The summer of 1996 was memorable for our family in its own way. My mother, my brother, and I went to relax in the Moscow region, in the small summer settlement of Kratovo, in the Ramensky district of the Moscow region, located 20 km southeast of Moscow. The settlement is surrounded by pine forests, which creates a favorable environmental situation. My brother received a travel voucher, and we settled in a cozy country house which, like many others, was divided into several parts for different families to live in. Our part of the house became a place of wonderful events and memorable moments.
One day, my father came to visit us from Moscow for a long stay and brought with him a SEGA Mega Drive 2 console, a Funai TV, an inflatable boat, and Andrei, the son of our neighbor from another entrance in our Moscow building. We set up the console and the TV right outside, on a small table near the house. We ran the wires, connected everything, and started our gaming sessions. Neighbors, noticing us, curiously came over to join. It was like a little holiday, bringing everyone together.
We also took family rides on the inflatable boat across Kratovskoye Lake, enjoying every moment. These rides became one of the brightest memories of that summer — the silence of the water, the splash of the oars, and the sense of freedom.
But the most special day was June 19th — my birthday. My dad brought me a brand-new bicycle, the “Aist” brand. I rode my red “Aist” all over the settlement, enjoying the speed and the sense of independence. This bicycle became a symbol of joy and a new stage in my life.
That’s how our summer in Kratovo passed — full, happy, and filled with little and big wonders.
In the second grade, many things changed. The “Classica” gymnasium, where I studied, suddenly split up due to disagreements among the administration. A new gymnasium, “Ellada,” appeared in the old building, and “Classica” moved to a neighboring kindergarten building, just a five-minute walk from my home. This was very convenient for me, and I was glad to have the opportunity to study so close to home, which greatly simplified my daily life.
Of my acquaintances, only a girl named Snezhana from my first-grade class remained in the new gymnasium; all the other students were new to me. We kept communicating, and her presence helped me feel more comfortable in the new environment.
However, I didn’t study there for long, just a few months. My father realized that he could no longer pay for tuition at the gymnasium, and we began to consider my transfer to a regular comprehensive school nearby, which was free.
We started looking for a new school, considering several options in the area. My mother always carried stacks of books that I had already read by that time to show my level of development. I wasn’t accepted to one of the schools, but my mother’s friend suggested trying school No. 980, where her daughter Natasha studied. That’s how I ended up in their class “B” and began studying there.
Honestly, from the very beginning, I felt uncomfortable in the new class. My classmates were reluctant to accept me, and it seemed that the teacher was prejudiced against me. As I later found out, she valued gifts and special attention from the students’ parents. We didn’t do that, and perhaps because of this, she turned the children against me. At some point, my mother even came to school to discuss the situation, as my relationship with classmates became more and more tense.
Nevertheless, there were bright moments. I became friends with Vova M., with whom I later developed warm relations and a kind of friendship. Despite the difficulties, I stayed in this class until the end of the second grade, trying to find my place in the new environment.
In the summer of 1997, my mother, my brother, and I vacationed in Crimea, near Yevpatoria. At first, we spent time at the “Prometey” sanatorium, where we were given travel vouchers. At “Prometey,” I lived in a group with other children, where everything was strictly scheduled: breakfast, lunch, dinner, and various activities and events in between. My mother and brother lived in a separate house not far from our camp.
There was a girl in the group whom I really liked. I remember her special dress with keys drawn on the back; sometimes I would play on them with my fingers, showing my attention. However, a few days after our arrival, she got sick and was placed in isolation. I couldn’t go inside to her, but I would come to the isolation building and call her out onto the balcony, and she would come out. Other girls also paid attention to me and even felt jealous of her. One of them was happy when she ended up in isolation.
Sometimes in the evenings, they held discos — my first in life. They took place on the seashore and were truly exciting. At the discos, many girls wanted to dance with me, and it was very pleasant. I especially remember the song “Elektrichka” by Alyona Apina with its memorable chorus “He left on a night train,” which created a special mood of melancholy and romance. I also learned to dance to the fiery “Macarena” by the Spanish duo Los del Río. These moments made our stay in “Prometey” unforgettable.
On the last day of our stay in the group, I decided to take the phone number of the girl I liked. When I asked her for her number, she asked in surprise, “Why?” and I felt embarrassed. Another girl, who had earlier been happy about her illness, gladly gave me her phone number. However, I did not keep in touch with any of them afterward.
Wanting to extend our vacation, we started looking for housing closer to the sea at our own expense. We were offered a room in a village house, but the conditions were so simple — even the roof leaked in some places — that we refused. In the end, we rented a room from a friendly family in the village of Mayak, whose house was just a few steps from the shore. We quickly became friends with them, and living there became a real pleasure for us. When we moved to Mayak, my father began sending us money through train conductors to support our vacation.
Every day we swam in the sea, sunbathed on the beach, and enjoyed the warm Crimean sun. Once, we decided to go to the local cinema, where they were showing the film “Good Weather in Deribasovskaya, or It’s Raining Again on Brighton Beach,” directed by Leonid Gaidai and released in 1992. The lead roles were played by Dmitry Kharatyan and the American actress Kelly McGrill.
I watched this comedy, full of funny situations and vivid characters, with great interest. At the most thrilling moment, when the main character, Agent Fyodor Sokolov, is captured by the mafia and they try to torture him by placing a hot iron on his chest, the film suddenly stopped due to technical issues. I was deeply disappointed and dreamed for a long time about finding out what happened next.
While living in Mayak, I discovered the “Mickey Mouse” magazine for the first time, published by Egmont Russia. This magazine was a series of comics featuring the adventures of such famous Disney characters as Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Goofy, and others. Each issue was filled with fascinating stories and puzzles that immediately caught my attention. From then on, I started to buy every new issue whenever possible.
In August, when we returned home, we were greeted by an unexpected surprise: my father bought our family’s first personal computer — an Intel Pentium II with a 17-inch ViewSonic monitor. I was overjoyed. My father’s friend, Andrei, who lived near the Domodedovskaya metro station, somewhere in the Kashirskoye Highway area, immediately took up setting up the computer. Andrei was a graphic designer and used CorelDRAW 7 and Adobe Photoshop 4.0 in his work.
CorelDRAW 7 was a powerful tool for creating vector graphics, allowing the development of logos, illustrations, layouts, and other visual content with high precision. At the time, it was one of the most popular programs for designers due to its flexibility and support for many file formats.
Adobe Photoshop 4.0 was the leader in raster graphics, providing capabilities for photo editing, creating complex collages, and working with multi-layered images.
Andrei made the impression of a real professional in the world of computer technology, and his ability to work with such advanced tools was impressive.
In the first few days, Andrei installed DOS on our PC and set up Norton Commander, as well as a number of other programs. From that moment, my fascination with information technology began.
To my delight, I found that many programs were already familiar to me — we had been shown them back in the first grade of the gymnasium. It wasn’t long before another specialist came and installed Windows 95, opening up an even wider world of possibilities for me.
I enthusiastically plunged into studying books on working with Windows, mastering the basics of the operating system and various programs like Microsoft Word 97. My new hobby quickly grew into a serious passion. Although, later on, due to financial difficulties, we had to part with that computer, the knowledge I gained stayed with me and played an important role in my further development.
In third grade, I decided to transfer to another parallel class within the same school. It was there that I met someone who would influence many aspects of my life.
I remember my first real introduction to Vasya thanks to a literature lesson. We were all taking turns reading excerpts from Yevgeny Shvarts’s The Tale of Lost Time. When one of the students began reading a passage about a boy named Vasya Zaytsev, the whole class burst into laughter, and at first I didn’t understand why. Everyone turned to look at a boy sitting at one of the desks. Our teacher smiled and said, “Yes, yes, we also have a Vasya Zaytsev in our class. What a coincidence!” That was the moment I really noticed him—the funny scene instantly made Vasya the center of attention, and from that day on, I started paying closer attention to him.
A Philosophical Digression on Lost Time
When I remember this fairy tale and how I first got to know Vasya through it, I cannot help wanting to return to it and look at everything through the lens of my own philosophy in 2025 — especially considering that yesterday, at the moment these lines were written, I was walking with that very same Vasya, with whom I have been friends for nearly three decades.
On the evening of 28 November 2025, while we were strolling around the neighborhood, he told me a story. He had bought a little weed to smoke at home and relax. He came back pleased, the small bag lying in his pocket. But his wife noticed that there was something there. She found it, took it out in front of him, calmly unfolded it, rubbed the contents between her fingers, and ceremoniously flushed it down the toilet. After that, the scene continued with a theatrical “divorce.” The final chord. Curtain.
I said to him:
“You see, she lives inside a system of rules that she believes to be true in and of themselves. Rules that, in her view, are not open for discussion. For her, a conversation about the idea that weed is no worse than alcohol is impossible in principle. In her worldview, ‘weed is evil’ and ‘alcohol is normal,’ and that is all. She did not arrive at these distinctions on her own — society has programmed them into her so deeply that any doubt feels absurd.”
I explained to him that most people live in an enclosed space — inside rigidly defended rules and boundaries that they never step beyond.
“It is as if they live inside walls.”
Vasya immediately responded:
“Yes, yes, inside a box.”
He continued in his own grounded way:
“Because the more you know, the more that space expands.”
I clarified:
“Not exactly. What matters is not how much knowledge you store inside the box. What matters is whether you can step outside it at all.”
And he fully agreed. In that moment, we were on the same wavelength: different formulations, same direction.
The conversation brought us to a paradox on its own. There are only two modes. Either you live inside these walls and play by their rules, and then your entire life becomes a performance. You are no longer yourself — you are a character. You play along with someone else’s script, and all your time quietly swirls down the toilet — just like Vasya’s weed. That is no longer a life, but an endless theater.
Or you choose to notice the box and understand that the box is not the entire world. And then, for those who remain inside, you become abnormal. Strange. Broken. Suspicious.
I said to Vasya:
“It is madness to live inside walls once you have already seen that there is a world beyond them. It is like locking yourself in a cell and turning the key yourself.”
And Vasya supported me: yes, living within their madness is the true madness.
That is exactly how it is. Either you live by their rules and remain within what society offers you. And then it is no longer your life — it is their life, lived by your body. Or you begin to seek your own distinctions, your own paths, your own meanings — and then your life begins. Not convenient for them, not understandable to them, but yours.
Vasya fully agreed: living according to someone else’s rules simply because “that is how it is done” is wasted time.
Now, twenty-eight years later, “The Tale of Lost Time” feels completely different to me.
In childhood it was explained in a straightforward, school-template manner: lost time is laziness, aimless days, lack of effort, a “life of idleness.” In that interpretation, the main vice was inefficiency — as if you were obliged to use every minute “correctly,” otherwise you were at fault.
Now I hear a different meaning in the title. Idleness itself is not a crime. Lost time is not minutes or hours without activity. The real loss is years spent in a cage. In walls. In a performance where the roles and lines were not written by you. It is far more terrifying to spend your life adapting to someone else’s rules, playing a forced script, obeying distinctions and fears that are not your own. That is the true “tale of lost time” — a story about a life voluntarily given away to someone else’s scenario.
And in this sense, our conversation with Vasya today — when he tells how his wife flushes the weed down the toilet, and we discuss walls, the box, and other people’s rules — unexpectedly circles back to that same school literature lesson. Back then I was simply watching a classmate who suddenly turned out to be “that very Vasya” from the book. At the time it seemed like a coincidence of names, a funny overlap. Now it is a route. A point of distinction that became visible only twenty-eight years later, once the full context appeared, once the meanings matured.
And if for someone who has long read my texts and is familiar with my philosophy this episode sounds natural — like a continuation of the theme of boundaries, walls, and imposed scripts — then for someone who encounters me for the first time, this episode can indeed serve as a small introduction to the central nerve of my position: how I understand freedom, distinction, the route of consciousness, and the very fact of human life.
At this point “lost time” ceases to be a school moral tale about laziness. It ceases to be an accusation of inefficiency. It becomes an ontological diagnosis of a person who has spent years inside someone else’s walls, taking form for meaning, the performance for reality, the rules for truth. Time is not lost in idleness but in submission. Not in rest but in the refusal to develop one’s own distinctions. Not in emptiness but in the fact that you — a living human being — agree to play a role written by someone else and call it a life.
This is why, for me, “The Tale of Lost Time” is not a story about a boy who was lazy. It is a story about how a person can live an entire life without ever stepping outside the box that others built around him. It is a story about how other people’s rules consume your route, your freedom, your time — and you do not even notice how all of it disappears into the toilet along with something that could have been your life.
Vasya wasn’t a straight-A student, but he was respected. He had been playing soccer for several years, attended a local sports club, and played in district teams. In physical education classes, he was one of the best and confidently led in sports activities. Vasya was dark-haired, strong, and energetic. As I learned later, he lived very close — in the building next to mine, on the fourth floor of a nine-story block. In my new class, his friend Zhenya T. was also studying — a red-haired, equally athletic classmate. Both of them were on the same district soccer team and were inseparable, complementing each other both in studies and in sports.
Since I was the new kid in class, my mom suggested buying some candy and handing it out in honor of my arrival. That day, the teacher announced, “Igor wants to share some candy with you. Who wants to help him?” A lot of hands went up, and I exclaimed, “What a big forest of hands!” Already knowing Vasya after that funny moment in literature class, I chose him to help me distribute the candy. This gesture became the start of our interaction.
At the time, as I was gradually getting used to the new class and not immediately finding common ground with my classmates, I spent a lot of time at home with my brother Ilya. We often played together, and these moments brought us closer. Ilya was, and remains, not only my brother but also an important companion.
Over time, Vasya became the one I would call if I got sick and couldn’t go to school, so I could find out the homework. We started calling each other more often, and that’s how my mom got his phone number. Later, noticing that I rarely went outside, my mom herself called Vasya and suggested that he invite me out to play. From that moment, our friendship began.
We rode bicycles together: he on his “Kama,” I on my “Aist.” We spent a lot of time outside, in the courtyards, and although our friendship was not always simple, it played an important role in my further communication with peers.
Although I enjoyed my solitude, I often rummaged through books at home, invented stories, and even fantasized about having my own TV channel, where I was the host. I dreamed of being a creator, making and sharing my ideas with others. These fantasies reflected my drive for self-expression and my desire to create something new, even if it happened only within the limits of my imagination.
Our circle was also joined by Zhenya T., Vasya’s best friend. Both of them were quite popular in our neighborhood, played soccer together, and were always inseparable.
Although my relationships with Vasya and his best friend Zhenya T. became quite close, I always felt a certain tension in this friendship. Despite all the shared activities and time spent together, I can’t say I felt deep attachment to them. This feeling has remained with me ever since.
At the end of third grade, on May 21, 1998, we had our graduation, and the brightest part of that day for me is still what happened in our own classroom on the first floor of School No. 980. Maybe there was some kind of general event in the program — an assembly or a performance somewhere else — but it didn’t stick in my memory. What lives inside me is the scene from our classroom, because that was where everything felt truly personal.
The desks were arranged in a wide horseshoe shape, open toward the blackboard, so there was an empty space in the center. That space worked like a stage: kids would step into it, that’s where they were invited to pick up their gifts, that’s where each of us stood for a few minutes to hear the teacher’s words or just to feel the moment of transition.
There was food set out on the desks. It really was a small banquet — childlike, homemade, with everything the parents had brought: juices, plates of fruit, cookies, and something like salads or sandwiches. The atmosphere was warm and a bit chaotic: some kids were sitting, some were already eating, others were talking across the room. All of it created the feeling of a celebration that was unofficial, almost family-like, taking place inside our own little space.
Among all the things given out that day, the Encyclopedia for Little Gentlemen was the most important. The moment it was presented turned out to be one of the day’s brightest personal highlights. That’s probably why receiving this volume became such a firmly embedded memory.
When they gave me the encyclopedia, I was sitting at one of those horseshoe-shaped desks, surrounded by plates and cups, flipping through the pages right there, in the middle of that noise and movement. At that moment, it felt like something far more grown-up than everything around me. Solid, serious, dense — it somehow reflected my own curiosity. Even then, reading encyclopedias was my way of educating myself, of making sense of the world and finding explanations.
And even a quick look at its contents spoke for itself. It had “Home Alone”–style cooking lessons for kids, sections about tools, repairs, dumbbells and solo workouts; swimming lessons, first aid, skincare tips, long lists of camping games and crafts, an enormous chess school, unexpectedly serious chapters on safety, technology, even videocassette recorders, and — rare for the late ’90s — an honest discussion of physiology and sex. The book was like a miniature model of the era: a world gathered in one place so a child could learn how to live independently.
That’s why this gift wasn’t just part of the graduation ceremony. It became part of my inner path — one of the first moments when an external “gift” matched my own direction: seeking knowledge, organizing the world, expanding the boundaries of understanding.
Later, in middle school, when my classmates and other students started getting their own computers, people began asking me to help set them up and teach them how to use them. That’s when I earned my first money — an important step in growing up, one that strengthened my confidence in myself.
One of the most vivid and memorable events just before the start of the school year, right before I entered seventh grade, was the fire at the Ostankino TV Tower, which occurred on August 27, 2000.
I remember that day very clearly: almost no TV channels were working — the broadcast had been interrupted. But the strongest impression didn’t even come from that. It came from the fact that we were witnessing everything with our own eyes. From our balcony on the 17th floor, we had a direct view of the tower, and we could clearly see it burning.
What stayed with me the most was the smoke. As it rose, at a certain height — roughly at the level of the tower’s observation section, in the area of that distinctive ring-shaped expansion where the restaurants and technical facilities are located — it formed a clear geometric shape. It looked like a triangle suspended in the air.
It was a truly powerful and unusual sight — one of those moments that stays with you for a lifetime.
Starting from the sixth or seventh grade, I also began attending a school of television journalism, which operated at our cable TV company in Zyablikovo. This hobby opened up a completely new world for me. The teacher was Viktor Ivanovich, and under his guidance, we delved into the basics of journalism. I even interviewed people on the street, which became for me not only practice but also valuable experience in communicating with different people. This activity developed my creative thinking and desire to express my ideas through words and images.
Besides studying and attending the television journalism school, I also found a way to earn some extra pocket money. I soldered light bulbs for kitchen stoves — those very bulbs that light up on the front panel when you turn on a burner. For each bulb I soldered, I received 50 kopecks. Although it wasn’t much income, for me, it was the first step into the world of independent earning. This experience gave me a sense of responsibility and taught me manual skills, as well as the value of earned money. Since then, I began to understand the importance of work and how even small efforts can bring real results.
Toward the end of ninth grade, we were told that the following school year our school would open lyceum classes for grades 10 and 11, affiliated with MADI and offering advanced study of physics and mathematics. Admission required a separate entrance examination. I decided to give it a try, took the exam, and passed it. That was how, after completing ninth grade, I entered the new lyceum class. My friend Vasya was admitted to the same class. The program was supposed to require tuition.
Some time after classes began, when the first payment became due, my father said that he would not pay because he believed that state school education should be free. I remained in the lyceum class despite the refusal to pay: neither the teachers nor the school administration had any means of removing me from it for nonpayment.
By that time, my father had bought me a new computer and connected it to UrbanNet, our neighborhood’s local network, which also provided internet access. I spent more and more time at the computer, communicating with other users and reading technical documentation I found online. I was particularly interested in server configuration, website development, and 3D modeling. The computer was more than just a hobby for me: it allowed me to explore new technologies independently and acquire knowledge that was not part of the school curriculum.
In the lyceum class, I met Nikolai. He also had a computer, and when he decided to join one of the local neighborhood networks, he asked me which one he should choose. I recommended the network I was already using, and Nikolai soon connected to it as well. Through him, I met Lyosha Sh., who soon became part of our circle of friends. My relationships with Nikolai and Lyosha Sh. grew closer, and I began spending more time with them than with Vasya and Zhenya T.
Communicating on the local network and the internet, as well as exploring new technologies, took up more and more of my time. I spent long hours at the computer, sometimes staying up late into the night and arriving at school tired the next morning. The situation was further complicated by our refusal to pay the tuition. I felt that this made some teachers treat me unfairly: they called on me more often and graded my answers more harshly. By the end of the first semester, I had accumulated six failing grades: in geography, literature, Russian, physics, algebra, and geometry. A teachers’ council was convened to discuss the situation, and at the meeting it was suggested that I transfer to evening school. That meeting became a turning point in my education. When my father and I returned home afterward, he made it clear that he did not want to take part in anything like that again. His words motivated me: I realized that I could not disappoint him and had to take responsibility for my studies and actions. During the winter holidays, I worked hard to clear all my academic backlogs.
In the end, I corrected all my failing grades and successfully completed tenth grade. The following year, in eleventh grade, I became a straight-A student, and my success in mathematics and physics earned me places on the school teams that competed in academic olympiads. Despite all the difficulties, these school years laid the foundation for my further development, helped me discover my interests and passions, and prepared me for future challenges and achievements.
