In an eternal struggle between braggery, modesty and self-confidence, when wishes and reality are put for the bargain, no magic can help. Try to voice it out and your head will spin. Since childhood my dreams and wishes have changed many times. As, probably, everyone’s else had. I wanted to be a painter, a theatrical producer (I remember it well: in elementary school my classmate’s father, a TV producer, helped us kids to put a fairy tale on stage, so I’ve asked him: "Is it difficult to be a producer?" His answer was: "It’s great"), a chemist, a construction worker, and even an Eastern Culture Specialist

I can be serious, melancholic, funny and smart, boring and bored. I am normal as everyone else is.

One of my hobbies is writing. Writing is about word and syntaxes, cadences and sonorities, smooth flow of the narration and smart choice of synonyms. Like the threads of different yarns, words should be stitched together to get a perfect design. Written or spoken, prose or poetry, tuned on a specific melody or harsh rhythm, those words have power to visualize the invisible; power to create. (Sounds rather poetic, doesn’t it? I know. I made it up. After all, I am a writer, am I not?)

My other hobby is graphic design. Lacking the skills and talents for brushes and watercolors, I, nevertheless, have a vision for image manipulation. Whether it’s a video or a still picture, I like to edit and to design. With the help of to-days technologies, when a machine does everything for you, you’ll say, even a kid can do that; just press the button. Ah, that’s not quite true. Kids do do some amazing things, but to create a piece of art more than a push of a button is needed.

Creativity is what gives me a great pleasure that endows good days and helps in sorrow; (Oops, here we go again…) a joy of being a kid playing with his toys or a scientist discovering the unknown; a joy of being able to sing, though I am a terrible singer myself. When personal computers made their first step into the Soviet market I got involved in computer programming club. I made several returns to the programming, only to realize that my real passions lie beyond simple coding and instructions. Luckily, there was a salvation in what’s now called Multimedia.

Multi what? Multi-mighty mechanism of human and machine interaction, visual aspects of motion and still, picture and sound, strict mathematical algorithm of computer coding and free fly of creative ideas. The beauty lies in the eye of beholder, they say. You can’t please everyone. But when the piece of art, a picture or a story, speaks to the inner desires and passions, then the artist excelled.

At the age of fourteen I wrote my first poem that was read from the stage, a tribute to the World War II veterans. But for the most part, my poems went straight into the draw of my desk. I continued to write and, in a great need for response, I started to pull one poem after another out. Finally, I was heard.

It was the springtime when every hope blossoms. A colleague approached me and offered her help. Thus, my first book of poems in Russian and English was published. "Whisper of the silence", that’s it. How many books were sold? Many more went to the friends. What mattered was I wasn’t afraid anymore. Soon after, life brought me another good chance. A newspaper reporter, whom I barely knew, asked me to substitute him on one of the events. Was he so confident in me or just didn’t have another choice, I don’t know. The event was a soiree, a friendly gathering at the local chapter of Literature and Poetry Club. The story about survival and about your place in this world was read aloud. By the time I’ve got home the article in my mind already was shaped. Later on, the editor congratulated me on fine work. I didn’t get a penny for this either, but the experience.

There are poems, short stories and essays in my portfolio now, a novel and some script writing for videos and web. English is my second, or better say, the third language, but as an ancient philosopher said "language is only about speaking, but mind is about feeling and understanding." Being a foreigner also means to have a different vision, different approach. And thanks to those differences we can prosper.

All those hobbies are hard jobs, though. What do I do in my spare time? I write, edit and design. I read, watch and listen. Go to the theaters, movies and exhibits. I travel and relax. I do that because I love it. And that’s all about me.