Text version of the study. All stories are available below.
I've worked in digital all my life.
I built my first website at 15, for friends in the thrash metal band Poligon.
My first paid freelance job came at 17: a website for a manufacturer of T-shirt-style shopping bags.
Since then, I've launched plenty of projects of my own and helped other people make their products more useful and easier to use.
Over my years in digital, I've had plenty of side projects. You can read about some of them on this site.
One of the things I'm working on now is TRAI.LS — an automatically updated database, calendar and map of running races in Russia and abroad.
Trail races, first and foremost.
I bought my first 3D printer, a Creality Ender 3, in 2018. I wanted to print miniatures for a role-playing campaign.
Since then, I've more or less got the hang of 3D modeling and found a whole range of uses for 3D printing, from repairs and things around the house to sports and DIY.
These days, I prefer open-source solutions: a Sovol printer, Orca slicer and Klipper firmware.
Music has always been a big part of my life. I've even had the chance to work with some artists, but that's a story for another time.
The artists I listen to most often are Marilyn Manson, Nuki and Poets of the Fall.
I've always tried to support my favorite Russian artists whenever I could: with money, organizing things or helping get the word out.
In 2004, some friends and I launched ShadeLynx, a folk rock website.
We covered news from the scene, wrote reviews and interviewed musicians.
It had a long and eventful life: more than ten years!
And from 2009 to 2013, we also organized an annual open-air festival under the same name in Moscow's Muzeon park.
Freelance work has always been part of my life. At some point, there was so much of it that I could no longer handle it alone.
In 2012, we set up a company.
A year later, as bigger clients started coming in, it got a name too: Optimizm.
We worked with many well-known companies: Adidas, Nokia, MegaFon, Pfizer...
The production studio ran for eight years, leaving me with a lot of experience and plenty of fond memories.
I've always wanted to tinker with smart home technology, but never wanted to be tied to a brand's ecosystem.
The trouble Yandex ran into in 2026, when many users suddenly found their smart homes no longer worked, is a good example of why.
So I built mine on the open-source Home Assistant platform from the start. These days, it runs on a Raspberry Pi 5 server, with a whole bunch of routines and automations.
In 2003, a friend sent me a CD with all 25 episodes of Berserk on it. You can imagine the picture quality!
And down the rabbit hole I went...
In 2010, I went to Russia's largest anime event, the Voronezh Anime Festival, and from 2012 to 2017 I was one of its organizers.
But my love of Japan goes beyond anime: I've been there three times, in 2010, 2018 and 2025, and I really hope to go back many more times!
In the early 2000s, my friends and I were obsessed with D&D. We played both online, on forums, and around a table.
At some point, I discovered there were fantasy novels set in the Forgotten Realms universe too. At the time, they weren't being translated or published in Russian.
I found someone who was doing just that and asked to join his team as a translator and webmaster.
That's how Frealms came about.
My dear friend Lyosha Popenkov came to Moscow in the early 2000s to make his way in game development. He started at Akella and also worked at Buka and Russobit.
Eventually, he opened a game localization studio called Panzer.
I was one of its core localizers and translated more than fifty games.
Some of the better-known ones were Rainbow Six: Vegas, Tropico 3 and Tom Clancy's HAWX II.
I've worked as a journalist, copywriter, translator and editor.
But I have especially fond memories of gaming magazines.
At Igromania, I didn't just write individual articles; I also ran the Zhelezny Tsekh (Hardware Workshop) column.
I'm particularly proud of a huge feature I wrote for the launch of the very first Android smartphone, back when nobody knew what the platform's future would look like!
My dear friend Arman gave me my first pipe for my eighteenth birthday.
It was a briar Dublin from Parker. Back then, I smoked mild tobaccos from Larsen and Mac Baren: usually Virginia, Burley or Cavendish.
Over the years, I moved on to bent pipes from Stanwell, and to Balkan Flake and pure Syrian Latakia for tobacco.
The haters say it tastes like tar, but we know it's more like a good peaty Scotch!
I started running in 2014.
Well, "started"... I was shoved out of a warm bed and managed to run a whole four kilometers!
In 2015, I ran the Moscow Marathon.
In 2017, I tried trail running for the first time: running off-road. And I fell in love with it.
My current record is 110 kilometers in one go, through the fields and marshes near Suzdal.
Eventually, I hope to work up to hundred-mile races and get faster at them!
Russian doesn't have a good equivalent of the English word "tinkering", but that's exactly what I like doing to clear my head.
Coming up with some daft idea that mixes soldering, controllers and LEDs, painting and 3D printing, then actually making it.
A recent example: I converted lightbox wayfinding signs from the Moscow Metro into room lamps controlled through Home Assistant.
I like to work hard, and I like to unwind properly afterwards. Alongside all the active hobbies mentioned on this site, I sometimes enjoy more low-key, relaxed ways to spend my free time.
I like sitting down with friends over a couple of cans of really good IPA.
I like firing up a hookah, leaning back into the sofa cushions and watching a good TV series.
Work/life balance matters!
I live in Moscow, in the Aviamotornaya area, and I love this neighborhood.
My building sits between a school and the buildings of two universities: MPEI (МЭИ) and MTUCI (МТУСИ).
There are downsides: students occasionally get rowdy at night, and the ready-made meals in the two Pyaterochka stores disappear a minute after they hit the shelves.
But there are upsides too: the neighborhood always feels alive, rather than purely residential. That matters to me!
About work, a project, or just to say hello.