A young man tries to drown his sorrow. His world's violence, injustice and imperfection are too much for him. He drinks every day and does Charlie to drink more. Every week he does Mandy to feel something besides his eternal grief and Lucy to maintain some form of sanity. He has not felt any natural joy in years. Every time he wakes up soaking wet from his withdrawal nightmare, a letter awaits in his inbox. A girl from the other side of the world opens every letter to him with "Dear Enemy." She then explains the emotions he is going through in words he couldn't find himself. He reads them in disbelief. Memories of his first big love come back. His psychedelic trips when he was aware of what was to be said before it was pronounced. After years of this communication, he invites the girl over. She flies across the world and is horrified to find an addict deep in the pit of consumption. She is terrified of addicts. A month together feels like a lifetime of horror. She runs away to the edge of the world and writes a very graphic book about her enemy. Their link still lingers. A young man now knows he is not the only one with the skill.

A recovering man decides to train as an actor to learn more about himself and how to express emotions. As his training gets deeper, he struggles to feel the deep desire. He thinks he is over this life and had so much to experience that nothing can make him want it for real. One day, his master shows him that the desire burns white hot within, but it's cloaked by fear. A man dares to look inside his fear and instantly gets lost. In front of an audience of his fellow actors, he is facing a monster that he dared not disturb, and he is losing his shit. His master calmly and steadily guides him through the maze of his mind as if he sees everything man sees, even the visions he refuses to see. Upon recovery, a man realises the skill can be tamed; he has experienced what good it could do when under the complete control of a master.

A grown man awakens in a surprisingly cheerful mood. It's been a while since he felt this way. Life had not been easy lately, and most sources of joy were long gone, including his libido. Suddenly, he finds himself not only happy but also aroused and wanting. In disbelief, he tries to remember his dreams, yet no answers come from them. A few moments later, his phone vibrates, a credit card charge from across the world. A woman he once loved sends a selfie in her new dress - his birthday present to her. Ah, the excitement antenna knows no distance. He sensed her emotion grow as she selected the gift from him, and his body responded. It has been six months since they broke up, but he knows that this connection will last much longer, annoying as it is.

These connections open up every time we are brutally honest with one another. Some stay open long enough to leave an embassy within your partner. That embassy stays open no matter what, whether you like it or not. As one gets more open to the world, his emotions intertwine with whole groups of people. One starts to feel the lingering communal pain all the time. There is no escape from it. Counterintuitively, the way towards inner peace is through relinquishing control. Only when one is brave enough to take all the pain, sorrow, joy of one's past loves, and sadness of the world can a path to serenity open up.

I hope it does.

At 1:30am, I wake up to an alarm clock. I have a mild migraine, which feels natural at this point. Slowly, I get myself together and climb out of the sleeping bag. Our tent is leaking, and there’s frozen condensation all around. Shivering, I put on my pants, jacket, and camp shoes and climb out of the tent. It's pitch black. The only light I see is from the stars above and a few dozen flashlights around the camp. People are getting ready for the final push. I make my way to our kitchen tent. Everyone is there: smiley Jay, nervous Ant and a calm Tina. We all have some porridge, except for Ant. All he’s eaten since yesterday morning are some Snickers bars. We try to convince him to have breakfast, but he is beyond convincing. Our guide, Taz, fails to get up. He is feeling sick and stays in the high camp. It poses a threat, as now we can only stay in two units until the summit, and if one of us has to go down, we will have only one sherpa left.

I have two competing internal narratives. Part of me wants to summit. The other part remembers all the pain of yesterday and is telling me to quit. For a moment, I sit down and meditate on both desires. On one hand, I need to carry on with the challenge. It has changed since I started on this trek. If you'd asked me in the first days if I wanted to reach the peak at all costs, I'd say no. I’d say I would stop whenever I felt it was time. It would be a lie, though. Deep down inside, I was driven by the same need to achieve as most people who come here and nearly everyone who dies here. 

As with everything significant in life, the line between healthy and destructive motivations is razor-sharp, and the difference is tiny yet crucial. At the beginning of this trek, behind my poker face was a little boy trying to impress his father. Not my actual father, who loves me unconditionally, but an image of my father from childhood. The one who always told me that the only goals worth aiming for should make me a billion dollars. Anything less is just not worth considering. That persona died sometime in the aftermath of his assassination attempt, but it lived rent-free in the back of my mind. I realise it has lost its power since yesterday. 

My daily city life has no real challenges in it. Sure, there are tons of small daily tasks and work things I call "battles", but it doesn't compare to walking another four hours in horrible conditions with no option to quit or turn back. And yeah, sure, I’ve had enough extraordinary troubles in my life, but only in these mountains did I feel alone against the world. Coming through such hurdles when everything is on the line makes you feel powerful. And the pain that you experience on the way is just a cost of doing business. It's necessary and worthwhile enduring for the reward of that feeling of calm power. My only motivation now is a healthy desire to test my limits. I have rested enough since yesterday to replenish some strength and can go further. 

On the other hand, there's fear. Fear of not making it, fear of letting the team down, especially now that Taz is out of the picture. There was also fear of being able to turn back, yet I find that it's gone, too. Who cares if I don't make it? As long as there's a spare sherpa, I can always turn around. And it needn't be at the expense of the team's safety. I can make that decision when it arises. The most potent fear that remains is the fear of another pang of altitude sickness. I snap out of my meditation, still uncertain what to do.

Ant is preparing for an injection of dexamethasone. There are only two left. Jay says he doesn't want his injection so I can have it. Tina talks me into it, and I reluctantly agree. Ten minutes later, I feel the migraine release its hold on me and an influx of energy. That decides it. I am going up. Slowly, we pack up, check all the equipment, and put our climbing shoes on. Our legs are puffy, so fitting them into the boots requires much effort. 

Around 2:30am, we walk out into the night toward the summit. We go slow, in two groups. Jay and Ant are walking with Tenzen, while Tina and I are walking behind them with Noi. We keep a similar pace, and it's just step after step in the darkness for the first couple of hours. I don’t know if it's truly the best part of our trek or if I am high on dexamethasone. With nothing to look at, I enter a state of blissful meditation, only focusing on my breath, the next step, and the ground directly in front of me.

We reached 5,991 metres altitude in about two hours when Jay decides he'd had enough. His hands have been freezing since yesterday despite wearing two sets of warm gloves and chemical hand warmers. He hasn't felt his fingers for some time and thinks it's time to turn back. It's not worth risking losing fingers over some silly mountain. We try to convince him to push for a few metres to cross the 6km mark, yet he is unmoved. We laugh that we will count it as 6km anyway. In a few months, Jay will learn that his poles were too tall, preventing blood flow to his hands and causing trouble over time. Presently, I feel a slight pang of guilt for taking his dexamethasone. He takes Sherpa Tenzen and begins his descent.

We tie Ant into our trio and start over. Instantly, we feel his anxious energy in our well-oiled machine. He is horrified with us not having start and stop callouts. He starts teaching our sherpa and us to call our movement and sync our steps, which doesn't work. We feel like a circular firing squad for the next two hours, but slowly we progress. I can feel Ant's annoyance rising despite him repeating that it's cool and we can all saunter. The sun starts growing, and we find ourselves in a dreamy space, above all clouds, in a barren, snowy landscape. Ahead of us is a shoulder of the mountain, after which we should see the summit. We push and push and finally find ourselves on that saddle. The altimeter shows 6200 metres. We are 250 metres away from the summit, but those 250 metres will take us another two hours. It is also the last safe place to turn back. There is a group going down, and I can join them. If one of us needs to turn around later, we will all have to go down together.

I look back at the valley. Our sherpa shows us Everest, Cho Oyu, and a few other 8km peaks visible from there. I am tired and happy. Suddenly, I realise I've climbed enough. I do not need to prove anything and have unlocked something internally. Part of my ego responsible for achieving died yesterday. It will probably return soon, but today, it is dead, and I feel no need to finish this task. I don't have to tick this box. I am enough already, and there is nothing left to prove. I've never felt that way before, and it is liberating. I find an unshakeable decision to turn back. I tell the guys this, and Tina tries to convince me to continue. I tell her I can make it, but my main lesson is to stop here. I made a commitment to myself before this trip that if I ever feel that it's time to stop, I would stop.

Throughout the ups and downs of this hike, from all the trouble of the first days, I never had this clear understanding, so I powered through pain and doubts. Ant backs me up, saying that I should stop here if I am unsure if I can make it back down. "Most people die on the way down", he says. A small part of me wants to slap him for his condescending tone, but I observe that reaction with a smile and tell him that he is right. We chill a bit more, have some laughs, and finally, I untie myself and say my goodbyes. Tina, Ant and Noi power through upwards, and I walk down to the high camp.

The sun is violent at this altitude. I cover my face, and joy fills me every step of the way. I've left something I needed to let go of for a very long time on this trip, and with every step, I am becoming lighter and lighter. I make a quick stop at the high camp, have some breakfast soup, and chat with a tough girl from Argentina who has already summited and returned, while we only made it to 6200m. She is smoking a cigarette, and I wonder what internal troubles drive her to do this solo. I ask if she wants food, but she is packing her stuff and wants lunch in Khare. She plans to descend further down today to 4km. It sounds wild on the summit day, given that she was on the same schedule as me. She is trying to cover the distance that took us ten days in just three so that she can make her flight to Buenos Aires. There is no time to chill and soak in her experience, just a quick smoke and back to whatever she is living through, which makes such adventures relaxing.

If we meet again, I can ask, but we won't, perhaps in a different life. I would love to find out what makes her tick. What drives such a focused human machine? I wave her goodbye and carry on down. For the next two hours, I cross a majestic snow field, dream about skiing here one day and watch the peaks of Everest and Cho Oyu. About halfway down, I hear over the radio that Tina and Ant have summited. I am happy for them and feel just a tiny pang of FOMO. In two hours, I am back in Khare at 5000 metres altitude, back in civilisation. It feels easy to be at that altitude. I embrace Jay and Vivi, and we have an indulgent lunch. Meat is not easily digested at altitudes above 3.5km. "Dal Bhat power 24 hour" is what constitutes the local diet, which is an all-you-can-eat dish of dahl, rice and some boiled or pickled veggies. My only source of animal protein for the last week or so were eggs and chicken soup. Most lodges have Western staples, such as pasta, pizza or even Yak steak, but mostly, you are much better off sticking to simple things. But today, to celebrate, we go all out on every fancy name on the menu.

I thank Jay for our Lila game the other day and for turning around when he felt like it. I told him how it impacted me and allowed me to turn back when I felt like it and sense growth. He is happy for me but also makes me notice that a second factor is at play here. All my life, I have been taught to be careful, to play carefully. And today was important in overcoming the internal egoist that needs to prove himself. Still, for full power to be unlocked, I must also overcome that voice of careful consideration within. I sense that he is right; that is the way to power I felt up there. I also know that it is a fight for a different day, and I can be happy with what I have done today.

The day passes, and there is no sign of Tina and Ant. We call them on the radio, and it turns out Ant is suffering with severe altitude sickness, and they are carrying him down. Tina and tiny Noi are carrying this bear of a man down. We send all the porters to meet them at the low camp. A few hours later, they come back. Ant is green in colour, his face swollen, and he cannot speak. We lie him down and look for dexamethasone around the camp. We find some pills, and give them to him. He looks like he is about to die. We are considering a helivac, but it's too late for it to fly today, and we have our helicopter booked for tomorrow morning. We pump him up with fluids and Ibuprofen and take shifts watching over him. 

Tina tells us that he lost his shit a mere hundred metres after their summit. He started eating snow and talking nonsense and almost walked into a crevice. She had to carry him all day on her shoulder back to safety. Most of the time, he was entirely out of it. Sometimes, he would snap back to lucidity and try to do something borderline suicidal. Sherpa Noi was so distressed he almost stopped their descent twice to call for a yak. Tina knew that a yak would take twice as long and that it might mean real damage for Ant, besides the cost of it and decided to carry him herself. It worked out, but it took her almost eight hours. I remember Ant's final words, "If you are not sure you can make it down after the summit, better turn around now." Instant karma for his cockiness. And I feel even more proud of my decision to turn around. Sure, I could have helped Tina carry him down, or I could be lost alongside Ant in his fairy world, and in that case, we'd need to be evacuated from there. Tina couldn't have handled us both alone. We spend the rest of the night making plans for a spa and massage in Kathmandu.

The next day, I wake up to the sound of a helicopter landing. I freak out that I overslept and rush outside to find that it's a different group leaving. Hastily, I brush my teeth, pack my stuff and make it to the dining hall. Ant is there, puffy, green and still unable to talk. Our helicopter never arrives, and the weather worsens quickly. We spend the whole day playing cards, arguing with the heli company, and eating the food we have grown to detest over the last few days. Finally, we decide to bunk up in the dining hall because we are tired of lodges and expecting to be out of there by now. I lay in my sleeping bag and laugh to myself, how our expectations of luxury kicked in before we’ve even left, only because we decided to go down by helicopter and in our minds, we should already be experiencing that luxury.

The ego trip never ceases, but hell, is there anything more interesting to watch?

Thank you for reading.

The demons possessing me demand I tell this story. I am but an obedient servant that hopes to escape their prison one day. Every comment you make here makes my daily punishment lighter, so please - be generous.

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Remember.

No good deed stays unpunished.

I leave the lodge and take in the vista at 5000 metres above sea level. It looks like I am on a different planet. Half-satisfied with the universe's answer I walk to the dining hall. The team is already there, including Vivian, who is not joining us in an attempt to summit. I muse for a moment about staying here with her. It's my first attempt at high-altitude trekking, and the ten days we spent hiking here from Lukla at 2700m is plenty more than most first-timers can boast. Most people’s first mountaineering attempts finish even below our initial starting point. I look at my team attentively, trying to gauge how they feel.

Anton looks pretty agitated. He is repeatedly re-checking all the equipment and being noisy about me being late, breakfast being late, and sherpas being late. It looks like a mild meltdown, and I smile at him. "It's gonna be fine, Ant, relax." He stares at me blankly for a second and returns to his OCD routine. 

Jay is in a playful mood. "Could be sipping margaritas in Dubai now, huh?" he says. "What's wrong with us that we call this a vacation?" "Curiosity is a bitch, Master Jay" I respond. He shrugs with a smile. He is the oldest of us and the core of this expedition. A brilliant guy who used to be a businessman and government official in Russia. Made a fortune. He quit to open a yoga studio, lead nagapasa games (the world knows them as Lila) and write a PhD on the history of religion. Yesterday, he led a game for us here at 5000m, and we finished in an hour with all five of us playing. I understood what I must do this year and where to do it, from playing that game.

Tina finally looks alright after the last few days of struggling with the flu. "Good morning. You look much better. Are you climbing with us?" I ask her. "Wouldn't miss it even if I was sick. Remember, I brought the group to Everest base camp while having COVID," she laughs.

We recheck all the equipment, load up on breakfast, and pack a bunch of energy gels and water for the climb. We spend a while putting the climbing shoes on correctly. The pair I bought is not suitable for this climb. Too light. Sherpas scramble to find a pair to rent for me. They bring a beat-up pair, ranked for 8km. They are twice as heavy as the ones I bought and feel loose on my feet. Oh well, that always happens when you purchase equipment but have no idea what you’re doing. We exit the lodge and meet with our guide, Taz, and the two high mountain sherpas who will guide our ascent today. They help us get into the harnesses and attach snowcats and rope to our rucksacks in a way that won't hurt us on the first leg of our hike. Around 8am we get onto the trek and start towards the first camp at 5200m.

The weather is fantastic. After a couple of days of gloom, the sky is finally clear of clouds, and the sun is shining bright. It will change sometime in the afternoon, and we must move quickly to avoid getting stuck. We split into two groups. Anton, Jay, Taz, and Sherpa Tenzen are going first, and Tina, Sherpa Noi and I are behind. There are a few others that start today, too. Everyone has been waiting for this break in the weather. My mood is very upbeat. I feel strong and excited about what's ahead.

I remember how this trek began almost two weeks ago. We met in Kathmandu and spent a few days buying and renting the missing equipment, packing and having fun. At the end of the second day, around 2 am, we loaded onto a bus and started our journey towards the remote airport with flights to Lukla. I hoped to catch some sleep on that road, but by some ridiculous serendipity, at the same time, my friend arrived to pick up my old Citroen from the people who were supposed to sell it in LA. They asked me to collect it a month ago, and my mate only got around to it then, and they were extorting $5000 USD. I spent half of the trip angrily texting with them and got the car out, paying $2000. I was furious. The shitbox is worth no more than 10k, and these guys were supposed to sell it. Not only did they fail at that, but they have also charged me a fifth of the car price for three weeks of parking — for the rest of the trip I daydreamed about burning their shop in LA down. I knew I wasn’t going to do it, but damn, did I want to.

The first rays of sunshine appear as we come into the next valley, and I see that the mountain ahead is covered with shiny objects. As we work our way up to it, I realise that there are thousands of mirrors attached to it. 

"What are these?" I ask our driver.

"One for each person who died here."

"On this road?"

"Yes, and in this region generally. People come and place them to remember."

I look at the most playful wall of death I've ever seen and experience a powerful cognitive dissonance. There's incredible beauty in this impromptu decentralised monument. However, it reminds me of all the wealthy and successful guys who came here to prove something to themselves and the world, never to return. Suddenly, the Citroen drama seems laughably tiny. I smile for the first time in a few hours at an internal voice that decides not to burn anything down in LA this time.

We arrived at the airport around 8am. We only covered 160km in the six hours of the night, and I still feel sick. The road was so windy I hadn't slept a minute. It was practically impossible. The flight is scary. Small prop planes take off from a short runway, fly under the clouds between the mountains and land on a tiny angled strip in Lukla. We haven't started the trek and I am already on edge.

My most extensive trek before this was in Bali a few weeks ago. We climbed Mount Agung in the rain and with no equipment. It was hellishly cold, dangerous and intense. We went up 1500m and down, all in one night. By the end of it, I could barely walk, as my old leg injury was inflamed. Luckily, that was on the descent, so I had nothing to worry about in my Himalayan trek until the final day. That short climb humbled me. It reminded me to respect the mountain and be well-equipped for it.

According to our itinerary, the day was supposed to be easy, with only a few hours' hike after our landing in Lukla. If only I knew what a big lie that was. Our tour plan had a slow elevation over the first week from 2700m to 3200m, allowing our bodies to acclimate to a low-oxygen environment. I imagined broad valleys surrounding our easy, flat track for a week. An Eden of sorts with smoothie stops along the way, surrounded by snow tops and an easy uphill now and then.

You can imagine my surprise when we started descending and lost almost 600m of altitude in the first couple of hours before starting to climb back up. When we finally got to our lodge after a seven-hour hike, I could barely walk. My leg was hurting so bad, and all I could think was: "There is no way I am going to make the rest of the trail if this is what they consider an easy hike." I was in despair. I made a promise to myself not to be too cocky before the trip. It was an expensive holiday, yet I needed to ensure I would be prepared to stop whenever I felt considerable risk ahead. I promised that even if I had to stop and turn back very early, I would. I couldn't imagine giving up on the first day. Why do I even get on such a trip? What am I trying to prove? I guess I need to know for sure, that I am not a pussy. All previous tests were not enough. Another one is in order.

Vivi pulled out the yoga mats after we entered the lodge and convinced me to get on one. We stretched for 45 minutes on a dirty floor next to the old, grimy metal fireplace, and at the end of it, I felt human again. We sat down for some breathwork, and I slowed down enough to relax. My leg was hurting; I could barely stand on it, but by some miracle, it turned out Ant was a shiatsu specialist. He laid me down and worked on me for a while before reaching a diagnosis: "Your right fibula is out of place, and it's pulling on your knee ligaments. That's why you can't stretch out the painful sensations. It's not your muscles. It's a misaligned bone. Let me put it back." And with a few gentle moves, it got fixed. As we sat down for dinner, I decided to eat a lot during the following days, so that with every bite of food, I would grow stronger. I made a firm intention and kept reminding myself about it every time I ate.

Ten days later, on the way to Mera's base camp, I feel a spring in my step and not a worry in my mind. My body feels good despite being at more than 5km altitude and wearing at least 10kg of equipment. About an hour into it, we ran into the first group. They are undressing, and I hear a commotion.

"I haven’t seen my gloves packed. How can I be sure they didn’t forget them?" Ant is demanding from our guide.

"The porters took everything you left for them, sir, do not worry."

"Don’t tell me not to worry! How can I be sure without seeing them?"

"But, sir, the guides have already packed and tied the bags. It will take a lot of time to untie them."

"I don't care. I must see that my warm gloves and the warm stuff for the night are there."

"But, sir, the porters are already ahead of us."

"This is all very unprofessional. I don't care how, but I must see my equipment!"

"Ok, sir, I will try to organise it."

I decide not to intervene. Ant is clearly freaking out. It's the fear. I do not expect to make it to that summit, so all I feel is excitement. After all, excitement is fear, with the negative expectations removed. I like Ant despite his borderline autism. In part because he has managed to fix my leg over the last two weeks, working every evening on my whole body and sometimes fixing me in the middle of the trail. In part, because he managed to get me through that horrible pang of altitude sickness I had when I overdid the acclimatisation hike a few days ago. However, I mainly grew to like him because of his childlike openness. When we started this hike, he was a stuck-up guy, talking in cliches of Russian war propaganda about brotherhood between Ukraine and Russia, proxy war with the US and fakeness of Bucha. I feared my dear friend Tina was going to shred him to pieces. She runs a big volunteer organisation helping victims of war in her hometown, Chernihiv. Instead, she held back and started talking. So did I. We started explaining certain things to him, and he listened. He listened and gradually began changing his mind about the war. He started seeing the other side, slowly undoing the unconscious decisions he made while living under the influence of Russian media. So despite being an asshole today, he gets a pass. 

On our next break, I take out my Zoom recorder. Tina starts to sing Ukrainian folk songs. It feels surreal. We are almost at base camp. There is no living soul in sight except for a few climbers like us, and her voice is rolling around the snowcaps of Nepal. I drink my hot water and smile. It is unbelievably beautiful around me. I feel fresh and vital despite the altitude. My mantra, yoga, and shiatsu miraculously worked, and over the last two weeks, my body has adapted to this life. My leg has healed completely, and little changes in thinking have resulted in significant shifts in the physical realm.

Our next break is at the base camp. We eat some energy gels and a Snickers. We put on our snowcats and tied ourselves together with a rope. As we start the climb, I notice the extra weight on my feet. I've found my piece with the heavy, uncomfortable shoes in the last few hours, but now, with snowcats, they get cumbersome. My hip flexors feel each step. Each step takes effort. There are 600 metres of altitude to gain before the next camp. My confidence becomes shaky, but I decide to power through. We are now tied together, me, Tina and our Sherpa, Noi, so we need to walk in sync. Quickly, we fall into a groove of taking 40 steps and taking a break for a minute. We don't really discuss any of it. It just happens. We don't need to signal stop and start either. It is clear without words when we start and when we stop. 

The contrast with the second group can not be more obvious. We hear Ant bicker with their Sherpa, Tenzen, repeatedly for not calling out the movement. I can't help but laugh about it with Tina. It makes our ascent slightly less stressful, knowing that we have a chill corner at a pace that works for us, even if it means we are slow. Hours pass in our methodical ascent, and the weather worsens. The clouds are coming in, and before we know it, we are inside them. It gets dark and cold momentarily. I barely have time to put on the warm jacket and gloves before the temperature drop seizes all my joints. Suddenly, I realise how tired I am. My legs are barely moving. We are down to making about ten steps before every break. There is still about 200 metres of altitude to gain, and I have no energy left. We load up on Snickers bars, warm water and energy gels, but they stop working. My body demands rest, but no rest is possible inside the clouds. So we power through. Suddenly, it all becomes too much. I can feel a familiar lump in my throat starting to form.

For more than a decade now, ever since I was 20 or so, I have had trouble crying. My life has given me more complicated and demanding challenges repeatedly, and every time, I doubled up on my commitment to stomach it and move on with a smile. I carried so much suppressed anger and sadness that when I started my healing journey in my late 20s, it was like a fountain of oil bursting out from the ground. Even so, I couldn't cry. I felt the emotions come up to my throat and get stuck there for years. I've done countless Vipassana retreats, and I could not cry. I've done years of psychotherapy, and I could not cry. Finally, after a few years of serious acting training, I could allow the tears to come, but I could never fully release into an all-encompassing wailing.

At an altitude of about 5600 metres, the lump in my throat bursts through, and I find myself crying. With every step, I cry harder and harder. I am brimming with joy, and tears run down my cheeks. I am not crying because I'm tired, scared, and uncertain of my ability to get to the high camp. I am crying tears of pure joy, overwhelmed by the beauty around me. I am shaking as I feel the clouds wrap around me, and I finally acknowledge the enormous energy of the mountains surrounding me. I've been feeling this energy up here, but ultimately, it overwhelms my self-importance, and I can no longer ignore it. And I feel so very small compared to the mountains, yet so very powerful. I feel like an equal to these mountains around me, however little sense that makes. I sense that I am still preparing for my main challenge in life and every step I took along the way counts. It overwhelms me with joy.

My heart is bursting with love, and I am audibly weeping. Tina checks to see if I’m alright, and I smile at her with such radiance that she has no further questions. I use the next hour of our methodical powering through to release every tear I held for years. I am shuddering at times and shaking. Flashbacks come to me. Masha's sudden death. Feeling completely lost after my escape from Russia. My father in a coma. Years of waiting on refugee status. Deepest drug wells I found myself in. The broken hearts I left behind, breaking mine every time. Missiles waking me up in Kyiv. All those flashbacks before my eyes are dissolved in the endless stream of love radiating from my heart, melting away with tears. I feel like a part of me is dying. And with every recollection, my sense of inner strength grows. By the time I am through, we are about 30 minutes away from the high camp.

Suddenly, I realise I am spent. We can't stop here, though, so I power through. My migraine comes in swiftly, almost knocking me down. I power through migraine, one step at a time The next half an hour feels like an eternity. Finally, we stumble into the high camp. We make our way to the shared tent. Sherpas are cooking chicken soup using diesel fuel for burners. It smells horrible inside, and I start to retch. There is nothing to throw up, so I just get out and lie down on the snow. There is commotion around. Ant is very unhappy with Tina. Jay feels sick; somehow, Ant feels it's Tina's fault. His argument makes no sense to me. All I hear is that there's no dexamethasone injection left to spare. I lie there for a while. Tina comes out and offers me soup, but I can not eat. I take two pills of Ibuprofen and climb into our tent. It's around 5pm, meaning we walked for 9 hours straight. We have until 2am to rest before starting our final summit push. I am not going anywhere. I am fighting to survive. Ibuprofen on my empty stomach intensifies my sickness. I want to throw up badly, but there is nothing to throw up.

Tina comes into the tent and tries to talk me into having some soup. I just lie there half-dead and ask her to give me time. The altitude sickness is in full swing. I am barely conscious, held on only by my headache and my nausea. My whole body hurts. I am hallucinating mildly like I am coming down from a bad acid trip. After an hour or so of suffering, I make an effort to take off the shoes, change into down pants and a down jacket and climb into my sleeping bag. I try to pass out but keep on waking up for fear of drowning in my vomit. All this time, Tina is chatting with me, laughing and trying to get me through this hurdle. She talks about returning to Khutor when the war ends, building our community afresh, living a simple and happy life, and sharing the light we all create. “I am not going higher tomorrow.” She laughs, “We don't need to make that call now.”

Tina tries to get me out of the tent to watch the sunset, which is apparently out of this world. I cannot move. She climbs into Ant and Jay's tent. They both had an injection earlier, so they feel better. She gets them out of their tent and into the sunset. Ant's stress melts away, and finally, he looks in on me. Seeing my green colour, his medical reflexes kick in. Tina says she won’t need an injection tomorrow so that I can have one now. He gives me the needle.

Ten minutes later, Tina climbs in showing me photos of the sunset. It's magnificent. She convinces me to have some chicken soup. I force myself to eat it, and almost instantly, I start feeling better. I know I am not going to die today, and it feels good. Why the hell am I doing this? Most people are driven by ego, but mine seems to have died earlier today. Is this beauty worth the suffering? Or do I need this challenge to feel alive? I certainly feel more alive today than I've felt since the war broke out. Eventually my attention drifts and I pass out.

To be continued...

Thank you for reading.

The demons possessing me demand I tell this story. I am but an obedient servant that hopes to escape their prison one day, hence why I am writing this book. Every comment you make makes my daily punishment lighter, so please - be generous.

If you choose to subscribe, I get a day off from torture and you get these posts delivered straight to your inbox.

Remember.

No good deed stays unpunished.

Here's me discovering that the $3000 I allocated to open bar orders ran out in 40 minutes. That is extra to all the prepaid champagne, wines and most popular cocktails that should have lasted the whole night for those who wanted something peculiar. Bamboozled, I talked to the manager, who showed me that somebody ordered a few rounds of the most expensive whisky. I walk into the poker room and see two guys I barely tolerate. They are arguing about whether I instructed the waiter to lie to them while serving the basic cheap whisky. They are finishing their fifth $600 round, and they can't tell. I am enraged at myself for inviting them and ashamed of their pettiness. I channel this anger to let them know how cheap they must be, not to be able to tell the difference between the malts. I finish my speech with "fucking amateurs" and instruct the manager to extend the open bar for another 3k and only serve these two the cheapest whisky they have no matter what they order.

Here's my ex coming in with her entourage. She carries a weird box with no top on it. I smell trouble. I look inside, and it's a couple of Pomeranian pups. "I named one Patsy and the other Special," she says. I am horrified. I detest these tiny dogs with all my heart. The only thing I hate more is the people who carry them around. They are glorified rats, unfit to hold the title of “dog”, let alone to be the descendants of wolves. I look at her and realise it's her happily ever after gift. She hopes this fixes everything and we go back to normal. These are our new kids. I look at her with as much coldness as I can muster. "I can not accept them. I am sorry." She looks heartbroken and mutters something like, "I understand." I walk away. I down three drinks in a row before I start to see again, her girlfriend is on my arm, telling me I should reconsider. I force a smile. It can wait until tomorrow. Everything can wait.

After that, it becomes blurrier and blurrier. Here is the hip-hop band arriving five hours late. They are offended by me halving their pay. My friends are close to beating the crap out of them, and it slowly dawns on the celebrities that their status can not protect them here. I can, and I do. They go on stage. It's 3 am, and those who remain are wasted beyond humanity, but we all sing along for the next half an hour. Here I am, packing everyone in my car and driving to the nightclub. Here I am, realising my Vertu got stolen. Here I am, running into a girl I fancy and taking her home. Here's my ex with her sister and two poms, wasted, at my place, shouting "Surprise!"

I shove the girl I brought home into the hallway. Here is me waking up in the back of my car in my garage with that girl four hours later. She is barely 18, and it's all an adventure to her, a spy game, and I feel like death. Here's the hangover soup in a local beer garden and coming back to my senses. Here's me realising I've spent all the money on this party. I have to ask her to pay for our lunch cause I haven't got a penny left.

With these memories rolling through my head, I smile as I enter our chief of security's office. 

"Sit down", he says. Pulls out a black backpack. "This is your go-bag."

"My what?"

"Your go-bag. For when shit hits the fan." He tosses the contents on the table.

"There's your passport with a Schengen visa. There's an internal passport with a different name if you need to cross into Belarus quietly. 5000 USD, 10,000 euros and 200,000 rubles. A satellite phone, a set of walkie-talkies, a power bank. Black jeans, black T-shirt, pair of hiking shoes, two changes of underwear. Flashlight, multi-tool, protein bars, water."

"No gun?"

"Do you know how to use one?"

"No."

"I didn't think you would. Your father hates weapons. It is only natural you would, too. Money works better than weapons. Do not spend a penny until it's go time. You are to carry this with you at all times."

"What happened?"

"Nothing in particular. A bunch of usual things, but your father's spider-sense tells him shit is about to go down. You start with a new security next week."

"Damn. But why now?"

"I just follow the orders, you know that. But between me and you, things are getting ugly all around. We may be going back in time to the wild 90s. Not a time I miss."

"And what's with the new security?"

"Proper, Tier 1 guys. Active duty police officers, plainclothes men. Unlike your past guys, they will mostly be unnoticed."

"There goes my short-lived freedom. Now don't bullshit me, what provoked this?"

"We have received credible intel that one of our opponents plans to set you up. They want to plant some drugs on you and get you behind bars as a means of pressuring your father."

I walk out of his office feeling relieved. It finally makes sense. I have seen signs internally. There has been a constant shortage of funds for the last few months. I run our family assets outside of Russia, and they require continuous funding. Planes, yachts, berths, flats, cars - they don't come cheap. Every month there are payments, large payments that need to be there on time. Salaries of our captain and crew, mortgage on flats in London and Berlin, yacht maintenance, hangars for jets, jet fuel, jet management, car maintenance, our racing team salaries and budget. There isn't a month where I don't need to wire half a million dollars somewhere. In the last few months, I started having trouble obtaining the funds from my father's treasury. This financial crisis is beginning to reach us, no matter what they say on state TV. 

I sit in my car with a heavy feeling. Violence is a language one learns early in Russia. I got my first lesson from my kindergarten nanny. She was not impressed by me wetting the bed during my naps. Her way of discipline was throwing me into various articles of furniture in the room. I was crying, and it seemed only to drive her more mad. I understood there was no point in crying. My parents never shied away from corporal punishment, and I knew the pain of the leather belt from an early age. However, that was nothing compared to battles in my yard and school. By age 7, I had had three concussions. Twice from falling down and once from a guy who threw a metal book stand into the back of my head. I was sick at home for three days, then returned to school and returned the favour to him in the same fashion. We were constantly fighting in school. I was small, but that made me a great rider in Centaurs - a game we used to play. I would climb on the back of my bigger mate, Sarge, and we would run around smashing the other Centaurs to the ground.

My first serious injury happened when I was about 11 years old. An altercation in a summer camp with a girl who hated my guts ended up in me losing a part of my middle finger. I had surgery in a gnarly village hospital nearby. A drunk surgeon sewed up what was left of it with no anaesthesia. I was crying obscenities from the top of my lungs. My pain was instantly quashed when my father picked me up the next day. He was in a new BMW 528i, his first import, a steep upgrade from a tricked-out Lada. 

In the next couple of years, I was beaten up, robbed, and scammed. We moved a lot, making things more challenging, as fighting was a right of passage in each new neighbourhood. I was short and thin for my age and constantly getting jumped on. I learned not to show I was hurt, to continue insulting my attackers, and never to back down. It mainly worked; the kids eventually laid off when they realised they couldn't break me. The final straw happened shortly after my father bought our first apartment in a nice residential area. I was 14. Next to us was the "Duma" house, an apartment block with enhanced security where many legislators lived with their families. I started hanging out in the yard, playing football and making friends cautiously. 

One day, I was returning home when I saw a group of slightly older kids not far from my door. I didn't know them, but it was early in the day with the sun shining bright, so I paid little attention. As I entered the first door of our porch and pulled my keys out to open the electronic lock into the building, they ran in behind me, knocked the keys out of my hands and pulled out a bunch of strike-ball guns. With hoots and screams, they started shooting at me in this tiny space, and I was covering my face with one hand while trying to call for help through the intercom. They kept fucking with my free hand and trying to pry open my second arm to shoot in my face. I was afraid and angry, fighting back with my legs and receiving kicks and pellets back. It must have lasted less than a minute before some stranger came out of the door and scared them away, but it felt like hours for me.

This attack shook me. It was unjust, done by a group of people I didn't know for no reason other than their hunger for violence. They wanted to hurt a guy they didn't know purely out of a sadistic impulse. When I told this story to my father, he got so upset he decided that the time had come for me to get a security guy and learn how to defend myself. That's how I got my first security detail. My guard's name was Nick, who was in his late 20s. He worked as a driver in my father's bank, had some army background and lived in a small town almost 100km outside Moscow. Every Tuesday and Thursday, we would go to a shitty Soviet gym and practise ARB (a Soviet martial art). I got very good at roll landings and various flips but sucked at fighting. It didn't matter. From then on, I had a guy with me, so my chances of action dropped significantly.

By that age, I was a pro at corrupting my chaperones. My driver lied on my behalf constantly; my headmaster allowed me to skip whole subjects in exchange for representing our school at various competitions. My most prized achievement was my swimming coach, who would go out with me for a cigarette break halfway through practice. It took very little time and effort to corrupt Nick. For the next few years, he became my older mate, who was always around. We drank together, partied together and whored together like there was no tomorrow. When I got a bit older and started going out, I had to become his stylist so we would be allowed into nightclubs. 

At some point, my life got too intense for one person to be able to keep up, so Nick's friend Joe joined us on an alternating shift schedule. They each made around 800 USD per month, which was good money where they lived. Nick loved to show off, so he would go back to his hometown once a month, party like an animal for a few days, spend most of the money in one go and disappear for the rest of the month. Joe had a wife and a young son. He also had a gambling problem. Each time he got his salary, he would gamble it away the same day in the slot machines. Then, they would hide for the rest of the month, surviving on dumplings and instant ramen in the corporate flat close to our house, which we rented for them. They would borrow money from me at the end of the month to make ends meet and listen to my lectures on financial responsibility, only to repeat the cycle repeatedly. Nick and Joe were typical Tier 3 goons, eliminating only the most basic street-level threats.

Eventually, my father's firm grew enough for him to contract a new security firm. One of the things they offered was surveillance. He wanted to test it and couldn't come up with a target, so he chose me. The report I read a week later was the funniest glimpse into the life of a spoiled brat I had ever read. I hope one day I can somehow find that file again. "Subject arrived at university at 11 am, two hours after class started. At 11:15, subject walked out from uni with two girls, bummed a cigarette from his guard and went into a nearby restaurant. He ordered beer and was swearing loudly. The girls were laughing." That three-day surveillance window coincided with Halloween, so I raged all weekend, which was also caught in CORPO-speak. "Subject, dressed like a doctor with three nurses, went into a nightclub, leaving his security detail outside. After the club, they got into the car and stopped at a 24-hour store nearby. The subject walked out with a few bottles of champagne, shook and popped one open, hitting the surveillance vehicle with the plastic cork. Subject yelled "Fuck you" at the surveillance personnel, laughed and jumped into his car, which sped off into a near collision with a bus and a cement truck." This last sentence was what ended Nick's and Joe's careers. My father laughed at all the rest, but shitty driving skills and near death as a result was no joke to him.

In a couple of weeks, I got an upgraded Tier 2 team. The new guys were both ex-police special forces with deployments in Chechnya. The younger was a lieutenant, while the older was a full colonel. They carried guns, worked 2-2 shifts and eventually requested a third guy to have a 2-4 schedule, as I lived intensely with practically no sleep between studying, partying and working. They were keeping up stoically, being professionally rigid and trying to keep me in check. My father insisted on them keeping me company when travelling around Russia, but after a couple of runs to St. Petersburg with them, I gave up on internal tourism.

The only time I got in trouble with them was when I drunkenly ordered a colonel to beat up an afterparty door guy, who would not let us in as we had no money to pay the entrance fee — the next day, my father showed me his resignation letter, grilled me for acting both disrespectfully and like a peasant. I had little to disagree with. He sent me to seek forgiveness from the colonel, a deed that was way beyond my self-consciousness. This ordeal reminded me of a simple fact I'd forgotten. My security was actually my father's security, and with that memory refreshed, I quickly grew tired and resentful of them.

The colonel could not forgive me either, so soon enough, he was cycled out to a different department. The new guy who came to work with me got a nickname - Parktronic. I had just gotten my driving licence at that point, but I couldn't park for shit, so I would drive somewhere, drop the car in the middle of Arbat, in the asshole lane, and let him deal with the parking. He was a decent guy who had trouble expressing himself while agitated. I had my first fender-bender with him by my side. I dropped a cigarette in my lap while slowly rolling in a traffic jam, and as I hastily tried to pick it up, he started making random, excited noises. I thought he was emotionally involved in my struggle to save my Dolce & Gabbana jeans and the Range Rover leather, but he forgot the word "stop" and tried to get my attention to the road. About five seconds later, we bumped into an old S-class. A few weeks later, he was dropping me and my friend off at the airport, and he forgot to put the car in park mode before leaving to open the trunk. The vehicle rolled forward, and he ran after it. He jumped in and placed it in park exactly when the rear wheel rolled onto my friend's foot. My friend started shouting, and this guy panicked and couldn't understand what was happening. I had to get him out of the car to move it a bit to release my mate. That was Parktronic's last day of work. On return from that holiday, I convinced my father that I was perfectly safe and got rid of security altogether. I was left entirely alone for the first time in my life. It was a sweet couple of years, but they were now ending.

I am meeting my new security guy, Dimitri, for the first time — average height, average build, no marks or tattoos, aged between 30 and 50. He speaks quietly and politely rocks a square haircut. He is the kind of guy you'd instantly forget after looking at him. I feel uneasy about him, but I can't quite put my finger on it. There are no apparent signs, but I feel sure he is armed and dangerous. All my past security guys had nicknames. Nicknames that my friends gave them within days of their deployment. Nicknames that were fitting, that stuck. Somehow, I know that Dimitri will never get a nickname.

I just picked him up from their police unit, and we are headed to the office in my Porsche Cayenne. It's a beast of an SUV, the fastest first generation Cayenne in Moscow and the loudest. Looks absolutely stock, with small wheels and fat tires in cherry metallic. But boy, its looks are as deceptive as Dimitri's. It runs a quarter mile in the mid-12s, which is as fast as my Ferrari, and I can control it sideways like a race car. My tires were destroyed because of that, and today, I am caught off guard by the season’s first snow, which suddenly hits. We are speeding on Pyatnitskaya, approaching the Obvodny channel embankment. The traffic lights start blinking, and I floor the gas to make it through. As we are crossing the first embankment on yellow, it dawns on me that the lights on the other side of the short bridge are synchronised. The bridge has a steep crest, behind which I am now certain some cars have already stopped at the red light.

I press the brake, and nothing happens. My 2.5-ton pig of a car is sliding on all four wheels with no change in velocity. I notice the other embankment is starting to move on the green light, and I press my horn so that they hear what's coming and hopefully stop to give me space. As we fly over the crest, I see that three of four lanes in front of me are packed with cars stopped at the light, and the only lane open on the right has a nasty high stone bank next to it and is closest to the cars about to cross the embankment in front of us. Without conscious thought, I spin my steering wheel one way and then the other while braking, sending the car right first and sliding left sideways, aiming for the gap. I am still holding my honk, and the vehicles on the embankment notice me and stop. I realise I am going too wide and about to hit the stone wall, so I step on the gas, and my engine revs up loudly. I know there's fire shooting from the back of my exhaust. I clear the gap and slide out loudly with gunshot sounds of my engine hitting the rev limiter. I make a super wide arch around what I realise is a policeman standing in the middle of the wide tarmac field in his usual spot. He is so surprised by the stunt he is witnessing he just stands there with his mouth open and looks at my car. At last, I find a grip and swing back into the Bolotnaya square slightly sideways without letting go of gas.

I finally got the car right, made a couple of quiet turns, and hit a traffic jam in front of the Big Stone Bridge. I look at Dimitri. He is holding the handle over the window with an iron grip; he is pale, and his nostrils are flaring. He looks dead straight and doesn't say a word. I crank the window, light up a cigarette with shaky hands and laugh nervously. "I had it all under control, Dimitri, don't worry." He finally looks at me and pops a crooked half-smile. "I see", he says. His eyes are dead cold, and behind his mask, finally I catch what's so unnerving about the guy. He is not afraid of death but in a different way to myself. I am 21, and I feel immortal. Death has nothing to do with me, and no amount of dead friends can change that. I take risks because I am ultimately ignorant of the matter. He detests my ignorance at that moment because he knows precisely what death is. For a brief moment, I see a glimpse of how deep this man's knowledge of violence is. It is his craft, his profession, and it has left a mark on him. 

The significance of this change finally dawned on me. For the first time in my life, my father has hired someone whose job is not to protect me from myself but from an actual threat. On cue with this thought, we reach the apex of the Big Stone Bridge, and I see the Kremlin's crimson towers. I have just turned 21. I have a go-bag in the trunk and an armed mercenary by my side. I guess that's how it feels to become an adult in this damned town. I feel the anger rising, and I floor the accelerator once again. Whatever the future holds, let it fucking come.

Thank you for reading.

The demons possessing me demand I tell this story. I am but an obedient servant that hopes to escape their prison one day, hence why I am writing this book. Every comment you make here makes my daily punishment lighter, so please - be generous.

If you choose to subscribe, I get a day off from torture and you get these posts delivered straight to your inbox. No good deed goes unpunished.

"Do you know the difference between Stalin and Hitler?" he asks me.

"All right, Olegych, tell me."

"Moustache styling." He bursts into laughter. I smile. Olegych has been with us for more than a decade. He was one of the first people my dad hired for himself, and he is a family member at this point. Despite this he never forgets his place in the hierarchy. Perhaps that's the true reason behind his longevity. Well, besides the obvious fact that he drives like a devil and has little respect for any laws, except those of physics. I look outside and see the gloomy grey building of the Sheremetyevo Customs Terminal.

"Olegych, how the fuck do they manage to recreate a soviet vibe with everything they build?" I ask him.

"It wasn't all bad in the soviet times, boss." He laughs, "We had security, you know?"

"Security that your ass is gonna land in prison for one of your favourite Stalin jokes, you mean?"

"Well, yes, but they were much funnier when the price was that high."

"I bet they were. Right, I think that's my guy. Thank you, Olegovich; I will see you later."

"Good luck, boss."

I walk out from the comfort of my father's limousine into the rainy outskirts of Moscow. The colours are grey all around, and so is the broker who is waiting for me. He puts on a smile and leads me through security into the terminal. I hand him over the customs payment slips, and after a long and tedious procedure with the customs officer, they finally lead me to the warehouse, where a brand new silver Lexus LX570 is waiting for us. It looks like a spaceship in contrast with the surroundings.

"Well, this is my personal best, US to fully cleared in Russia in one week." the broker brags.

"For the kind of money we are paying, it better be." I snap back. "Thank you. I'll take it from here."

I sit in the car, and it feels even more spaceship-like inside. I look for the place to insert the key and find a start-stop button. I press it, and everything lights up; there are so many buttons. I feel dizzy looking at them. Lexus never understood the lesson in subtlety that is required today. They pair cutting-edge technology with horrendously overcomplicated interfaces, reminding me of the German cars of the nineties. There is a difference, though – somehow, the complexity worked with analogue tech. Now that everything has gone digital, it feels too much.

It doesn't matter, though. What matters is that the customs officer just confirmed this is the first new LX in Russia. It took me four months to get my hands on one of the first top spec cars delivered in the States and almost double its price if you count the premium I had to pay to the greedy fucker that ordered it, air freight cost, customs fees, and bribes for speed at every stage. You might wonder, what's the rush? Why not get the car when it hits the market, with official support from a dealership, warranty and localised everything?

It's all about the correct type of show-off. In the post-Soviet world, the highest praise for swag is not awarded to the person who spends the most money but to those possessing things not easily accessed. The platonic ideal is the ownership of something nobody else can have. Vladimir Mayakovskiy imported the first foreign automobile, Renault NN, for his femme fatale, Lilya Brik. Another poet, Vladimir Vysotskiy, was the first to import a privately owned Mercedes 450SEL in 1976 for his favourite guy - himself. My father cracked this code quite young. Some of my earliest memories are of him and my mom hand dyeing Turkish jeans in our kitchen. Turkish jeans were overflowing the young Russian market at the time and my parents were not making them better, they were making them unlike all others. Exclusivity is a language spoken everywhere, even by the poorest people on Earth. 

Nowadays, with the free market and open borders, it is much more challenging to reach this ideal. But guess what? For a period of a few months, I just did. I got the first new LX in the country, which means a lot, given this car's special status in the pantheon of must-have vehicles for a successful dude. You can be a 7 series guy or an S-Classe guy, you can be into G-wagons or Cayennes, or even Q7s for god's sake, but when it comes to an off-road vehicle, one must have the Land Cruiser or its rich brother - the LX. By going through all the trouble in getting this car as fast as possible, I have secured a high spot in Moscow's social hierarchy for my father that nobody else can have. For the next few months people will gawk at his car, more than they gawk at exotics. Although he doesn't know it yet, he will be one happy camper when I pick him up at the airport tonight.

I am rolling into the Vnukovo 3 airport terminal compound. It's the most convenient airport in Moscow, located on the Kyiv highway. Reaching the fancy suburban Rublevka where my parents live only takes half an hour from here. There are never any queues, the building is well designed and has none of the terrors of commerce forcing you to buy unnecessary shit while you wait. The only downside is you have to travel in a business jet to use it.

I am a little late; they should have landed, but it has yet to happen. I hope they got delayed leaving Cannes, because the alternative is much worse. They might be stuck in a holding pattern waiting for permission to land. That is the second downside of Vnukovo 3 - it shares the landing strip with Vnukovo 2, the government terminal that our president and his crew are using and those guys love to make everyone wait for them to come through. When we  first moved to Rublevka, I learned the skill of timing our president's route to work and back. I had to, because driving out at the same time meant being stuck stationary for at least 20 minutes. Sometimes they would block the road and something would delay the president at home, and all the happy people that follow the same route would be stuck for an hour or more with no way to escape. Little did I know that this hierarchical order stays the same even as you get so rich as to afford a private plane. 

I mean sure, you can land in Domodedovo-2 or Sheremetyevo A, but those are for losers. They are older terminals and the traffic that you have to endure on your way back to Rublevka is horrendous. Some wise asses have built their compounds and lives closer to those airports, but their cheap-ass attitude is not fooling anyone. If you want prime comfort, you fly to Vnukovo-3. Even if it means waiting now and then for the leadership of the country to land ahead of you. Even if they are flying from the same airport in the south of France and they left a full hour after you.

If you think of the world's toughest jobs, many people would list the same professions: surgeon, firefighter, astronaut, member of the special forces, or the police even. My entry would be Vnukovo air traffic controller.  Every day that person has to make countless decisions on the basis of perceived and real hierarchical status of countless Russian government officials and oligarchs. To further complicate matters there are also civilians on their unimportant commercial flights landing on the same strips. Any small mistake in establishing who has priority and how much exactly may cost them their job, and some mistakes may cost them way more than that. 

The Vnukovo-3 security guy steps out of his booth – the Lexus doesn’t have a licence plate yet. I open the window as he approaches, and he recognises me, waving me through. I park the car next to Olegych and my father's security detail, shake hands with his men and walk into the terminal. 

As I enter the building, I am surprised to see an unusual number of people inside. I have only seen this many people here once before - when Paris Hilton came to visit Moscow. I remember she smiled at me, and I turned away, not recognising her and thinking that this petite, unsexy blonde must be the daughter of someone very important. Today, it is different, though. Unlike her entourage, who were all grouped up waiting for her, I see roughly 30 people in the terminal, pretending to do mundane things. Some read newspapers, a couple talk over coffee, and someone is busy on their laptop. It is a regular sight in a typical airport, yet here it feels eerily out of place. I have been here dozens of times; nobody does these mundane things here, ever. I look for the terminal director, Roman, to find out what's going on, but he is busy with a couple of mean-looking suits, so I decide to wait it out.

Suddenly, the arrival doors open, and a gorgeous couple walks in. He is tanned, tall, wearing a tailor-made olive linen suit and a pair of python slip-ons. She is tall, in a gorgeous blue silk dress, rocking a wide-brimmed hat, a crocodile Kelly bag and wearing what looks like a million dollars in diamonds on her neck. I can't help but stare at them, but nobody else is paying attention except for a couple of guys who must be their security. A tower of luggage is brought in behind them and stacked onto the customs X-ray device. Their passports are stamped and handed back to them, and as they are about to cross the customs line, the officer on duty casually asks them: "Anything you want to declare for import?" There is a slight pause in the air after the question; the guy stares at the officer with a puzzled look. I understand him; in my years of using this terminal, never have I heard the question. There is an understanding with the airport management that if you are importing something of value, you pay a small bribe of 5k USD in advance, and everyone looks the other way. After some hesitation, the guy says, "Nope!" and the officer responds with "Good! Welcome home, then," while making a welcoming gesture with his hand.

As soon as the hot couple crosses the insignificant red line on the terminal floor that I had never noticed before, the whole terminal comes into motion. The guys reading drop their papers, the laptop guy walks away from his laptop, the smoking men drop their cigarettes heading inside, the coffee guys, everyone is synchronised suddenly. They move in an eerily beautiful law enforcement polonaise, forming a large circle around the couple. A pair of mean suits approach the guy and wave their identification.

"Russian Tax Service, you are under arrest for the evasion of customs duties on an immense scale; you need to come with us." The guy looks baffled.

Tries to play it cool, "This is a mistake, gentlemen. Do you know who I am?"

The suits have none of that, "Yes, Viktor Mikhaylovich, we know precisely who you are. Now, would you come with us willingly, or would you like us to arrest your lady partner, too, on suspicion of your crimes committed by a group of persons by prior conspiracy?"

The guy's face loses all colour, and his head sinks. "No, that won't be necessary; I am coming with you."

With a flurry of motion, the terminal building is suddenly empty. It's just me, Roman, the terminal director, the lady who works in the cafe, and the border guards. Roman finally comes up to me and shakes my hand. I realise I am standing with my mouth open.

"Roman, what the fuck just happened?"

"This poor cat got stung, is what happened. He went on a romantic getaway with his girl and bought her north of 3 million euros worth of jewellery on a spending frenzy in Monaco."

"That happens, but how did the customs find out?"

"Well, this shrewd fellow here decided to get the VAT back when he left France and applied for a tax return. I guess he didn't think it was true that all tax returns Russians claim above 10k are reported to our customs service."

"I've heard that, but never actually seen this happen."

"Well, normally, they don't care, but this was a record-breaking amount, so they decided to move. It is going to get very expensive for him," Roman laughs.

Finally, I see my father come into the terminal. He is quickly done with all the formalities and is coming to greet me.

"Hey, son, what's that sour look on your face? Are you not happy to see your old man?" I tell him briefly what I just witnessed as his bags are brought in.

"Well, the poor cunt didn't pay Roman is what happened, son. What a cheap scoundrel; you are getting more than half a million back and fail to pay the measly 5k to the fair folks that look after you."

"I don't know, Dad. Would that help, given the record-breaking case for our customs?"

"You are going about this all wrong. The guy is an amateur, a nouveau riche who tried to impress his girl without thinking it through. He had gone to the shop in Monaco and bought her all the fancy bling she desired, dropping a few million in one go. He saw her admiration, how she was already crafting that story for all her socialite friends in her mind. He felt the sweet surge of power in that moment. The sex afterwards was out of this world. The next morning he woke up with a feeling of having been fucked over. He wasn't used to spending this much money. Sure, the sex was great, but not a thousand times better than a good escort delivered for 1/1000th of a price. He remembered how long he had to suck cock before he found a way to skim out those 50 million USD that made him feel all powerful that day. And he decided to get some of it back, by claiming the VAT refund. He had done it before when he travelled to Paris and Milan a couple of times a year to buy his Brunello suits. He had read in self-help books that rich people count every penny and thought of himself as a progressive by following this rule."

"Is he wrong?"

"Of course he is fucking wrong. Rich people count every penny, that much is true, but they do it by not paying stupid taxes in the first place. Everyone has a guy for bling. Best guys in that line of business happen to be extravagantly attractive ladies by the way. When I want to impress your mother, I call our lady and pick the best Graf or Van Cleef set she has. We then arrange an off-shore payment for it, skipping the idiotic VAT-theatre nobody needs. Your mother is a modest woman, she doesn't need a show and she is happy for me to just bring her presents home after the payment is cleared. However it costs nothing to arrange a mock purchase in any fancy boutique you like. Just a little foresight. Had he known his way around such things, he'd do that. They would even run his card for the gazillion he spent in a way that it would go through even if his broke ass didn't have a penny on it. But that cheapskate decided to claim a VAT refund on a 3 mil purchase. Can you imagine the face of the French customs officer when he saw a request to return six hundred thousands euros? The kind of hate he was feeling for the cocksucker in front of him? The joy he felt in reporting him to the Russian tax office? The extra mile he went to make sure they acted on it?"

"Well, fuck, I hadn’t really thought of that."

"Yeah, neither did he, and that's why he is going to experience what it actually means to get fucked over by a group of very unfriendly men. Not spending more is not the same as being cheap. Both result in a reputation, however only one improves your standing in the human hierarchy." He laughed. "Let's get going. I don't see your car."

"I am picking you up in your new car today, Dad. See this silver pig? That is yours, first in the country. Happy belated birthday, Dad."

"Holy shit! A Jew's Mercedes! How much did it cost me?"

"You don't want to know, Dad. But it's safe to say nobody will have one for at least a few months."

"Mike's gonna be jealous as hell. Will you come along and join me and your mother for dinner?"

"I was going to take Olegych back to my place, Dad; I have a date tonight."

"What another one of your carton box ladies? What happened to that blonde one I didn't hate?"

"We are on a break, Dad. I'll see you later."

"See you, son."

With his childlike smile, he is already on the phone as he climbs into the car. "You won't believe what our son got me. A Jewish Mercedes! No, not a damn Volga. Who would drive a Volga? A Lexus, honey! I'll be home in 30 minutes. Of course I am hungry"

I get into Olegych's limo and ask him to head to my place. I doze off and dream of being arrested on arrival from holiday. After a week on our family boat, I am with my ex-girlfriend and a bunch of people. Everyone is wearing black tie and has a whole bunch of luggage. For some reason, I am naked with no bags, and the customs officers are swarming me, and everyone is laughing, and I can't understand what's going on.

I ask "Why are you harassing me? I have paid in advance as usual," and they laugh, "Your bribes are no good, boy! Hahaha, times have changed, boy! The oil prices are failing, boy! Hahaha, rich people are the new oil, boy!"

I ask them, "But why me? I have nothing with me!"

They laugh, "We know who pays for everything here, boy. Who is on top of this pyramid, boy! We know your place in hierarchy, boy! You are under arrest! Under arrest, hahahah, under arrest! You will pay, boy, hahaha!"

I wake up with a cold sweat and shake off the stupid, nonsensical dream. Olegych is doing over 200 km/h heading into town on Lenin Avenue. Moscow suburbs fly by, looking sinister in the night's glow. Olegych notices I am awake.

"Hey, do you know why Lenin wore shoes while Stalin wore jackboots?"

"Not a clue."

"Because during Lenin's time, Russia was in shit only up to the ankles", and he bursts out laughing at his joke.

This post is a work of fiction ,based on a true story. It is part of a bi-weekly publication, "a fall from grace". Take a glimpse behind the iron curtain into the world of Russian extreme wealth, power and the true cost of it all. Subscribe to never miss a post.

"Oi, chief," a man interrupts my daze. He's the youngest of the pack at roughly 37.

"Pardon me," I reply, "I was just admiring the weather. What did you say?"

"2000 rubles for the season pass, and we fill your arena with our boys."

"2500 is the best I can do, Sergeant," I counteroffer. "It's a 60% discount already. Don't you get greedy on me now."

He grins and shakes his head before looking back at his pals - they feign indignation. It sure works on our Press Secretary, a junior member of their org. He is so nervous I can almost smell his fear. I look back at them with a calm half-smile, slightly amused.

"Hey, boss," he continues after a pause for effect. "I'm only trying to help you here; I bet you don't want your fans angry with your club? Angry fans cost more to handle than what we're asking for."

Alex 'the Sergeant' is young but sharp as a tack; despite being half his age at 20 years old myself, he uses words like 'chief' and 'boss' to boost my ego while also mocking me subtly. He is the one responsible for the change in fashion of our ultras. They used to rock Adidas and Reebok mostly, but he'd been importing actual English hooligan garb for the last decade and made a ton of money on it. I know what makes him tick.

"Well, then, why don't we boost your commission significantly?" I suggest smoothly. "Say we go from 5% to 15%, off-the-books? That should incentivise you, distinguished gentlemen, enough to maintain the friendly spirit of the fans, right?"

His surprise lasts only briefly before it morphs into raucous laughter, setting off a round among his crew. Our Press Secretary joins timidly, too.

"You're shrewd, young fella!" The sergeant exclaims once they've calmed down again. "Who would have guessed, eh? Looks like you got yourself a deal!"

"I'll have our lawyers draft up an agreement then." I reply, "Damon will write a press release and handle your 'bumps' monthly."

Damon, the Press Secretary, gulps nervously, setting off another round of laughter as they leave.

I love dealing with the fan club representatives; the Russian ultras scene always drew inspiration from the Brits but took it a step too far. While British fans mostly enjoyed a drunken rumble after matches, Russian ultras trained together in MMA gyms, worked out tactics for attacking their foes and had tons of melee weapons at their disposal. They even sent out scouts before matches to follow opposing crews.

These guys are called 'the brotherhood' and number in the thousands. Whenever there's a derby in our arena, we must pay the city police to send ten times the usual force. We forgot once, and the fight went on for an hour after the match, with 26 people hospitalised. We were lucky nobody got killed.

With the deal closed, I look at my watch. It's lunchtime, and I still need to get to the university before the day's end. I recently transferred to Moscow State University, and now I need to make up a bunch of missing credits. Suddenly, my phone rings.

"Yes, Dad?"

"Come by the office, would you?"

"Sure, I'll be there in 40 minutes."

I walk out of the office and cannot contain my smile when I see my Grigio Titanio 2004 Ferrari 575 Maranello in the sun. Its burgundy interior welcomes me inside on this sunny spring day. I just got the car de-winterised the night before, and my grin makes my cheeks hurt as I start the engine and roll out into the streets of my hometown - Moscow of the 2008 vintage. It's a city of unlimited opportunities and ultimate capitalistic freedom. If you have the cash, nothing can stop you except someone with more money. I plan to retire before I am thirty with a billion-dollar exit. My father hopes I raise my ambitions, but that number seems reasonable to me.

When given absolute freedom, people often don't recognise it immediately and remain bound by old habits. They still live inside their little boxes of what's allowed and what is frowned upon. One must wear crocodile leather and heavily branded clothing in your exotic car. One must show up to all the expensive restaurants with a high-maintenance girl to show that he can afford raining cash. One must put their fancy car key on the table in a restaurant. I remember a guy who had his Cayenne stolen a year ago and still put the Porsche key on the table every time he went out. I detest this kind of lameness, though.

Let me present you with my ten-step pro guide to owning a Ferrari:

1. Ride it like you stole it. Your car is fully insured for an amount exceeding its value by about twenty per cent, so there is no better exit strategy than ripping it to pieces in a street race.

2. Go sideways everywhere you can. You have a five-year warranty on your car, and if you break the rear differential power-sliding every day, Ferrari will change it for free, along with the whole gearbox. They will also congratulate you on being the second person in the world to have achieved that after me.

3. Never back down from a race. Who cares that your opponent in a fully-caged Japanese shitbox is a samurai who is not afraid to die to beat you. Guess what, neither are you, and with deeper pockets, you can afford to blast by police in a way he would not dare.

4. If you are doing over 250 kph, police can neither catch up to you nor register your speed with their radars and by the time they react, you are already gone.

5. Don't ask for her number if a cute girl in an expensive car lines up with you at a traffic light. Race her and destroy her. You need to show her who the daddy is on the road.

6. When you pick her up in your Ferrari, she wears that haute couture dress; don't take her to a Michelin restaurant. Take her to that greasy food truck that sells the best shawarma in town. She will remember that date much longer than any money you throw at her. And if she is upset - tell her with a sad face that Moscow doesn't have any Michelin restaurants, unfortunately.

7. A Ferrari wheelbase is the same width as the Moscow tram lines, so whenever you see a tram line - that is your dedicated lane nobody can get on. Just be sure not to be like my old security guy, who once honked and flashed at an oncoming tram to move the fuck over.

8. Ferrari's suspension is incredible for off-roading. So, if there is a traffic jam on the highway, use that side of the road to your advantage. Better yet, blast the middle grass full tilt and show them who's boss.

9. Every traffic jam is an opportunity for a burnout. If you are not going through at least three sets of rear tires per set of front ones – you're doing it wrong.

10. Street race every night. Make a name for yourself. Wealth comes and goes, and the friendships forged in the near-death scenarios stay for life. That should get you going.=

I get out of traffic and hit the Yauza embankment. Each side is a one-way road; with constant turns and twists, it feels like a racetrack. There isn't a corner of this vast city where I don't have a memory. One bank of the river is a military hospital, where I once spent a month fixing my nose after an altercation with a bunch of wannabes at the club. They were brought into the hospital to tell me how sorry they were. It was a gift from my father's new security chief; he felt it was what I wanted. I remember the intensity of my attackers' fear as they mumbled their excuses. I cut it short: "No biggie, guys, stand up. Next time, don't jump a drunk guy as a crowd for fucking someones wife, when they never even met the girl before," I told them before turning to the new chief of security: "Hey, Paul, make sure they get home with no injuries, will you?" It was not what he expected to hear; he looked back at me with distaste and judgement, sniffing for weakness. I looked back at him over the bloody clown rag covering my nose. "Of course," he said. "Load them up, boys."

A stunning view of one of the Seven Sisters on Kotelnicheskaya embankment snaps me out of that recollection and throws me into a night in "Leto", one of the OG Moscow night venues that used to be right under it. It was impossible to get into; the infamous Pasha Face Control was manning the door there in his prime. That night, I danced on the table in the five thousand dollar VIP booth and fell through the curtains to the adjacent booth. I remember the slow motion of my fall, as I was preparing to smash the bottles of champagne and vodka that somebody else had been enjoying and preparing for a fight when I noticed that it was the crew I knew, a bunch of older dudes I used to play Counter-Strike with and a bunch of models. Right after the crash, when the angry faces looked down on me, I pulled out a 500 euro note and shouted, "Tomorrow, 1v5 in NetLand, here's my bet I whoop your asses." The anger changed to recognition and then to laughter. I fucked one of their models in our booth an hour later while my mate got his skull smashed in by two random hungry gastarbeiters from one of the Stans on his way to the morning tube. They took sixty dollars from him, and he spent the next three months in hospital.

Promises of violence and sexual tension always hang over Moscow. Those are the constant factors at play wherever you go. I am passing the Kremlin now, doing around 100 miles an hour and thinking about the time I went to the New Years play in Kremlin Palace as a child and how much awe I felt and then the Prodigy concert in 1998 that had close to half a million people in front of it and how progressive it had felt. Today, I feel just a bit annoyed by the weakness of the man in the office and his backward ways, his caste of oprichnina with their police lights on German limousines and Lesha "Psycho" from the art group "War" that makes fun of them running over the roofs of their cars as they are waiting to enter Kremlin wearing a blue plastic bucket on his head.

I also remember that cunt of my classmate, who happens to be the son of our president's childhood friend. He and his Chechen friends were so impressed by my Ferrari that he felt the need to approach me. I could sense his jealousy for the car, but more importantly, for where it placed me in the school hierarchy – on the level with him. "Your father must be an important man?" he probed. "Just an honest businessman who dreamt of a Ferrari as a little boy," I responded. "Surely, you could have any car you like." "Well, I would like to have yours." he snarled, and his Chechen crew started hooting. "I wouldn't hold my breath for it if I were you", I snapped and left with a massive burnout, trying to suppress the profound danger of his final statement.

For them, people like me and my father are trouble. They do not understand us. Nobody is allowed to drive a Ferrari at nineteen. You can give your kid a million-dollar tricked-out Mercedes, but you do not buy one of the exotics unless you are one of the oligarchs. It's too much of a statement. Since Khodorkovsky challenged those government officials who attacked his opulence in 2002 to look at themselves, there has been a clear unspoken rule in society of what is allowed. My father earned his real money later, so he missed his lesson and bought four Ferraris as soon as he could afford one. His internal little boy demanded it. That little boy also likes to share with those he loves, so I got one of those four as a teenager.

On New Arbat, I remember all the time I'd spent missing classes there, afterparties at the Sunrise restaurant and the LAN cafe under it. I also remember seeing an old buddy of mine on the sidewalk the first time I drove this car. I pulled down my window and called out to him: "Tom! Tom!" He looked at the traffic and couldn't figure out where to look. In disbelief, he bent over to look into the Ferrari and stared at me for a while, putting the image together. A dark thought visibly crossed his face. "Fuck off", he said, turned around and walked away. Oh well. At least he was being honest.

As I turn before the Arbat Bridge, images fly through my head. That M3 who did not slow down after our race and the traffic cop who ran in front of him to his untimely death, my horror at his body flying into the air and the relief I felt realising I did slow down, and it wasn't me who hit him. All the shisha we smoked in White Cafe with all the mindless socialites who fill the restaurants of my town. The million-dollar deals they discussed all the time, trying to find a buyer for a hundred metric tons of lumber per week, a seller for ten thousand litres of biodegradable jet fuel, a refinery for twenty thousand barrels of Iranian oil per month or a customer who needed twenty million dollars worth of old North Korean wons. Nothing came out of those talks, but there was always a story of a guy they knew who arranged a shipment of six million single-use razor blades into the biggest retail chain and made so much money he now lives in Monaco on a boat, so they all kept blabbing.

Passing behind the White House, I suddenly feel really good. This is my neighbourhood. I grew up here, and every corner is lined with memories. Infiniti Club around the corner is where I first started hanging out five years ago. They would not let my bodyguard in, and I had my first glimpses of true freedom. First clashes with the police around here, that growing feeling of being untouchable. The shisha cafe where I'd spent countless hours hanging out with my first love. The market in front of it, where my gran-gran used to beg for money with me as a child, claiming my father was a victim of the Afghan war. The second McDonald's in Russia, where I made my first money, trafficking french fries into school and a Kurdish house behind it, in front of which I got robbed on my third run. The karate section from which I got kicked out for pulling the pants down of my fellow five-year-olds. The Moscow Zoo, where I set weekly dates with fans of that celebrity dude after my friends leaked my mobile as his. The Irish bar where I would go if I wanted to take home a wasted expat girl.

Finally, I roll into the courtyard of my father's bank and park next to his red Ferrari 599. The cars look out of place against the backdrop of the Stalin-era residential neighbourhood. They are the only giveaway that the understated building in this regular courtyard is a central hub for decision-making in the vast empire of my father. Every time I walk through the security checkpoint, I feel proud knowing how hard my father worked to reach this point. He was a rascal from a poor family growing up here and now owns a building in our neighbourhood. Not just this one; he owns a bunch.

The bank occupies the first three floors of the building, and our IT company inhabits the top two floors. My thoughts are elsewhere as I go to my father's offices. It's been a month since his birthday, and I still haven't gotten him his gift. Preoccupied, I stroll past his three secretaries and into his office against their warnings.

The mood in the room is tense. One large sofa is occupied by Paul - our Chief of Security, who also doubles as the President of our sports team. He is an enormously obese man, pushing 200 kilos, and he had clearly been drinking since early morning. In the armchair beside him sits a rather upset hockey team director, Mick, the project manager in charge. In the armchair on the other side is one of my father's top executives, Sarge, who has expressed interest in taking over the hockey team management on many occasions. He looks very cross. Their brooding moods contrast seriously with the blue aquarium wall behind them. Once again, I mentally send a note of admiration to our Italian architect. Indeed he had conflicts like this one in mind dissipated by the peacefulness of the floating fuckers. This time, the tropical fish seem to have little effect. I come over to the men and shake each hand.

My father, who's been busy ignoring the scene while tinkering with some new gadget at his desk, notices my entrance and smiles.

"Oh hey there, son. Could you sit with me? I need your help with this thing."

"What is it, dad?"

"It's the new Ulysse Nardin smartphone. I can't figure out how to make it work."

"You bought that expensive piece of crap?"

"Look how cool it is! It has the auto-winding thing in the back, like the watches!"

"Does it work?"

"No, but it should. It's this Android bullshit I don't get. Could you help?"

"Let me take a look."

My internal critic shuts up in a minute, and the curious boy takes over. The phone is stuck on the loading screen for some reason. I try a few key combos when rebooting and eventually get it into the bootloader mode. "Ok, Pops, let's see if the great Swiss watch manufacturer published this junk's firmware online." I pull out my laptop and start getting lost in my research.

The brooding corner of the office is getting animated. Sarge speaks up.

"Boss, so what do you think?"

"About what?"

"About our problem, boss."

"What problem is that, Sarge?"

"The problem I outlined, boss"

"I don't speak corporate, Sarge. Can you repeat in layman's terms?"

"Well, the problem is that fat piece of shit who you call the club president is only interested in the money that they skim off of the team's budget with his cocksucker mate, the director here."

That statement hangs in the air, which suddenly becomes as thick as a liquid.

"You shameless motherfucker." Paul grunts slowly in response.

I look up and witness Paul will his enormous body into standing. Thin Sarge is up, too. Paul remembers his youth as a boxer, takes a stance and swings at Sarge. Too bad he is old and slow. Sarge dodges easily, and the swing's momentum takes Paul crashing into the metal coffee table that shrieks under him, glasses and cups breaking. Sarge is onto him, lands a sucker punch, shouting:

"Come on, fat fag, show me your boxing!"

"I am going to kill you, fucker!" Paul shouts while getting up. He changes strategy, moving slowly ahead. Sarge uses his long arms to land blows on Paul, who is trying to corner him.

Mick is screaming protests "Stop guys, what the hell, stop it."

I am on my feet, freaking out over the unexpected violence, and my father is just sitting there mesmerised with his mouth open. Suddenly, the door bursts open, and the security guys run in, handguns drawn. My father shouts, "Calm, calm, it's all good, just a misunderstanding among friends. Put those away, break them apart." Two security guys grab Paul's hands and drag him away from Sarge, who raises his arms in a gesture of peace. His face is red, but he looks proud.

Paul has blood on his face, perhaps from his encounter with the coffee table. "Mick, why don't you help Paul clean up and ensure he is okay? The boys will help you. If he doesn't need any medical assistance, please take him home. He needs to sleep," my father says. "Sarge, why don't you take a moment to cool down? We will talk later."

"Okay, boss. It was self-defence, though."

"Sure, sure, don't worry about it."

Everyone takes off. The secretaries swarm the office with their lamentations. My father's laughter calms them down. They clean up the mess, put the furniture back in place, and remove the broken glass. My heart is pounding still. I was not ready for such an escalation.

"Brave fucker, that Sarge. He got a few punches in. I did not expect that from him at all", my father laughs.

"What the fuck was that?" I respond.

"First fight in this office. I'm glad the aquarium is OK. It's in line with what you were saying, son?"

"Yeah, they're all stealing, Dad. On every level of the club and stadium operation. From cleaners up to the director. I just kicked out a team of youth coaches who took bribes to take weaker kids on the teams, but it's not even a dent in the problem."

"Well, you're not the only one who notices."

"But I told you we should fire everyone and start from scratch."

"Who would work though? You need to learn that the scorched earth policy never works."

"Well, your way is certainly more entertaining."

He laughs. "Did you see that sneaky sucker punch? Man, I didn't know Sarge had it in him."

I hand him his phone: "Take this shit to the dealer. I fixed the loading issue, and it works. However, the back mechanism does not. It's a known issue that only they can fix."

"Thank you, son. I'll see you later."

"Your gadget addiction is my perpetual torment. Oh, and about your present, you'll have to wait a bit longer. And I might need more money."

"No problem. Talk to Arcady."

"I will. See you, Dad."

I pause for a moment. I have an uneasy feeling about the fight I just witnessed. It feels like something irreparable happened, like some veil of inevitable success came down and behind it were the gates of hell, way closer than I could imagine. Don't get me wrong, I have seen fights before, much more brutal fights. This one felt different, though. The stated intention hinted at a dark causal current behind it. It's a feeling perhaps akin to one that a savannah tiger feels at the beginning of a dry season. Like the times of opulence are coming to an end.

I look at my father to see if he shares my heavy feelings. He is lost in his new toy.

This post is a work of fiction ,based on a true story. It is part of a bi-weekly publication, "a fall from grace". Take a glimpse behind the iron curtain into the world of Russian extreme wealth, power and the true cost of it all. You can find previous posts using #thelxbook hash tag.

Subscribe to never miss a new post.

We carried her off the mountain, into the car and took her to the nearest town. We tried to clean the wounds, but she was not into it, and we lacked the skills. That's when we realised she was in heat, as all the stray males came rushing to mount her. She was highly polite yet firm in driving them away. There was no vet nearby, the nearest being 3 hours away in Tbilisi, and I don't have a place in my life for a pet, with the instability and the constant moving around. Despite that, I had to help her, so we loaded her in the car and brought her to the vet.

My lady was very excited, but that emotion quickly changed when the vet told us we must amputate her paw. It is hard to describe that feeling of having to decide something that serious on behalf of a conscious creature you've just met. We ran some tests on her and found out that she was young and in surprisingly good health for a street dog. We left her in the hospital and asked for a second opinion from an orthopedist. We named her Begi in honour of the Kazbegi mountain where she found us.

The next day, the surgeon and the orthopedist proposed a route to save her paw. It was five times as expensive as the amputation and ten times as long, with no guarantee of success. We decided to go for it. We left the dog for the first wound clean-up surgery. The vet opened all her wounds, cut away the necrosis, and cleaned up all the dirt and infection. After three nights in the hospital, we finally took her home for her initial round of recovery.

The first couple of days, it's been gruesome in my house. I am not used to daily contact with blood, shit and tears. My girl missed her flight back to help; we've been doing our best caring for that poor doggo. She kept the resistance up, ripping her bondages, constantly trying to lose the cone and get more freedom, but with time, we won her trust. Begi became increasingly animated as days went by, showing incredible improvement in her energy levels and training. I also became significantly more skilled in changing her bandages, cleaning the wounds and ensuring she didn't freak out while I was at it.

The other day, we took her back for vaccination and a quick examination by the vet. Begi got her first passport and first four vaccines. Despite being quite old, her wounds have shown significant signs of healing. We are scheduled for the subsequent surgery in a week, where the vet will use some artificial pig skin to close her massive wound. If that goes well, we will be on a home stretch for the most significant surgery, where an orthopedist will break her crooked wrist and place two support plates, making her paw almost normal.

In the meantime, I have this smelly ball of fur living on my terrace, demanding love, food and care a few times daily. I should be looking for a new home for her already. However, contemplating life without her is getting more complex every day.

Thirteen years on the run. Musings and observations from a quadruple refugee who fled Russia in 2010 never to return. Since then, I've lived in Chisinau, Munich, London and LA, searching for that feeling of home. I found it in Kyiv but was again forced out of there by the same dark power. This publication is my journal, documenting a life searching for a voice.

The world is not doing too well these days. The violence is always so close to home that it is becoming routine. I remember vividly the first days of the war in Ukraine. My fear for my safety on the way out was quickly replaced with fear for friends and relatives who needed extraction, shelter and support. The first year was painful and uncomfortable, with new sources of anxiety coming with every portion of the news. Yet there was a shift sometime in the winter. My friend opened a tea room in Kyiv in February, and it was instantly packed, with people queuing up in the street to drink some new-age tea harvested by virgins in the jungle of Cambodia. K41 celebrated its birthday with three day-raves, and I felt a pang of FOMO from Bali. All while missiles and drones were striking Kyiv almost every night. People got used to it and decided to live on.

These last few days, I am thrown back to those early days of war, with Israel being attacked by HAMAS. Again, friends and dear ones are scared senseless, trying to find ways to escape the fighting. Flights are few, and fear is pushing new highs daily with speculation of a more substantial invasion on the horizon. Those who've just built their new lives after escaping Ukraine must run again. Those who ran from Russia are calling and saying, "Damn, I finally understand what you guys had felt in Kyiv on February 24th. It fucking sucks." The old-school Israelis are looking down on the panicking immigrants with contempt. The violence had been expected for them as long as they remember themselves.

Contempt is another strong feeling making a comeback today. Ukrainians and Russians alike feel contempt for their compatriots avoiding the draft. However, in the case of Russians who are avoiding this horrible war, they also feel contempt for those who are not. Ukrainians who left mostly feel guilt and a desire to go back home. Yet when they return, they feel very different from those who never left. Their skin has not grown as thick, and the daily violence still bothers them deeply. It upsets the ones who stayed as much, but they learned not to give power to that feeling, to keep it out of their mind.

The world is split today in four ways.

1. Some welcome the violence, yet they are not experiencing it in their daily lives. Bloodthirsty couch warriors are the scariest kind, ignorant and self-righteous, full of hate and fear.

2. Some embrace the violence they are facing and adapt to it. Perhaps they are the wisest ones, already living in the inescapable future anti-utopia ahead of us all.

3. Some run from violence and try to find safety. It is beginning to dawn on these nomadic herbivores that the world is on fire today, and there is no place as safe as it was yesterday.

4. Finally, some are entirely ignorant of the change. They carry on about their lives, not sensing the shift. Tweeting daily their ignorance and condescension and calls for world peace.

So, experiential contact with violence today seems to add value to the individual by removing the veil of ignorance. I flew into Kyiv on the 20th of February from London against all protests by my family and friends. I always felt grateful to live through the invasion. To experience the animal fear that shook me to the core when missiles started landing in my home town. To run for my life, knowing I can be seen as an enemy by both sides of the conflict. To get help from strangers and friends alike when it was most needed. That experience taught me something valuable that prevents me from hiding from the uncomfortable truths today.

Ideology is by far the deadliest weapon of mass destruction. We live through an ideological dark renaissance of racism, bigotry, hatred and contempt wrapped into sexy new packages. On one side, we have the world of freedom, which is torn apart by those who work relentlessly to pervert the idea of freedom into a ludicrous competition of deviant behaviours. On the other hand, the world of traditional values declares war on everything it fears in the name of tradition when the only thing it truly fears is the freedom of its people. Public discourse is diminished to hate speech and coordinated attacks against one another. Understanding, empathy and love for the enemy are considered weaknesses and deeply detested by both sides.

These new ideologies are broken down into many variations, tailored for all the different audiences. Each has its priests and saints. Each has its core tenets and objects of hate. The priesthood follows the age-long tradition of not believing in what they preach. It's just a job for them, a way to get the power they crave. The followers believe mainly because they are too lazy to think for themselves. It is easier to compartmentalise the world as suggested by the most vocal ones and pick and choose the targeted beliefs instead of developing a personal worldview. Ignorance is the true core of today's information economy. Who would have guessed?

That is the natural source of my melancholy. It feels that all is lost, and we are on a path to certain doom. However, I refuse to accept it. As long as I have agency over my actions, it is in my power to be driven by every feeling. So I come daily to my cursor and try to make sense of the world, dissect it, take apart the predominant feelings and motivations, and find the root causes of violence and hate. I try very hard to form my own opinions and educate myself on everything that bothers me, take a deeper look and try to get to the source.

One day, I will find an inflexion point where little force can be applied to discourage ignorance and make it globally unsexy. Perhaps not. Either way, the process itself is my reward, as there is no better way of dealing with melancholy than giving in and converting that energy into action, however fruitless it may seem.

Many a time, they are forced to share their artistic residencies, living spaces and exhibition spaces with "exiled" Russian artists. I've put exiled in parentheses because there is a very short list of Russian artists who are actually exiled. Only a few expressed their true antiwar sentiments enough to get persecuted, and some already have five to ten-year prison sentences waiting for them were they ever to return to Russia.

However, Jon's essay was not about them; it was about the vast majority of Russian artists who lived quietly under Putin and created bland, meaningless art for the hipster collectors of Moscow. They enjoyed going to biennales worldwide and pretending to be a part of the zeitgeist without contributing to it meaningfully. Today, many of them have left Russia "for no obvious reason" and are hiding their roots with paranoia, yet it always becomes evident for anyone from Ukraine.

They get grants to work in Europe and get invited to festivals and artistic residencies. It hurts the Ukrainian artists as it takes away opportunities from those artists who really deserve the support, and, more importantly, it creates a justification of an apolitical way of thinking that all these "exiles" adopt — the way of thinking that made Russia a genocide-wielding nation once again.

This essay touched me deeply. Firstly, it was remarkably written, and the author's emotion was expressed in a raw, powerful way. I feel the same when interacting with my ex-compatriots who try to sell me their lack of culpability or agency in this war. Everyone in Russia has a burden of responsibility, and until they accept it, there's no conversation.

There's a deeper layer, though, to why it touched me. As a refugee from Russia, I have been trying to find my new identity for the first few years of my exile. At first, I wanted to adopt the British identity and even considered changing my name and removing my accent. I knew I could pull it off, yet it felt untruthful, and I decided against it. Later, I started making a film about a Russian marine biologist because I found an example in him of a Russian doing some quality work that is important for the world despite the lack of meaningful support from his university or society. I thought that making a movie about such a protagonist could inspire some younger Russians to commit to the party of the living and not the ruling party of the dead. It was naive, to say the least. I've spent seven years working on that film, and I never got anyone from Russia to express any interest in this story.

Around five years ago, I moved to Kyiv. I fell in love with the city long ago, but after wandering between the UK, the US and Europe, I grew to appreciate it much more profoundly. My mother is half Ukrainian, and I was raised and formed by my father's Crimean Tatar Nonna. The more time I spent in Kyiv, the more I felt this place's calling. I knew I wanted to build my life there.

By then, I had almost given up on the film, but I'd met a genius editor, and we got back to work. My editor is a true Ukrainian patriot who was active in Maydan and has a solid anti-Russian stance. He had stopped working for Russian productions since the invasion of Crimea, and before we started working, he said that he would not work on the film if it ever came out under the Russian flag. It was an easy promise for me, as I produced this film out of the UK with a British director and international crew, had zero support from the Russian state and, having done the film festival circuit, developed a strong resentment of the Russian film industry.

Through Sasha (the editor), I also got involved in a rural community fifty miles outside Kyiv, curious about restoring the vanishing Ukrainian culture. They have been restoring old clay "mazankas", doing serious ecological research and using permaculture to rewild the vast agricultural lands around their "hutor" to restore the long-lost endemic plants. I embarked on a research project with an artist woodworker, where we tried to restore the traditional Ukrainian yurt - "kurin". We wanted to create an ecological modular design out of it, which could be used to build beautiful all-natural abodes across Ukraine and overseas while restoring the Zaprozhian cossack legacy. The first one was being built on my tiny piece of land.

We finished the film in late 2021, and I've sent around thirty applications to the 2022 film festivals around Europe. When the war started, I was in my home in Kyiv, woken up with missiles landing. In the first week, I ran to safety alongside hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians west. I vividly remember a moment after the border crossing and a couple of hours of bus rides with other refugees. I had a consultancy call with one of the largest media franchises in the world that wanted to do an NFT drop while sitting in a train station terminal and thinking how fucking surreal it was that people cared for such things. Then came the refusals from all thirty festivals. In a couple where I had back channels, the response was: "Dude, it's in the Russian language, and half of the film takes place in Moscow. We don't care what country produced it. No festival will take it this year."

I had no desire to present it in Russia after the invasion, so the film was shelved indefinitely. You see, it was not apparent to me that the ultimate benefactor of any story about a positive Russian was Vladimir Putin and his regime. For that mistake, I paid handsomely - seven years of work, most of my net worth and dozens of failed promises to investors and crew was the cost of my naiveté. I still harbour some hope that the film once sees the light of day. I think the story is universal and uniquely beautiful.

While running from the invasion, my fourth round as a refugee from Putin's regime, I realised my responsibility for its strength. I had a personal story worth sharing that I have failed to share because of the deep-rooted fear of the Russian government that lived inside of me rent-free. That fear became apparent on that trip, and I vowed to tell my story. I have been working on it since and am about to start publishing parts here. The first chapter is nearly complete.

The essay I read threw me off-kilter. This guy finished with, "Any Russian that opposes genocide should be at the front line, fighting on our side." I wanted to comment on Jon's essay, commending its beauty and power but explaining how destructive such an attitude is to the author himself. Luckily, I shared my intention with my partner, who got very upset with me and explained that the last thing any Ukrainian needs now is my input on how they should feel and how condescendingly horrible such an attitude is. I am grateful for that lesson. I needed it.

Only through writing this piece have I now realised that I felt a pang of bitterness as a "Moscow-born" artist, although my story has very little to do with those mentioned in this essay. And for this, I am very grateful to the author, as there could be no better reminder to expunge any trace of association with the complacent ones.

I also remembered that the front line exists in the minds as much as on land. It is my volition to conquer the fear and be outspoken and truthful about the regime, and that is precisely what I am working on in my novel and this blog. Hopefully, my work inspires other Russians to take charge of their freedom and join the fight in whichever way they can.

Perhaps it will never be enough for some Ukrainians, and I do not blame them. From now on, their anger only inspires me to work harder. Not for their sake or approval but out of my resentment of murderous Kremlin occupiers. And out of hope for a better future.

Little did I know that I would use this car to:

1. Bring my stuff out of Russia after fleeing to save my life.

2. Smuggle my father over the Moldovan border to save him from harm.

3. Facilitate my escape to Berlin after I learned my dad had been shot eight times in the middle of London.

4. Allow me to check in with UK police every two weeks for four years as a condition of my asylum seeker application.

5. Pick up my dad from the weekend in Wandsworth prison infirmary after his extradition hearing.

6. Escape UK and EU COVID lockdowns to get to a film project in Ukraine.

7. Sneak me and my friends out of Ukraine as the war started.

The loyal Lexus 4WD was always there during this journey, the reliable friend, the omnipresent observer, the impassive witness to the many struggles. From Moscow to Moldova, from London to Ukraine, this story is about a 4-time refugee who can't return to his country and keeps getting forced out of the places he wants to call home. It is also a story of a father and son's relationship over a span of a decade and how it developed under duress of harder and harder challenges.

Over the course of the following few months, I am going to tell this "fully fictional" story on the pages of this publication. All names, characters, businesses, events and incidents are, of course, products of my imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. Or not. You will have to decide for yourself. I trust you to know the truth when you see it.

Make sure to subscribe, and Godspeed.

I am one of the few sober people. I get to enjoy the whole picture. Social circles are formed, and they fall apart. Some are cooler than others, but nobody would admit their circle is uncool. Nothing meaningful is happening, yet there is a constant flow of people who pretend to have a purpose for each move. I am bored and tired, so I switch to the National Geographic special on mating.

There are a few attractive single ladies, but the hunt is really on for the one blond girl, perhaps because she is the only hot one not from the Middle East and is perceived to have lower morals. Men bombard her, single and not from all sides, all night long.

A guy comes over to me; his girlfriend, left the party after he paid too much attention to everyone but her. "I could fuck anyone here, you know? It would be easy, but I must follow my girlfriend home." I nod meaningfully and add some fire to his flow of toxic masculinity. "You already got the drama; why not make it worthwhile?" He looks around, finds that blonde and tells me: "I could "bite" her, I probably should. Why aren't you going after her?" I responded that I had a girlfriend who unfortunately could not attend the wedding, so I was uninterested. He glowers at me: "So if she would come to you and compliment your hair, you would do nothing?" "She already did", I respond with a smile.

He doesn't believe me and looks around once again. We are in a sea of beautiful, powerful women who know their worth and are dressed to kill. I notice a flicker of defeat in his eyes. The reality sinks in. I probe him, and he comes up with an excuse: "If I do something here, it will get back to my girl, and you know I kind of like her." I compliment him on being a good guy after all, and he snaps: "Well, you see, I ain't a good guy. I want to bite everyone here, and I can, too; I just can't handle the drama." What he really means is there's no chance on earth he gets laid at this event, but I still generously compliment him on being a good guy despite his urges and watch him walk away slumped.

An hour later, I am chilling on a dance floor sofa, watching the remaining few go for their final push. This guy looks like a slightly younger protagonist of Solomun's Kackvogel music video. He is also cosplaying him a little with his moves and suit. He is the last prowler standing; the other guys are just having fun and are not on the hunt. He sits down next to me and, pointing at the laser projection on the ceiling, starts spitting banalities into my ear: "We are all so irrelevant! Cosmos is what's up, man! We all are just specks of dust compared to the cosmos, man. Fucking useless specks of dust, maaan. And Cosmos is where it's at, you know?" I nod at his flow, and when it's over, I wind him up with, "Oh yeah, that is so deep, my man, so true." He is happy, his face glowing with recognition, goes back on dancing and in a few minutes comes back with more wisdom: "Fucking useless specks maaaan, but Cosmos maaaan is where it's at! What's the point of all this?" I honestly respond that I have no idea, and he eagerly explains: "The point is to make a mark, maaaan. To rebel against this indifferent void by spreading your genetic material far and wide, maaaan!" I nod again, express awe at his thought and wind him up further with compliments of his depth and originality.

The blond is still in the middle of the dance floor. She is not dancing, just being that erotic presence, the focal point of all sexual tension in the room. My new philosopher friend lands again on the sofa beside me and opens up with: "That blonde? Does nothing to me, not interested, you know?" I look at him in disbelief, but he continues: "But you know what I'd do? I'd fuck her for four hours straight; I'd set that iPhone timer and fuck her for four hours straight so she knows what a real man is". His face is red, and his spit flow has quadrupled. I look at him, wish him good luck and walk away with a dry smile and a bit of shock.

For the rest of the night, I engaged in a few beautiful conversations with guys and girls who dropped the hunt. Most of them were drunk, yet they seemed way more sober when compared to the sex fiends.

In the following years, Chechen terrorist attacks became common in Moscow and in my teen years, it was a massive source of anxiety. I had tickets to the musical theatre performance, which I never went to because a week before my date, there was a hostage situation in that theatre with hundreds of people killed. There were subway attacks which made me avoid the subway for years. Yet by that point, I had never met a Chechen, and my only exposure was through media and social commentary on this omnipresent threat.

That's when I met Isa – a new guy who came into my class, Chechen. I was taken aback by how different he was from my expectations. Isa was not the brightest pea in the pod, and his Russian was not brilliant, as they just moved from Grozny, yet he had incredible politeness about him and a sense of proud humility. We became friends quickly, and I started hanging out at his house occasionally. He had three younger siblings and charmingly intellectual parents.

One day, we walked with a couple of kids from school. It had just finished raining, the spring sun was in full swing, and as we walked through the forest, our path was littered with lots of snails chilling on the warm asphalt. One of the kids said, "Watch me," and started jumping from one snail to the other, crushing them with his feet and laughing diabolically at their crunchy sound. Isa got furious, caught up to the guy and threw him on the ground. He then ran ahead, picking up snails and throwing them into the forest while shouting all the swear words he knew in Russian at the violent kid behind. He kept saving those snails from death for the rest of that walk.

In my teens, I was already smoking openly, while Isa had to use a contraption similar to chopsticks made from a small tree branch to hold his cigarettes so his hands wouldn't smell afterwards - his parents were very strict. At the same time, they were kind and loving. His mother was a lawyer who used to work in Chechnya's legislature, and his father was a close ally of Akhmat Kadyrov - the president of Chechnya at the time. His father always wore a suit and was soft-spoken and cheerful in his subtle way. He struck me as one of the most intelligent people I've met.

In our graduation year, as we were preparing for finals and university entry exams, Isa's father got blown up in a terrorist attack in Grozny. He was one of 10 people who died alongside Akhmat Kadyrov, who was the target of the attack. I was shell-shocked. I went to their house after the attack to offer support, but it's hard to find words for condolences when the act of violence is so obscene.

I remember vividly how Ramzan Kadyrov went for the first meeting with Putin on the evening of that day. The event was televised, and Ramzan struck me. He was wearing an Adidas tracksuit, had a huge beard and could barely speak Russian. He was the complete opposite of the Chechens I got to know, and he was being led to the throne by Putin. The attack by Islamic separatists was a smear on Putin's progress in pacifying Chechnya, and he had to deal with it resolutely and quickly. It seemed much easier to control Ramzan than a much more complex Akhmat, who had been a separatist and a Chief Mufti of Ichkeria (the self-proclaimed independent Chechnya) in his early career and switched sides only at the outbreak of Putin's Second Chechen War.

I have lost touch with Isa as we went to our separate universities. He went to the most prestigious diplomatic school (MGIMO), and I went to study economics in an external program at LSE. I also worked in night clubs and partied like an animal, while his circle consisted mainly of Chechen guys from his university. We crossed paths a few years later. We met up in an internet cafe near his university. He was rocking his tracksuit and was stoned, which was how he rolled those days. We sat down to play a game of counter-strike, and some kid in the cafe was kicking our ass and mocking Isa's noob moves. When it happened three rounds in a row, Isa got up, went to the kid and smashed his head into the keyboard until the keycaps popped. His friends laughed and hooted for Isa as he destroyed that kid's face.

The new Isa was very different from the one I've recalled. There was no humility or humanity left. His pride was of a different, much more violent sort. His language became worse than when he arrived, and his demeanour lost all signs of a good upbringing. In a nutshell, he was a lot closer to the image of Ramzan than he was to his late father's. I was heartbroken with his transformation, I couldn’t bear his choice of role model. I never saw Isa again.

Isaac Asimov's coping mechanism was to write sci-fi. In 1941, during a conversation with his editor, he came up with "psychohistory" - a fictional science predicting large group behaviour using history, sociology, and math stats. The first short story was published in Astounding Science-Fiction magazine in May 1942 and, in a span of a decade, became the Foundation Series, which received a special Hugo Award for "Best All-Time Series" in 1966.

It's not easy to judge sci-fi that is set fifty millennia in the future on the merit of its predictions accuracy. Yet, it acts as a beautiful lacmus test on the state of society when it was written. Who at the height of WW2 would not want a series about a genius scientist who predicts the fall of an Empire and produces an infallible plan to guide all of humanity through it with minimal damage and in the shortest amount of time possible?

What's fascinating is the change in the author's toolset with the war's course. In his first short story, Isaac's hero is faced with a blind bureaucratic apparatus of his weak world that does not recognise and is incapable of dealing with an impending crisis. He then proceeds to solve it purely through diplomacy. Closer to the war's end, the following crises were averted by utilising technological dominance and economic relations. In the early post-war days, Isaac writes about a new kind of omnipotent enemy that could not be predicted and stopped by his world's rulers. He introduces a clandestine operation working quietly in the shadows to alter the enemy's mind, thus guaranteeing his world's dominance.

Isaac returned to his Foundation Series three decades later, in the early eighties. It became much more nuanced in it's assessment, finding many flows in the course of "the good guys", offering significant critique to those who control minds with pure intentions and coming up with a novel "shared consciousness" vision of a peaceful future that seemed like a good idea yet clearly troubled him.

Do writers like Isaac possess an otherworldly sensitivity to recognise the path of their society, or do they imprint their vision on the world that can not help but follow in their wake? And are we coming closer to the peak uncertainty of the past century now that Isaac's story finally made it to our screens after three decades of failed attempts by major film studios who spent millions on development and had nothing to show for it?

P.S.

Little of this will make sense if you watch the TV series and not read the book, as the storyline has been changed beyond recognition. It is a great TV series, but I recommend reading Isaac's books, too – they are very different.

Since I moved here five months ago, I have become a recluse. I came here to write, but the writing somehow never got going. In response, I have started spending less and less time outside my house so that I don't miss the inspiration when it comes. I have surrounded myself with all the creative tools I could dream of. I've set up an editing suite for my archive of video materials, a small sound studio for my new DAW-less hobby and all the notebooks and voice recorders for my main task of writing the autofiction I intended. All that was gathering dust, and I was mainly passively consuming the endless stream of podcasts and documentaries and playing video games.

At first, I thought that it was normal. I am a refugee once again; I can not return to my home in Kyiv even if I wanted to, and for the past year and a half, I have been bouncing around the world, trying to figure out my next steps. This house in Tbilisi is the first place I can call home in a long time, and it's only natural to take some time off to recover a sense of normality. However, as time passed, I saw no signs of improvement, quite the opposite. Most people I knew here were from my old life, and it was hard to spend quality time together due to a lack of my desire to bond through getting blackout drunk. The only couple I knew here had recently left to pursue a job in Mordor.

So I sank into this slumbering mode, where days turned into weeks and weeks into months of non-doing. I travelled outside Georgia every month to do a gig, have a date or deal with things that required my presence, and on the road, I was alive but too busy to write. Whenever I came back here, I had all the time in the world and no desire to do anything but idle.

Surprisingly, on this late summer walk, I was inspired again when a friend asked me how I was doing on the phone. And in that moment, something became very clear to me. But before I share it, I want to set the scene. There is a view of modern individuals' life in a society which interprets life as a tunnel. As soon as one leaves their cradle, one is locked into a tunnel of social institutions that form one's life. It starts with a nursery, then a decade in schools, then a choice of professional or academic education, eventually a career, a mortgage and a marriage for a few decades. Much later in life, when one retires and is free at last, they have amassed a plethora of responsibilities that keep them occupied until they're dead. Some people would argue that freedom comes with wealth, but that is the biggest myth of them all. The wealthiest people on earth have very little control of their own time and are, in many ways, more limited than regular people.

Hence, freedom is often interpreted as a lack of responsibility in this context. In the name of freedom, some people avoid responsibility so much that they end up in the ever-growing NEET club. And I unknowingly have fallen into the same path. It seemed that if I wanted to focus on writing my book, I needed to drop most of the things that took my attention and unencumbered myself from all unnecessary responsibility, leading me into my apathetic hole. Responsibility is a neutral force - it does not limit one's freedom of action per se. What does is knowingly or unknowingly taking on responsibility you do not want to. The difference is subtle, yet it is all-important.

True freedom is knowing what you want at all times.

Buddha would argue that true freedom is beyond wanting, but until you are fully liberated, you will have desires, both conscious and unconscious. Around you, people will want to play you to help them attain their desires. Unless you are aware of all of this, you will likely fall into a life of non-freedom and spend all your life being a victim of circumstances. The system is rigged to keep most people this way. It is hard to explain otherwise the planet-wide condoning of substance abuse, the rise of victim mentality and the degradation of privacy.

Responsibility is not the enemy, though; it's a crucial ally on the path of liberation. Only by taking on your desired responsibility will you have the consistency necessary to reach your goals. And with a tiny change in my life - by participating in a month-long writer's workshop, I could instantly notice how the flow of energy in all areas of my life got restarted.

Life is full of these false dichotomies, and they are significant traps that are dangerous and often are so mainstream that it is hard to recognise them. You know what I am talking about. I mean, love equals attachment, or care equals control. Perhaps next time, we will delve into one of those.

I am grateful to Justin Murphy for the format and community he created. I am even more thankful to myself for recognising the problem. I have spent the last few years decluttering my responsibility stack and succeeded so much that there's almost none left. From now on, I vouch to rebuild it, yet with a clear understanding, to only take on things that align with my values and goals. And I abet you to run an inventory of your responsibilities. Is there an impostor there?

However, the precise meanings of freedom and svoboda feel slightly different. In my quest to pinpoint that difference, I dug into the etymologies of svoboda and freedom. Unsurprisingly, I found the definitions very similar: "exempt from; not in bondage, acting of one's own will" and deeply linked to the institution of slavery. Roots, however, tell the story of the subtle difference.

The old English freo- root is derived from the root pri- "to love." The sense evolution from "to love" to "free" is perhaps from the terms "beloved" or "friend" being applied to the free members of one's clan (as opposed to slaves; compare Latin liberi, meaning both "free persons" and "children of a family").

The Slavic root is derived from Indoeuropean — "se-, sue-", which means belonging to oneself or a specific clan and has no mention of love nor distinction between free and non-free members.

This subtle difference was noticeable; I always felt that Slavic svoboda reflects a slightly deeper feeling than freedom. Not just not having a master, but being your own master, belonging to oneself. It may be since Babylon, in its full might, came to Slavs much later than the Romans, and they got to roam free in their pagan ways deep into the Middle Ages. It is hard to miss the irony of the word slave itself, appearing around 1300, derived from Slav because of the many Slavs sold into slavery in Europe by conquering Tatars and their fellow Slavs.

Even more ironic is that despite a much later start, Slavs eventually caught up and overtook the rest of the world in destroying personal freedom. Only in the 9th century did Slavic people start selling their enemy neighbours to Crimea for further trade. By the 15th century, a legal system of serfdom had made its way into Russia and legitimised the already mundane practice of owning people. During the period of abolishment of serfdom in Europe, Russian emperor Alexander I was considering abolishing slavery in the early 1800s. Still, many coordinated attacks by the secret police prevented him and later his son from going through with the laws.

Eventually, Alexander ll abolished serfdom under severe pressure of revolt in 1861. However, the law was poorly designed, and serfs had to buy their land and freedom from their lords at an unjust rate. And many remained enslaved well into the 20th century. Alexander ll was eventually murdered in 1881 by the pro-freedom movement during the tenth attempt on his life, 20 years after he signed the abolishment treaty – that's how shitty that treaty was. The pressure kept mounting until the Bolsheviks used it to overthrow and murder the last Russian emperor and his family and start the union of Soviet socialistic republics.

One would hope that freedom would finally come to the Slavic people with the start of a new state. Well, it didn't. In the following 70 years, most modern institutes of freedom were systematically destroyed by the soviet elite, starting with systematic imprisonment and murder of anyone who could challenge the Bolshevik party in the early 1920s into Stalin's great purge of the late 1930s and the post-war imprisonment of people returning from captivity and the cold war hunt on spies and collaborationists. Solzhenitsyn painstakingly detailed this genocide in his "The GULAG archipelago." Still, I could never read past the first hundred pages – the inhumanity of crimes against soviet people by its government being too close to my heart. I do recommend reading it to anyone who wonders, "Why aren't Russians speaking up?" or " Where are the protests?" today.

I was born at the very end of the Soviet state, during the final years of its decay. Growing up, I experienced more freedom than anyone born ten years before me or ten years after me. The government in the 90s didn't care to enforce a particular ideology. Of course, I was far from being liberated, as society kept repressing itself according to the patterns imprinted on previous generations. The school was still geared towards creating obedient servants of the state: my first grade was an F for behaviour – I dared to stand up and greet the teacher too cheerfully in my first year. My poor mother had been summoned countless times to be disciplined for my bad behaviour. I'd also been punished harshly in the nursery, with some teachers even resorting to physical violence - all in the name of order.

Our family kept moving around Moscow all my childhood, and every new kid's society had its own set of rules and order that had been taught to me, mainly through fighting and conflict. I've picked up homophobia - the omnipresent Slavic fear rooted in every man preparing for not being raped in prison. That also included a fear of going down on a woman or kissing a sexual partner that went down on you – both being "casus belli" for prison rape. I picked up xenophobia and racism from a new breed of nationalistic movements, such as skinheads, which held much power in my childhood streets. From the noosphere, I picked up a highly acute fear of the police, police in my country always being bad news. I felt that all those fears were only ghosts of a past, so I kept rebelling, but eventually got ground down and accepted them as my own.

Some people crave power, fame, or wealth the most; others strive for knowledge, and a few aim to live a life of destruction and pain. For me, svoboda is the ultimate value. Sure, I would like my share of power, fame, and wealth. I love knowledge and wouldn't mind a pinch of destruction, but the ultimate goal has always been freedom. The priority of that value became conscious around ten years ago, after my first vipassana retreat.

I have worked tirelessly for the last ten years on my svoboda. I have peeled layer after layer of fear, guilt, and conditioning from my formative years. At first, it felt like fighting a dragon – I chopped one head off only to discover three new ones. I have practised martial arts and meditation for years. I had an intense romance with psychedelics for a while and then emerged teetotal. I went into therapy, and when that was not enough, I trained with professional actors to liberate myself. And with each new shackle being released, I rediscovered the world afresh. There is still a long way to go, especially if the aim is Buddha's total liberation. However, the progress is already known and felt.

It's a powerful feeling – to attain a little more svoboda. It's a high that few drugs can match. It's also very tricky because freedom often means a set of new responsibilities. But that's a story for another time.

By the time I went to a boarding school, I decided to try a different approach of doing as little as I possibly could. I got good at it; in fact, I got so good that I failed the entry exams at my super-competitive university. Nothing a bit of bribery couldn't fix, though.

It was unexciting to go back to working hard, so I decided to embrace a new approach - politics. At some point in my second year, we heard that, as students, we could form something called "a student's council". It was meant to be a vehicle for conversations between the school and the students on important matters, such as scheduling, rules of conduct, extracurricular activities and most importantly for me - events.

My mind went "ka-ching" when I heard that a school budget would be allocated for events. So, for the next six months, we went back and forward with the school, which tried to make it sound like this was an unimportant bureaucratic matter that we shouldn't get too hung up on, which only made me push harder for it in a student forum.

Eventually, the format was agreed upon, the composition of the group established and the election procedure scheduled for early next year. Little did I know that I would remain a second-year student in my third year of studies. It wasn't even due to my excess partying; I was too bright for my own good. Following the core principles of "doing as little as humanly possible to pass", I've found a hack to my main exam. You could pass with flying colours if you knew the most complex topic well. Sadly for me, I wasn't the first to notice, and after a few years of abuse, my year was the year they changed the format.

Anyhow, here I was in my second year again, figuring out how I would benefit from being one of the two people elected to represent my class in the student council when I was told that my class couldn't vote for me. In our original negotiations, we set it up so that each class could only vote for its representatives.  As I fell behind a year, I had about a week to harness the support of classmates I hadn't met. My attendance was never excellent, but after realising I had to wait a whole year to have another go at the exam I failed, I stopped going to the school altogether.

For a moment, I thought there was no hope, but life handed me a lucky break. The day before the election, there was a celebration of some anniversary and a student party. That party was hosted in a space where we used to organise events a long while ago, meaning I knew all the staff there. After a short consideration, I decided simplicity is king and went for a very straightforward last-moment campaign execution.

My whole campaign was a two-step process.

1. Step one - I announce on the student forum that I'm running for a spot on the student council, and I promise to take great care of my classmates, especially regarding parties.

2. Step two - buy enough vodka for my classmates to vote me in.

I didn't give it much thought. However, my gut was telling me that it was a robust setup.

On the night of the party, I brought in three or four bottles of vodka. My history with the place allowed me to buy it in-store instead of paying the total bar price. A strong politician is as efficient as his campaign, and boy, was I getting bang for my buck. As the night grew momentum, I felt the party was nearing its peak, after which the people would start bailing out. I asked the bartender to pour all the vodka into a battery of shot glasses that covered the whole bar.

As he was doing it, I asked my partners, famous in Moscow for their parties, to introduce me. I was nervous, so while my Greek friend was rambling from the stage about me, I downed three shots from that battery and stumbled upon the pedestal.

"Democracy is essential to a successful society, and tomorrow, we are having our very first election. We better not fuck it up." - was my opening - "Students of the second year. You might not know me very well, but I know you. And if you vote for me tomorrow, I promise to make sure that it's not just working hard in our school; it's also playing hard. And to give you a glimpse of what's about to come, I welcome all of you to the bar; those shots are for you." - to complete the cheese fest, I dropped the mic and walked off the stage.

The next afternoon, the count got in, and I was the second most-voted student-elect in my class by a significant margin from the third place. It secured both my position on the council and my understanding that democracy is easily manipulated.

Fifteen years later, Donald Trump pulled off a large-scale reenactment of my straightforward approach. The day after the results were announced, I found LA residents shellshocked and in disbelief that his campaign worked. I observed them struggling through their day in doubt and couldn't help thinking: "How could it not?"