured in. Everything coincided: Diana Safarova, the main engine behind all of it, and Kolya Pudovik, with his charisma, and us, a team of designers and journalists who also tried very hard. Now I look back and understand that, of course, there was a certain naivety in all this. But we did what we wanted and what we thought was cool, for which we sometimes got judged from competitors and our colleagues in the design department.

Once Vova and I were approached by the Suvar company with a proposal to make a magazine like Esquire. On Vova's instructions, I literally measured an entire issue of Esquire with a ruler and felt it with my hands to learn what a good layout is and how to work. As a result, we got a magazine called Versus.

We made it together with the Free Design studio; the art director was Ilya Ovsyannikov, more commonly known as Ovsich.

He's the one who taught me how to correctly do color correction. When he was preparing the magazine for publication, I sat next to him and watched his every movement while he explained everything to me. Mastery through craft. I'm very lucky to have all these kind and smart people nearby!

Ilya taught me so well that, when I was working at Afisha [a Russian nightlife magazine] in Moscow, I could talk on an equal footing with the prepressing department, where all the ultracool professionals worked. One time I felt that the color proofs of the material weren't good enough, so I went to the prepressers and they told me there was nothing they could do. So, I sat down at their computer and demonstrated the approach that Ovsich had taught me. And those hip Moscow pros were impressed!

After Svetsky was sold, Kolya Pudovik invited me to work for the Infinity advertising company. There, we formed a kind of dream team. We got into an amazingly productive work rhythm and talked about design all the time. If Lebedev Studio [a global multidisciplinary design company] released a new project, we talked all about it, what was good, what was bad, how it could be done differently. Unfortunately, the company's management did not see the potential in our team, and, in the end, I quit. But the potential was certainly there! For example, Arthur Miroshnichenko, my very close friend, worked with us there, as he's now the creative director of one of the world's largest advertising agencies, BBDO.

I know him too, we shot a movie for Outpac [an internet clothing store] in January. He was the director, I think.

Yes, he showed it to me. So, when it became clear that it was time to part with Infinity, I wrote a letter to Ildar Akhtyamov at the Lorien company. At that time, it was the strongest design studio in the city and the main forge for personnel. Ildar answered me: "You have a great portfolio, let's meet." At the meeting, he offered me excellent conditions and we started working on the Universiade 2013 project. It was a pleasure to work at Lorien! Nobody called anyone simply by name there, like Andrey or Ildar; they only used diminutive forms, like Dinarusechka, Ildarik, Andryushenka. The environment was very democratic.

After some time, I was going through a very difficult period emotionally. I didn't know what to do. There didn't seem any prospects for development. I was depressed at Lorien, and even Ildar began giving me the stink eye.

In 2012, I decided that nothing was really keeping me in Kazan, so I bought a ticket to Moscow. When I got there, friend came to pick me up at Kazansky station and asked:

And he says: "Look around. There are probably another fifty designers who just arrived in Moscow with you." I stayed with some friends who put a folding bed for me in the kitchen. I spent about a week on this cot. I put my iMac on the kitchen windowsill and started looking for work, sending out about fifty letters a day.

My goal was to enter the British School of Design. I thought that in Moscow everyone is cool, and we're not anywhere near their level, so I definitely need to study in Moscow.

And in reality?

In reality ... at the entrance exams, when I showed my portfolio to Dima Karpov [Curriculum Curator, British Higher School of Art and Design] he said: "Dude, are you sure that, with a portfolio like that you still need to learn something? Maybe should be looking for a job?"

And then work just found me. Someone called me and said: "Hello, Andrey, my name is Anton. I'm the director of a construction company. I need a booklet. Can you do it?" I agreed. Anton invited me to his office on Tsvetnoy Boulevard and I made a booklet and developed a corporate identity for him. I got paid way more for that job than I would've gotten in Kazan. Those were the days when there was as much money in Moscow as there was oil in Texas: you stick a stick in the ground and there's a river of oil for you.

At some point, I wanted to be able to communicate professionally; I needed some kind of growth, and I decided that I was done with freelancing.

At first, I was like what!? That's not possible. I was just going to them bring coffee! I even started to turn it down; it was so unexpected, but the director of the Afisha studio and my future boss Natasha Stulova said: "Say yes, Andrei, you won't regret it!" And, in the end, I said yes and never regretted it!

Working at Afisha was very difficult in the beginning, because a publishing house is a complex technological environment, and design here is more than just a picture; it's a technological process, and I had no idea how this process works at first. Some of my colleagues even complained about me, wrote to the management about my incompetence. But I continued working and understood what it was and how it works more and more. The turning point came when I realized that the next complaint about me wasn't due to any mistake I made; it was just out of habit. For the first time, I reacted by pointing out that there was nothing objective in the complaint against me (I cc'd my bosses the letter). From that moment on, my life at Afisha got better! An exciting job had begun.

We had some very interesting projects. For example, I was developing a museum map of Moscow. The task was to create a map that would be foldable (and with a small format so that it would be convenient to carry); inexpensive to manufacture; and, at the same time, each museum could leave some kind of stamp on it after it had been visited. We struggled to solve this task for a long time; there were many options, but none of them suited us. Then then I thought of making a map in which each museum would have its own sector, resembling a tram ticket, and each visit to this museum would be marked by piercing it with a regular hole punch.

Another project that was important on a national scale was a museum guide we did together with the Potanin Foundation.

At some point, I felt like I had passed my design stage and I decided to try out contemporary art. I left Afisha and I went nowhere (I had this deceptive feeling that now I could do anything).

Around the same time, my friend from Kazan Seryoga Kulikov, who had long loved postmodern texts and modern culture in general, moved to Moscow. We started going to various art events, lecture halls, all that stuff. He went to study at Free Workshops at the Moscow Museum of Modern Art, and I often attended lectures with him. We took part in collective exhibitions, came up with some projects. It didn't bring any money at all, to be honest, though, and I had to live off my friends for a whole year [laughs].

At this time, Seryoga and I came up with a project that we called YRA. You probably know about the YBA—Young British Artists—in England, which was organized by Damien Hirst, the highest paid living artist, while studying at university.

And YRA stands for Young Russian ...

That's it! We got really creative with the name [laughing].

My year after Afisha was a year spent playing at artistic bohemia. It was interesting, wonderful, and really cool, but gradually I started to understand that I would need to return to design. So, I started looking for work again.

Then I was invited to the Eksmo publishing house. That was interesting from the point of view of analyzing the processes of a publishing business on the Russian scale. But I didn't stay there for very long due to, you could say, administrative reasons. I was often late for work (I lived downtown, and it was a commute), and they would fine me for that. This way of organizing labor doesn't seem entirely logical to me in the modern world; it definitely doesn't suit me, personally.

The next round in my creative biography was working for a private company that was created by some ambitious guys from Krasnodar living in Munich. I worked remotely, and, at some point, I thought, "what, am I doing in dusty and stuffy Moscow?"

What year was that?

It was in 2016, as far as I recall. I think Kazan is the most beautiful city. I sincerely believe that the most beautiful people live here, for real. There's a special environment here, a kind of multicultural mix, and I always liked that. I like to walk from my house on Mayakovsky Street to the studio on Shchapova Street; in Moscow you just can't do that.

I also counted how many days a year I spent on the road in Moscow. That was one of the reasons I moved to Kazan.

Now I feel like Kazan lacks artistic institutions, like laboratories where there would be a constant change of people, where everyone could express themselves, achieve their own ambitions, create their own unique projects.

From the point of view of a graphic designer, I have a lot to say about Kazan (that would be another hour-and-a-half conversation, at least). I don't even know where to start. For example, in downtown Kazan, on Freedom Square, there's a famous building, popularly known as "Peace on Earth." It's a Stalin-era building, very beautiful, and residents of the city (and visitors) love it. The house, if I'm not mistaken, was built in 1952, and during the Cold War, the inscription Peace on Earth was put on its facade, and then it was removed in the 1970s, I think. In 2004, it was put back up. And it's a graphic nightmare! The letters are uneven, the hyphen breaks up the line, and the general character of the font is completely incomprehensible. Take a closer look at it and you'll see what I'm talking about. In terms of graphic design, the lettering is extremely unprofessional.

And if we perceive this inscription from this point of view, then we get a of crooked world ...

Have you ever spoken about this in public?

Before now, no. So, we'll do it today.

Now, together with the MOÑ theater platform, we're discussing a project to create a design laboratory that will study the history of Kazan's visuality, analyze the current situation and predict the future. Kazan has always been one of the centers of graphic design in Russia; we have our own printing houses, our own publishing houses and a lot of talented designers.

Designers in Russia often start from scratch, but, in my opinion, this is fundamentally the wrong way to go about it. First you need to analyze, understand, and absorb the experience of past generations—realize where we are now, and only then can you move on. Design is always a continuous process.

But in this case, those categories don't work at all, because design is, first and foremost, a systematic work; it's not about liking or disliking something.

In the end, you always need to understand exactly what we're going toward, see a meaningful goal, and not just act on a whim.

And what would that goal be?

I think we should strive to successfully export our cultural achievements. On the one hand, you can generate significant income doing that. For example, the export of music from the UK brings in $3.5 billion a year. That's a lot of money! Also, today it's impossible to close oneself off from the world. On the contrary, you have to become more relatable to other cultures, more accessible; without this, it's impossible to survive in the era of globalization.

On the whole, I think we're living in an incredibly interesting time, a time of global transformations which presupposes total and complete creativity, and that's awesome, because anyone can find something for themselves, take part in all these processes and not only find satisfaction in self-realization, but also a lot of other dividends.