What do I like about Kazan? First, it has moñ [the Tatar word for harmony]. That should be emphasized.

And I feel at home here ... I feel like this is my place. I found ... Zen here. I never felt like this anywhere. There are Tatars here. A lot of them. You can live in the Tatar world here. Especially if your job is connected with something like Tatar literature, for example. Your environment, too ... you're surrounded by people striving for the same thing, towards Tatar culture. It's pretty great.

Do you create this environment yourself?

Oh, sure. I'm drawn toward it myself, if you look at it in a spiritual way. Materially, Kazan is the ideal size. Not too big, not too small. It's not so big that you can't ride a bike or scooter. I ride a skateboard. And not so small that you can't find anything you need. IKEA, stuff like that. It has everything a big city has.

It seems like the Tatar spirit soars here, a Holy Spirit. It's a Tatarlyk (Tatar world). All my life I lived in a Russian city, in a Russian environment, and I never felt at ease. I studied at a Russian school, and then at a Russian institute. I felt like a stranger. Like I wasn't from there ... It was like I was had nowhere to call my own.

As a child I lived in Nefteyugansk in the Khanty-Mansiysk Autonomous Okrug, in Siberia.

Nefteyugansk is a city that shouldn't be a city at all. Where it's located, there just shouldn't be a city there. It's called the West Siberian Lowland. Swamps everywhere. Bogs and swamps. At first they just planned on building a workers' settlement. Then they found oil there and shift workers had to move there. They would come, work, and go back. Something went terribly wrong and a city appeared. People started living there. But it's ... sad there. It's sad, and the climate is aweful ... Tons of mosquitoes ... frost! It is terribly cold in winter, –40°C. For a month, maybe more, two months, everyone sits at home in the winter. Kids don't go to school when it gets too cold. It's called a weather-related cancellation. They have a lot of them in Siberia.

We had the most ordinary Russian school. And it had some ... nationalism too. I mean, anyone who didn't look Russian, like Tatars, and others too, were a little ... bullied. I didn't know what to do, because there were a lot of them and very few of us. There were only two or three Tartars in my class. In wasn't great. I closed myself in, developed a kind of shell. Only here did I begin to really open up.

We found music in the bazaar (market). First cassettes, then CDs with Tatar music. The Tatar scene there was just awful. Haniya Farhi, Salavat Fatkhetdinov, Aydar Galimov, and others. I could tell just by the arrangements that it the bottom of the barrel, of course. But there was still something there ... moñ ... Anyway, when I listened ... I still enjoyed it a lot.

Where did it come from, out of nowhere, your craving for a home, so to speak?

You know where it comes from? It was connected with my childhood. As a child, we often visited a village in Tatarstan. The village of my abi, my grandmother. Two to three months out of the year. Then we went less often, only for half a month. But as a child, I was directly immersed in the Tatar atmosphere. Abi was there, my childhood ... We went out and ran through the village. And somehow this connection remained, between the Tatar language and my happiest, most intense feelings.

I have two stories about how I started painting. The official, more charming story is connected with horses. As a child, I loved horses, but, living in Nefteyugansk, I could watch them only in the village. You couldn't touch them. We didn't have a horse; they lived only on the collective farm. I went to look at them behind the fence, and I would watch them for hours. There was no way to ride them. Well, not often, anyways, I rode one or two times. So I started drawing them.

And I drew a lot. My parents bought a pack of Snezhinka brand paper, I think, office paper. I used it all up in a single day. I asked for more, and they bought me more. So, I drew horses a lot, I learned, and the quantity started turning into quality.

And the second story?

It's the unofficial one. As a child, I was sick a lot. I either sat at home or was in the hospital. And what else could I do with myself? I just drew out of longing.

They may change jobs/professions/fields ten, twenty times, because the education system is so odd. They should start teaching specialized skills earlier. Start from elementary school, maybe look at what the child is reaching for.

After school I entered the Academy of Architecture and Art in Novosibirsk. I just wanted to get away from my parents. Why didn't I move to Kazan then? I don't know. I should have. I guess that was what I had to go through.

Novosibirsk is a surprisingly large, super-industrial, gopnik [lower class, Russian equivalent of chav] city. It's yellow, concrete. Many factories and manufacturing works were moved there during the war. And prisoners were sent to work at these factories. Now they make up sixty percent of the population of Novosibirsk. Well, their children as well, but the mentality is about the same. It's changing too, of course, a lot is changing. There's also a scientific town there, Akademgorodok, near Novosibirsk. In Soviet times it was the scientific center of the country. That is, there's also a small group of intelligentsias, maybe ten percent. They change the face of the city as well. The world, of course, is changing, becoming more orderly; it's changing in a good way, I think.

I enjoyed studying, but I was such a fool. I didn't understand at all, like, where I was. I didn't get what I needed out of it. I got maybe twenty percent of it. I slept a lot, rested, walked around. I went to the movies. I didn't study much. We had great teachers there, though. If I were studying now, I would do it differently.

I went to all my classes, of course, but I didn't really try. I already had a groundwork from childhood: I could draw. And I didn't think about growth or diligence. I didn't look for something new. I got OK grades, B's or A's. But grades aren't that important. You need to get new knowledge.

After studying, I started a company with a friend. We did murals, interiors. Not only murals; we did whatever we knew how to do. Our specialty was monumental and decorative art. Images in architecture.

Sgraffito is colored cements. Cement and paint are mixed, and it becomes colored. It's smeared on the wall, then the second color is made, another layer is smeared, and you end up with this multilayered cake of different colors. Before they dry, you cut out the image you're creating ... For the head, for example, you cut off one layer. A different color plaster is visible under it. Then if you need a light part of the head and a dark part (the part in the shadow), you cut that off too, and there the lowest, darkest layer comes out. You end up with a colorful, relief image. It's my favorite technique. I'd like to work with it.

In general, I love monumental works, but I haven't done many. I haven't done it at all in Kazan. My dream is to do something like that.

Yeah, we started a company and put up designed murals, bas-reliefs, facades, using cement or plaster. We took orders, worked in apartments. We did the facade on an industrial building. But we didn't like any of our works. When you study, you're ... taught using examples of real art. The Soviet Union had a very strong school of monumental art.

The Soviet era, in general, began with great sentiments (ideas) and wonderful feelings. It was modern, new, living in a new way. We enacted equality before everyone else, for men and women. We were ahead of the rest. At first. There was such growth there, Malevich and Kandinsky ... They influenced abstract art in America. That was a time when people lived their dreams. Only then ... we regressed. In that period, the client was the government, so a strong school of work was required.

Now, our clients are ordinary people. And they're pretty, um ... uneducated; they have no taste. They usually want awful, ridiculous things. So we didn't like working with clients, and we gave it up.

And this is how I came to portraits. I just got hired to do one from friends. Someone needed a portrait. I said "I don't know, I don't do them." But I gave it a shot. After all, they had taught us; we had learned how to hold a pencil in our hands. So, I tried it. In my opinion, I don't think it was that great; it turned out badly. But the client liked it, and paid money. And then I thought: I should just work at home, I have a refrigerator nearby, sandwiches, coffee, a sofa there, a computer, I can watch YouTube. Why the hell should I climb on the wall somewhere making monuments? Making monumental art practically turns you into a construction worker. It's hard; you have to carry the cement. And here, you sit around at home in comfort, working.

So we started this business, making portraits (painting). Again, I started the business with a friend, threw up a business plan, a marketing plan, looked for customers, got everything ready. At first we had very few orders; we could hardly survive, you could say. But it was very interesting, we had a lot of enthusiasm.

We were drawing really simple portraits that anyone could do. I call them consumer portraits. Like consumer goods, tasteless, everyday things. Consumer portraits. I had forgotten that I had dreamed of becoming an artist as a child, and I forgot about growth too ... I worked and worked. Did I have enough money to live on? That was all I needed. I was living kind of a foolishly.

Then Putin took Crimea ... and the price of oil dropped; Russia was sanctioned. Our income was cut in half. People stopped ordering my consumer portraits. My clients just disappeared. It was like that everywhere. Pictures aren't one of life's first necessities. I thought, "So, what do I do now? I don't want to get a job." No. I had made a promise to myself never to work for someone else, never get a job like that. I had to come up with something else.

And I met a girl. She was a designer. I had also worked as a designer at one point, but she was a good designer. With her own style. She saw my drawings and said "This sucks. Your portraits suck. They're no different from anyone else's. You need to find your own style. Something new, something of your own."

So, I started looking at different styles from around the world, finding the ones that I liked. I collected stuff; assembled stuff; and, putting it together, it just turned out like that. I called it splashism. Splash art.

I work with acrylics. They dry quickly; they're the most modern paints. Oil dries slowly, and I need it to dry quickly: once I spray, as it dries, I do the second layer. I have these multilayered drawings, so the paint must dry quickly.

What are you looking for in creativity? And, in your opinion, is the emergence of something new in art possible?

What am I looking for? I want to improve my technique. Does Tatar have the word improve?

Kamilläshterergä

Kamilläshterergä, cool. I have ideas, things that I want to do. But I know that right now I don't have the skills for it. I have conceived some deeply cultural themes, but I haven't taken them on yet. I work a lot; I get a lot of orders for portraits. I earn money and work on my technique at the same time. When you work for yourself, you need to have a cushion of cash to fall back on. This kind of art doesn't particularly sell a lot. If you have a cushion, you can work without worrying later on.

It's hard with such art, of course, because it seems like everything has already been done. All styles have already been invented. Now art is starting to take a strange turn. Painting in general has died, you might say, and it's not clear where modern art is going. I can still watch a performance, like, mmm, interesting. But it's not like looking at Rembrandt, like, a-ha! ... it's just ... I can't look straight at it. You just melt, looking at like a Rembrandt or Velazquez ...

And looking at these ... well, they don't really grab you by your soul. You can understand with your mind. They're all so smart. After all, today's art ... it needs annotation ... you need, like, the Talmud to understand it.

Do you remember the moment you decided to move to Kazan?

I dreamed about it a lot. Once I was sitting with some colleagues (with friends, one might say) in a cafe. We were drinking something, maybe beer, and I said: "We have to leave; we have to leave." I mean, almost everyone felt like that: they needed to leave Nefteyugansk. I was working in Nefteyugansk then. And somebody brought up soft drugs, like ... cannabis. I said: "If my consciousness opens even a little, it'll become so clear that I SHOULD NOT BE HERE, that I need to leave. That's why I don't use it."

It was a small town; there was no room for growth. There was no audience.

And I thought and thought about it for a long time until I finally packed up in one day and left.

A long time ago I was passing through Kazan, before the Universiade had been held there [the XXVII Summer Universiade held in Kazan in 2013]. Kazan was still a nightmare then. At that time, I can't say that I liked it. My next visit, of course, I fell in love with it. That was in 2015.

In the end, I used my head in my decision to move there, after all. "For the sake of such a dream, I'll get a job," I told myself, and I started looking for a job online. In design. I found several places and wrote to them. They gave a trial job, which I completed. They were happy with it and invited me.

Hmm ... When I moved here for my job, I brought several paintings with me on the plane. I already had several ready-made pictures about Kazan. Tatar Girl. Have you seen Tatar Girl? It's my calling card. There was also Chalice, something else, I don't remember. Back in Nefteyugansk, I agreed to organize an exhibition here with someone. There's only one collective exhibition. I went to the exhibition straight from the plane, then to the company's small design office. There are a million offices like that here.

I spent two days with friends, found an apartment with a realtor, and drove back to Nefteyugansk. I loaded all my things into the car, a Zhiguli. I loaded everything, and took my easels and paintings into the car. My things were everywhere, and I was driving like that, surrounded by them. It was winter and I was going through the Ural Mountains. It was a very dangerous journey of course. It was pretty terrifying, ice, big trucks. The car broke down; it was the transmission. Second and third gear. I had to switch from first straight to fourth. It was a nightmare. How did I even get here?! I tried my best, because it was my dream. I was trying to change my life, find myself. I couldn't see myself living there.

When I arrived here, I needed the Tatar language ... I had to improve it. I couldn't speak it very well. Very badly. There was a shop next to work, and I started talking to the saleswoman there. I would go in and try to say "biregez … mina … anda närsäder" (give … me … something). Then I invited my brother to visit. He lived in Moscow. I told him, come to Kazan, it's the best city on earth. He moved here.

There we met a girl named Nadia, and that's how the club came about. We said "let's make a Tatar language club here," a conversation club. We called it Tatarcha Uyt. I made the logo. That's where it came from. People began showing up. One day Zuleika came in. We met and we've been together since.

Zuleika comes from a cultured family. Her Tatar is perfect. And she's pretty strict with me. In our family we speak only Tatar. We don't speak Russian. And our child only hears Tatar. Let his first language be Tatar, and then maybe Russian, English, or Spanish. Well, he's only two-months-old still, of course.

Now I have everything: family, creativity, and work.

Here, my life not only became full: it's completely overflowing. Filled with meaning, the meaning of life. I'm so happy, jeez.