I was born in Nizhnekamsk, and academic stuff had always come easy for me. I taught myself to read, I studied well at school, and I really fell in love with English. Even before I started studying it, I found some books in English and tried to read them, replacing the letters that I didn't know with some of my own, pretending to know the language. I was about five years old.

I also played music and took rhythmic gymnastics, and the latter ended the way you'd expect: I reached national rankings and broke my knee. It was psychologically traumatic, because ... here in Kazan there was one coach for two or three girls, and in Nizhnekamsk we had one coach for fifty girls. This created a struggle for attention. If I used to always win prizes, after the injury I fell far behind, so I didn't get any attention.

And my injury was the coach's fault, so it was doubly insulting.

Gymnastics is a very individualistic sport. I'll most likely send my child to a team sport. When you're alone on the field and your competition is individual, that affects how you grow up.

I was quite popular at first in kindergarten: I could stretch well, so the teachers asked me to conduct classes for the children. And they put me in all the dance numbers; we performed at different kindergartens and schools. Then, at some point, all the children grew up, and I stayed little.

I was made fun of as a child, because I had a dark complexion: they called me n*gg*r. My mother had freckles, so she always had whitening creams in her cosmetic bag. When she wasn't looking, I would smear them all over my face. They didn't help, of course. I was still swarthy [laughing].

I went to three different schools. That was my mother's choice, to give me a decent education: the first two schools focused on English, and the third was a technological lyceum for the exact sciences. In each school I had to start from scratch, prove myself, build up my image.

The last school was kind of amazing. For example, the biology teacher looked like a hippie, with his curly hair, and he said:

I took correspondence classes at the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology for four years and was seriously preparing for admission there. When the time came, my mother said: "Ask your father if he'll let you go to Moscow." He didn't. On the one hand, I was upset, but, on the other hand, I knew how difficult it was to go there, so I was relieved that I wouldn't have to suffer through it.

I followed in my sister's footsteps at university with an economics major. I felt like a child and I didn't have enough information to understand what my soul desired. It was much easier for me at the institute than at school. I knew how to study well (I think that in and of itself is a skill). I was interested in everything.

At the same time, I received a second degree as a translator. That's when I realized that knowing a language and translating are two different things.

Who gets out of which kind of car, who's wearing what heels, who has what hairstyle. And I came from Nizhnekamsk, so it's pretty funny, trying to find your place in society.

The teachers would make assumptions about you based on how you looked. Like, I also wanted to dress well. I wore makeup; I wore high heels. The political science teacher had prejudged me based on my looks, but at some point she realized that I understood her subject. I was dating a boy, we had already finished her class, I got an A, and she saw us in the corridor and came up to us and said: "Ramilya is an extraordinary girl who combines an extraordinary mind and beauty." I just turned around and left [laughing].

They mixed our classes together every two years, and it's weird, because now I meet some people and I don't even remember exactly when I studied with them.

I learned about the Algarysh program in my fifth year and started studying for it. When I was studying at my second higher education, I met a girl there, and we decided to go to London and take the IELTS exam there. We went for a month, and we certainly had fun going to the best clubs in London. We counted how much more school we could skip and still earn a diploma. I passed with a 6.0; took the interview; and the Algarysh commission told me that everyone was going to Exeter, so I went there too. It's a town with a population even smaller than Nizhnekamsk.

Before that, I had already been to England while I was at school; when I was 16 my parents sent me to study there for a month.

In England it's like this: you get your turn, you have the right to ask a question, and the teacher expects it.

For me it was a free adventure, although many students paid money for their education. One guy said, "I thought there would be only lords studying in Exeter, but there's only Chinese students." He was obviously joking, but in every joke ...

And these cultural features are very interesting.

And there were so many dramatic stories: in China, as a rule, they would be an only child, and the family had saved up money and picked their education, but their dreams were to play music.

I lived in a dorm, we had six rooms to a kitchen, and I was with five girls from China. These Chinese women and I all in the kitchen. One girl, for example, had no idea how to brush her hair, because she had had special governess at home. In the first month, she went to the hairdresser every day, before her parents did the math and realized it'd be cheaper to send her governess there, and then they lived together [laughing].

That is, they would spend all their money on top brands and, for example, economize on laundry: there was a girl who, wearing a cucumber mask on her face, was always washing her clothes in a plastic tub in the kitchen.

I also had a neighbor from Denmark, a friend, and she said that at night someone was always pounding into the other side of the wall. We later learned that one Chinese girl had a friend move in who was sleeping on the table [laughs].

I didn't plan to stay there at all. Those who plan to stay usually send out CVs everywhere they want to get a job before the New Year. After I did decide that I wanted to find a good job, I also decided to stay; this was in April, and the course ended in May. So, I also started sending out my resume.

It's very difficult to find a job when you're inexperienced. And employers gave preference to large universities. Then I thought: "Why didn't I choose some other university? Why did I go straight to Exeter?"

Each university has a career center, so I went and they told me that the students from my department have access to a meeting organized for financial venture capital funds, that is, not with students, but with professionals. They told me "Try going to these meetings." Like, for networking. There were all these old people from financial companies, and they gathered around me to find out what I was doing here. I say that I'm looking for a job; I'm graduating from a university. One of them left me his business card. I wrote to him and was called in for an interview. It was a small investment company in Exeter. I thought that would be a good place to start.

Then there were problems with my visa. I returned to Tatarstan, really sad, because of the people I had left behind in England. I had no idea what to do. The investment company where I worked said they wouldn't wait for me.

I found a company that needed an employee who could sell their product on Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian and Kazakhstani markets. They wrote: "We're waiting for you in London." It wasn't my dream job, of course. And that's probably why I my final interview in London was unsuccessful.

This feeling of being unnecessary, lost, is terrible. I was staying not even with friends, but with friends of friends, in this mini-room. I decided to go to Exeter, where at least I would have a place to stay. It was a very competitive market, and even some acquaintances with a higher education were working at KFC.

I found a French company with an office in England. They needed permanent employees in their call center. Since having that job, it's been very easy for me to make phone calls. Two months later I was transferred to the manager's department. I rented a room; thanks to my job I could afford it.

My colleagues there would all talk with each other, but not with me. They were all English, and several years older than me. I was very bored at work, because I did everything quickly, and the only access to the Internet was the BBC. I knew all the current events and got addicted to cooking shows. That was my only entertainment.

Then I met with a guy who was doing PHD in the field of neuropsychology, and I saw how he lives, how he studies.

I saw it all from the inside and thought: "Why don't I give it a try?" I started looking for scholarships and sent out my resume. Then I realized that just sending of applications doesn't work, that I need to do something else. So, I started sending emails to researchers who work in related industries, like: "Would you be interested if I did such-and-such research with you?"

Back then I was interested in the intersection of finance and management. And the answer came from London: "Yes, we would be interested." All that was left was to write a research proposal.

And then it turned out that I had a neoplasm that would need to be removed, an operation. At the hospital they said that it would be a serious intervention. I started looking into where they would be able to do this operation differently. I called my parents and ended up going to Israel to do it. My mother came to see me there. I had missed it, like, my family.

My niece was born and my sister said: "she doesn't see you at all; the eldest still remembers you, but the youngest won't know you at all." Or "Things are great here; dad cooked pilaf, and you're missing out." All of this was piled onto my state of mind.

Then I got accepted for the research; it was free training and a I got a scholarship: 20,000 pounds a year. There were also fantastic teachers and outstanding scientists there. For example, Daniel Kahneman, a Nobel laureate, came to us with a lecture. Scott Shane, for example, who seemed, I don't know, like he's not of this earth, but he came and taught a course for a month. That is, everyone in this field, academia, knows each other there. It doesn't matter who you are, a beginner or a Nobel laureate.

But at some point, I lost interest. I got disappointed in the system, because I understood how it all works from the inside. My classmates … we had a small course, about ten people. They got published in scientific journals and were constantly flying to conferences. In general, they had an understanding of where they were going. And I got in, and somehow everything was working out for me, but I didn't understand what I needed to do next. I mean, it was like I had to go to a company and they would give me a database. I had no idea what to do with this database.

I had the constant feeling that, damn it, I was running late for something or was already out of time, and that really, no one needs my scientific work. You publish works that no one but your colleagues will ever read ... and maybe one of the hundreds of thousands of works will have some kind of breakthrough and make real change.

This coincided with a general crisis that came from living abroad. Sure, I had some friends, some of them stayed in Exeter, some returned to their homeland, and new ones appeared, but they weren't friend friends, like my friends in Kazan.

In England, communication between people is very superficial. If you study together, you talk about your studies. If you live together, you talk about basic things, or like, where you can go for the weekend together, travel.

The girl from Russia that I moved to England to study with even stopped saying hello.

I didn't want to hang out with any of the locals in Exeter if they weren't from the university, because they were, I don't know ... they're all in white sneakers with tattoos, 18 or younger with kids, living on the dole. That's just Exeter, it's all tattooed.

When I had time off, I went to Russia for the New Year. Usually when I returned, I enjoyed Russia, but I always wanted to go back. This time, though, I arrived, felt great here, and had no desire to go back. I went to Nizhnekamsk, spent all that time with my family, and everything was really cool. Then my dad drove me to the airport in Kazan, and I cried.

That had never happened to be before:

I didn't like anything there, and I didn't know how to explain it. I decided to give myself time: a month. If I'm still crying in a month, fine, I'll pack my things and leave. And a month passed, and nothing changed, two months, nothing changed ... I took an academic leave, packed my things and left.

I went to Kazan. It was 2012. A second kind of cycle of depression began. At all my interviews in Kazan I was asked "Why didn't you stay in England? That's really your education? Why did you quit your PHD? " Questions like that.

Everyone saw me as a competitor: "Oh, you won't be interested in us, it's such a boring job." I realized that I wasn't needed here at all.

Four months later, I found a vacancy at the Investment Development Agency of Tatarstan. They were working on the Smart City project. They had recruited a new team, a young team, and we had a very progressive leader. It was comfortable to work there; my language and education were useful. In short, everything was great.

Then the project was frozen. Of course, it was so disappointing that you had spent so much of your time and energy on something that'll never come to fruition, at least in the form in which you wanted it.

Then I worked for the Prosto Moloko [Simply Milk] company as the head of management reporting. I liked it. I still love numbers, so it was fun for me. It's just that, at some point I really started thinking about nutrition, and I became a vegan. That is, there was a conflict with my ethical considerations and it depressed me a little.

At the same time, I probably wanted more freedom. I traveled a lot during this period: any vacation, any vacation at all, I went abroad.

In 2015, I made a skin cream just as an experiment, because I couldn't find what I needed in a store. It started when I came across an article about skin cancer, and how it seems like sunscreens should save you from it, but in fact statistics show that they may lead to even more cases of cancer. I started reading studies that claimed that the ingredients in these creams actually lead to skin cancer, and they are even more dangerous than the sun itself for your skin.

Metal oxides in cosmetology are very often crushed into nanoparticles that can penetrate the skin. In Europe, manufacturers have to label the composition of the cream, whether it's nano or not, but in Russia they don't have to. When metals penetrate the skin, they build up in the body and can cause cancer. Breast cancer, for example, in women often occurs precisely because of the aluminum salts that are used in deodorants.

At that time, I already had some followers on Instagram, I think around 10,000. I put it all up on Instagram: like, "I made a cream." Not with the idea of selling it, I was just very proud of it. I took it with me to India and I didn't get sunburned. I went with my parents and my little niece, and we all used this cream and all ended up with beautiful, even tans. And everyone commented to this Instagram post "Can I buy it?" I'm like, buy it?

And then I thought: if I can make sunscreen, I can do other things. My mother tells me to prepare a small batch and come to Nizhnekamsk. I arrived in Nizhnekamsk, and she took me to my relatives and friends. I was blushing, and she was like "Here, buy it; it's great cream."

Then the reviews came in: "Oh, this is so wonderful!" Moreover, there was a woman who even had La Mer cosmetics, but she still bought mine for a long time. She told me: "Ramilya, I've tried everything, but my skin has never experienced this." All this instilled great confidence. I continued working at Prosto Moloko, but all the money I earned was spent on certifying my cosmetics.

Then I left Prosto Moloko and focused only on my brand. I called it Amaia, which means is night rain in Japanese.

The hardest thing is when you can't separate your work life and your personal life. You can't just finish work, came home and turn off. It's both a challenge and an advantage. Everyone says "find a job you enjoy doing, and you will never have to work a day in your life." That's really true. Doing what you like to do is freedom.

I have clients who have been with me for five years, and they've learned to love themselves, accept their skin, and sometimes they write me, telling me how much it means to them. And that really uplifts and inspires me.

I also created fragrances for all the characters and locations of the Anna Karenina immersive show, then we did projects with Enter [an online magazine]: we released fragrances of Tatarstan: Muncha, Tatar chäe, Chäk-Chäk, Almetyevskaya neft', Sabantuy, Slezy ot razluki s Tatarstanom, and others.

Now I'm working with the governor of Tula oblast to create gifts based on the works of Pushkin, Tolstoy and other literature-related things. We're making fragrances.

We're also working with Natalia Fishman-Bekmambetova [advisor to the President of the Republic of Tatarstan] on New Year's gifts. The idea of corporate gifts is a very relevant one, especially fragrances, aromatic gifts. Fashion brands are showing great interest in Kazan. The Amaia project is gaining popularity, and not only in Tatarstan: thirty percent of our orders are sent all around Russia.

I have a close friend who lives in London; before that she lived in Germany, and she says that she's now thinking about buying an apartment in London, but you can't really buy an apartment there. That is, you rent it for a hundred years. You probably won't live more than a hundred years, but still: you buy an apartment for, I don't know, a million pounds and you won't be able to leave it to your children.

London is great when you're a tourist. When you live there … I don't know, you can probably make any city your own; it's just that, when I was there, I often felt very small and lonely in an enormous, beautiful, wonderful city. In Kazan ... well, for a while, after I returned, I felt very lonely, but then I made it my own again very quickly.