I was born in Kazan; we lived on Tatarstan street. I remember how in kindergarten a girl named Anya tore the head off my doll. I'm pretty nice, but I remember everything [laughing].

I studied at English School No. 18 on Mushtari. I started learning the language in the first grade; in our family that was always considered important. Then, when I got older, I always studied with tutors as well. My parents are great—they did everything so that I could learn the language.

At the age of six I started going to music school. We performed at the conservatory and went to some international competitions abroad. I had music school three times a week, regular school from morning to night, English tutors ... I've talked about it with my parents and told them that I never even thought about skipping classes. It never even crossed my mind [laughing]. Sometimes I joke that I lived like I was in the army.

I was shaped into what I am at school, or rather, in spite of school. They said to me: "Your dad studied great, why can't you?" When you're a child, that weighs on you. I have always been the model child in this regard. I felt responsible for the family brand, because everyone knew very well who my family was. They say that the children of famous people are given concessions, but it was nothing like that for me. I graduated from school with a silver medal.

There was no subject in which I was super genius: I was consistently upper average, as I call it: either I knew how to do it, where to get it, or who to ask for it; whatever, I always found a way. I wasn't drawn to anything. Well, except that I wanted to go to nightclubs, but my parents sent me to music school instead.

When we were choosing where to go, my parents and I sat down and thought about it (they were economists and lawyers), but we didn't choose. We decided to do everything at once: I studied law and I also studied economics through correspondence classes. My schedule was from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. I have no idea how I managed.

I remember how my philosophy teacher and I couldn't get along, and every time we would debate, I disagreed and argued with him; he didn't like it. But I never gave up, I said: "No, I don't understand, what makes me wrong?" And I'd continue arguing.

Why did I go study in England?

Even my brother, who had his own company and to whom I kept saying "show me; teach me," told me: "just marry a rich man and you're set. What do you need all this for?" And I told him "Why should marrying a rich man stop me from learning?" Of course, he wished for the best for me, but that was the attitude then towards women.

Of course, I was constantly doing something, anyway, like at the Chamber of Commerce, but it wasn't taken seriously. They thought it was just a phase I was going through.

And then one day a friend calls me and says "I'm going to study in England." I say "Wait, let me call you right back." I called my parents right away: "I want to go to study in England. I know it might be kind of expensive, but I'll work there." If I decide to do something, I will definitely do it. We still have a credo in our family: when you see a goal, go for it. Both my parents and grandmothers on both sides are like that. My parents thought a little, then they were, like, "Okay." One minute is all it took. The decision was made in one minute. I called my friend back: "I'm going with you."

It was spring in London when I arrived, and it was great. Everyone was walking; everyone was beautiful and cheerful. I had been to Paris with my parents before and I had been in Italy, but still this made a huge impression: is this really my reality?

In England I first studied at David Game College, and then I got into City, University of London. I set the same regime for myself all over again; I took a bunch of additional classes—I remember, I took classes with computers, because I didn't understand computers. I had all seven days a week scheduled, and I also decided that sports are important: my brain was exploding. I needed to balance something, so I started doing sports and yoga there. That really helped me to keep up with everything.

Nobody there told me how it all works. There's a system: there are subjects, coursework, exams, and each makes up a certain percentage of your grade. For example, I didn't know that model answers are examples from previous years. That is, a teacher may talk about something completely different, but if you look at these examples and ask the teacher something about that, then you may have an understanding by the end of the year. Otherwise, you might get caught taking an exam that has stuff they didn't talk about at all. For some reason they didn't connect with it at all. It all depends on the teacher, because each teacher does what they want; they make the course themselves, and it changes every year.

It's very difficult to adapt to this. Difficult, because I didn't know how to do it. If I had known that, it would've been much easier. You always need some kind of key that can make everything clearer.

I'm a very adaptable person; I understood this in England. In the first year I was dragging everyone along with me, and then I realized that I didn't want to do that anymore. I chose the smartest from the class, anyone who was better than me in something—that was my way out of my comfort zone—and gathered a living community around me, a group. That was by my third year.

There were also extracurricular activities at the university. I got a job as an assistant in the investment community, and that was just what I wanted to learn from my brother. We collected top speakers and started working with social networks there.

At the same time, in 2013 I began talking with the Tatar–Bashkir society and started developing it in London. I became the leader of the youth movement. I met Tatars from different countries: Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, and Crimea. We agreed that we would focus on culture and not try to get political. I remember when I was going to fly to the first Sabantuy [Tatar and Bashkir festival], I took out all the everyday things from my suitcase and put in all my ethnic stuff.

Tatar culture has always been close to my heart. I remember my davanika [grandmother] spoke to me in Tatar. But there, in England, I sewed ethnic costumes for myself, and even gave them to Baroness Elizabeth Smith. They really highly value culture, style and handicraft abroad. I also wore headscarves with Tatar ornaments, and it looked so organic that everyone admired me and asked "Oh, is that like Hermès?" I told them that it was ours, Tatar. And it's done with love. I tend to believe that love rules everything in the world, it has the highest vibrations. If something isn't done out of love, it will go wrong. Then I began to wonder why they don't do that in Tatarstan, why they don't wear modern ethnic costumes. It's so beautiful!

How great it would be to combine all these things from each region, collect unique artists and craftsmen all on one platform, as a single, large-scale idea, and make it an international Russian brand?

Russia has a terrible international brand. Specifically, as a brand.

That is, I had the same relationship with school in England. About 90% of the students from Tatarstan didn't finish at all. For me it's extremely important to follow everything through to the end. So while I was in England, I didn't take any Saturdays or Sundays off; I constantly worked, organized conferences, taught, and worked with the embassy. By the way, I think that we're improving Russia's brand through Tatarstan.

But at some point, I thought, "do I want to continue living like this? Achieving and achieving ... what is it all for? I don't want that. When am I going to start living? You need to love yourself, preserve yourself, protect yourself.

And my soul pulled me home. I returned in November 2018.

After I came back, I started teaching here, too.

I like Russian students more; they're more assiduous, and if they understand that the subject is interesting, they thirst for knowledge and ask interesting questions. English students are already so spoiled by it all; there's too much bias in their favor. They complain, say "the teacher made a mistake," and then go try to set it straight, but for us the teacher has the advantage. That is, there's no balance either in England or here. And I'm just trying to ensure that there is a balance. In this regard, I would study the Finnish model more; phenomenon-based learning is active, project learning, an interdisciplinary approach, and there's a natural context for classes that intersect with the real-life experience of each student. This model teaches you to solve problems using knowledge from several areas at once, which is also the Montessori concept.

I remember my first lesson. I entered the auditorium; people were making noise and I said "The door is right there. It's important for me that you're here because you want to be. Learning is activity. It's dialogue. There is no point in sitting and just listening. I'm not giving you any secret information. You can find all this on the Internet yourself. It is important for me that you develop your ideas in dialogue." And they all just woke up. Nobody left. They smiled and sat closer. For them, it was a paradigm shift.

My motto is "develop and preserve." That's what I saw in England, because there, even when buildings are remodeled, everything good is preserved. In Russia it's more like "destroy and rebuild," and that's totally the wrong way to go about it.

We conducted the 100 Leaders project this year to nurture both personality and entrepreneurial thinking in youth. I believe that a team is only as strong as its weakest link. If you're in a team, everyone affects the overall success; it's one organism. I believe that entrepreneurial thinking is important for everyone. Participation in our project is free and open to anyone, and these one hundred people didn't know each other, but they formed teams and worked on their projects and brought them to mvp status [minimum viable product: a version of a product with just enough features to be usable by early customers who can then provide feedback for future product development]. It was during the pandemic, and we set a duration of three months. There were seven winners. And I'm still going to tweak it a bit, because education is a living, breathing organism, as well as to ensure that in 2021 it will be exactly how I would want to study. Our project is such a unique environment where you can find like-minded people. It's how society as a whole develops.

One thing I like about Kazan now is that sports are also becoming popular here. I like that there are projects like Anna Karenina [immersive theater] which raise the cultural consciousness of the public and show you something outside the standard template.

In Kazan, I feel comfortable, warm, hospitality, sincerity, humanity.