Today, I embark on a brief odyssey of tales recounting my own voyage of self-discovery, which brought me face to face with the deeply ingrained trepidation of voicing my thoughts and feelings. This clandestine fear, I reckon, serves as a prime tool for the Russian government to manipulate and control its citizens. Many of those ensnared by this dread remain oblivious to its existence or the degree to which it pervades their lives. And so, it becomes my mission to lay bare my narrative and unveil the path that led me to this awakening.

I dropped into existence in 1987, just as the Soviet Union was on its last legs. My earliest memories? Loads of queuing for basic shit and my family's badass entrepreneurial drive.

Only a few years before I popped into this world, my old man was doing some pretty regular retail shit – which was hella illegal back then. He could've landed his ass in jail just for buying jeans, jackets and sweets from tourists in Moscow and then reselling the damn things. And get this – if his parents, those devout Soviet engineer types, ever found out he was hustling and making some side cash, they'd rat him out faster than you can say "perestroika." They'd be all like, "You're a freakin' disgrace to the family, man. Off to the slammer with you!" It's bonkers to think about now, but that's how shit was back in the day.

My first ever photograph lives in my memory: amidst the snow my mom is holding me like a burrito, donning a puffer jacket that my dad whipped up while she was busy givin' birth. That jacket was a symbol of their early hustle in the Soviet Union, where they were kickstarting fashion startups, back then called "cooperatives." Their thing was puffer jackets and jeans. My old man had this wicked trick for turnin' crappy jeans into slick threads – he'd boil 'em with dye to turn ordinary denim into some fresh-ass gear. That ballsy, inventive spirit is something I still look up to today.

So there I was, fresh into this mad world, and suddenly my family had to, you know, find a way to make their income stable. What does an entrepreneur do in such a situation? They scale, man. They search for ways to scale, they look for capital. But in the early nineties, the only source of capital was goddamn criminals. Banks? Yeah, they lent money, but they were mostly owned by those same thugs. So our family's story was pretty much this: borrow money from criminals to start a business, the business fails 'cause of the crazy volatile economy and everyone's lack of experience, and then the criminals start breathing down your neck. You end up on the run for a couple of years, hopping from one flat to another. But hey, that was just everyday life, nothing out of the ordinary, right?

Like, our first apartment, which my dad's engineer father was gonna leave for his son, had to be given up to some scumbags who were threatening the family over a debt related to scaling up that puffer jacket production. That's what business was like in post-Soviet Russia in the early nineties. And we went through a few cycles of this shit. The second go-round was my favorite, though, 'cause it brought this bloke German into our lives. It's a right odd coincidence, 'cause my dad's name is also German, and it's proper bloody rare.

And then this other German bloke shows up, a proper shadowy character. You know? He smirks, "Got a drill in my trunk." I ask, "Oh, you're into DIY?" He laughs, "Nah, mate, it's ace for kneecaps. Gets the dosh back dead quick, you know?"  So, I had this playdate with shadow-German's son, a little bugger, three years younger than me. I was around seven or eight, and he must've been four or five. He asks to play with my Tetris, my prized possession, right? At that time, my parents were flogging clothes. Mum would fly to China every month, grab a ton of garments, and hawk 'em at the market. She brought me back this mint Tetris toy with a bunch of games, like 10 games or something. It was bloody brilliant. I was chuffed to bits with it. And this kid, this little toe rag, comes over for a playdate, borrows the thing, and then just legs it with it, the cheeky git.  And I'm like, "Oi, mate."  And he goes, "It's mine now!" The little blighter is half my size, you know? You get the picture. And I'm just like, "Fine."

That's when I realized there are different paths in life. You can either do the entrepreneurial thing and build stuff, or you can be like  shadow-German and just nick things, saying "It's mine now!"

That was a proper early life lesson.

Today, I embark on a brief odyssey of tales recounting my own voyage of self-discovery, which brought me face to face with the deeply ingrained trepidation of voicing my thoughts and feelings. This clandestine fear, I reckon, serves as a prime tool for the Russian government to manipulate and control its citizens. Many of those ensnared by this dread remain oblivious to its existence or the degree to which it pervades their lives. And so, it becomes my mission to lay bare my narrative and unveil the path that led me to this awakening.

I dropped into existence in 1987, just as the Soviet Union was on its last legs. My earliest memories? Loads of queuing for basic shit and my family's badass entrepreneurial drive.

Only a few years before I popped into this world, my old man was doing some pretty regular retail shit – which was hella illegal back then. He could've landed his ass in jail just for buying jeans, jackets and sweets from tourists in Moscow and then reselling the damn things. And get this – if his parents, those devout Soviet engineer types, ever found out he was hustling and making some side cash, they'd rat him out faster than you can say "perestroika." They'd be all like, "You're a freakin' disgrace to the family, man. Off to the slammer with you!" It's bonkers to think about now, but that's how shit was back in the day.

My first ever photograph lives in my memory: amidst the snow my mom is holding me like a burrito, donning a puffer jacket that my dad whipped up while she was busy givin' birth. That jacket was a symbol of their early hustle in the Soviet Union, where they were kickstarting fashion startups, back then called "cooperatives." Their thing was puffer jackets and jeans. My old man had this wicked trick for turnin' crappy jeans into slick threads – he'd boil 'em with dye to turn ordinary denim into some fresh-ass gear. That ballsy, inventive spirit is something I still look up to today.

So there I was, fresh into this mad world, and suddenly my family had to, you know, find a way to make their income stable. What does an entrepreneur do in such a situation? They scale, man. They search for ways to scale, they look for capital. But in the early nineties, the only source of capital was goddamn criminals. Banks? Yeah, they lent money, but they were mostly owned by those same thugs. So our family's story was pretty much this: borrow money from criminals to start a business, the business fails 'cause of the crazy volatile economy and everyone's lack of experience, and then the criminals start breathing down your neck. You end up on the run for a couple of years, hopping from one flat to another. But hey, that was just everyday life, nothing out of the ordinary, right?

Like, our first apartment, which my dad's engineer father was gonna leave for his son, had to be given up to some scumbags who were threatening the family over a debt related to scaling up that puffer jacket production. That's what business was like in post-Soviet Russia in the early nineties. And we went through a few cycles of this shit. The second go-round was my favorite, though, 'cause it brought this bloke German into our lives. It's a right odd coincidence, 'cause my dad's name is also German, and it's proper bloody rare.

And then this other German bloke shows up, a proper shadowy character. You know? He smirks, "Got a drill in my trunk." I ask, "Oh, you're into DIY?" He laughs, "Nah, mate, it's ace for kneecaps. Gets the dosh back dead quick, you know?"  So, I had this playdate with shadow-German's son, a little bugger, three years younger than me. I was around seven or eight, and he must've been four or five. He asks to play with my Tetris, my prized possession, right? At that time, my parents were flogging clothes. Mum would fly to China every month, grab a ton of garments, and hawk 'em at the market. She brought me back this mint Tetris toy with a bunch of games, like 10 games or something. It was bloody brilliant. I was chuffed to bits with it. And this kid, this little toe rag, comes over for a playdate, borrows the thing, and then just legs it with it, the cheeky git.  And I'm like, "Oi, mate."  And he goes, "It's mine now!" The little blighter is half my size, you know? You get the picture. And I'm just like, "Fine."

That's when I realized there are different paths in life. You can either do the entrepreneurial thing and build stuff, or you can be like  shadow-German and just nick things, saying "It's mine now!"

That was a proper early life lesson.