A life of lost opportunities. Insights at the National Gallery of London. London, 2024.

Unexpectedly, I found myself in the National Gallery of London and this event brought up old hidden pain and the feeling of a life full of lost opportunities. This is not a pessimistic note, I sincerely believe that opportunities are everywhere and for everyone, and every challenge and difficult situation is a new chance and a new opportunity. But I still want to tell you about the trip to the gallery so that you can understand what I mean. I was very happy and grateful that I visited the gallery and saw the original works of Monet, Van Gogh, Cezanne, Titian, Renoir, Degas, Picasso...., all those geniuses whose work I appreciate and love, whose works inspire me and delight me. Standing next to their paintings is almost like going on a date with them - although they have long since died, indeed, geniuses live forever, their energy and strength, their outlook on life, and their vision of the world are still transmitted through their paintings. I contemplated and enjoyed them, I thanked them for their work and their path, and I talked to them in my mind, asking them questions and miraculously receiving answers.

More than the paintings of famous artists and geniuses from all over the world and all eras, I was impressed by the atmosphere and people. Many people just sat or stood by the paintings for hours, I managed to go around several halls, and when I returned, for example, to Van Gogh, the same people could still be sitting there and contemplating silently. Many people sat alone on the floor and painted, some wrote, or perhaps took notes, and some came close to the paintings and examined each brushstroke on a molecular level as if through a magnifying glass or microscope. But most of all, I liked the school groups, and maybe even the kindergarten groups don't know for sure, some of them were very, very small on their appearance. They would sit like "small peas" on the floor, forming a semicircle around the painting, and the teacher or gallery expert would tell them a story about the painting, the author, the time, and the room. He was so enthusiastic and interesting that I stopped and listened for twenty minutes with my mouth open and my eyes wide with interest, just like those little children. Walking on and entering the hall where a huge Monet painting hung, I thought: "This is a real childhood!" I don't remember what I saw first - Monet or fifteen or twenty children in identical uniforms standing and sitting by the painting, while their teacher told them about Monet and his style. At that moment, I felt great joy for them and the same great longing in the form of a hole for a life of lost opportunities for myself and people like me. None of the children born in the Soviet Union had such a childhood - there were no school trips to galleries every week where you were told everything so interestingly that you listened with rapt attention and open mouth for an hour and did not ask when it would end; but in Soviet childhood, in school, teachers made it clear to you many times how stupid you were, how inept you were, humiliating you in front of the whole class and praising the favorite ones. When you graduate from school in Soviet and post-Soviet society, if you are not a favorite one, you feel a huge hole full of complexes, pain, and trauma, which you carry with you all your life, and do not even know that all this junk needs to be thrown away forever.

A life of missed opportunities is when you are 40, or whatever age you are now, and you realize that you will not be able to go back to kindergarten or school and get a different experience at your age, so you can still go to university, get a different education, like you can do many other things, but you will never have the childhood that other children in other countries have and had.... Everyone who was born in the Soviet Union and even after its collapse is traumatized and infected by this ugly "soviet pill," and the sooner a person realizes this, the easier it will be to change. I saw the ugly "soviet pill" in myself only when I started living abroad, it becomes very obvious in other conditions, and by the way, my "soviet pill" was not obvious and was so deeply hidden that I did not see it all my life.... With tears and physical pain, I am uprooting this shit from me, because I don't want even a small hint of post-Soviet trauma or identity to remain in me and my DNA. And this work is not just about working on myself, it's about being honest with myself first and foremost, and without honesty, nothing will happen. If you do not see darkness and negativity in yourself and you are not His Holiness the Dalai Lama, I have bad news for you - you are in a deep state of sleep and living in a complete illusion.

And concerning the gallery.... It is really beautiful and amazing, I would like to visit it much more often, not just once in my life. I would like to sit like that children with my classmates around Monet and listen to my teacher with my mouth open in delight, or just draw or write.... Unfortunately, I cannot change my childhood, but I am very sincerely grateful that other children have a different childhood and I sincerely want all children on Planet Earth to have a different childhood, not post-Soviet, not relatively independent, and not in the war or post-war period, but a free independent happy and creative childhood, in which talents are cherished like a pearl; and talents are in every child until these inner talents are killed by adults.