Then I found myself at the faculty of industrial design.
I thought that I will not make it in the “big art”, that I was not ready.
I did not think much about career (I hate this word), I was in love,
I was in the power of great ideas and had to please my parents,
who spent a lot for my upbringing and studies.
But I did like painting and decided to change my path and become an Artist.

The first year was joyful. For the first time in my life I had been successful.
Where I could not made it neatly, my creative thinking helped.
Studying the design gives an excellent basis and freedom in composition.
But it was not what I really was interested in.
Students of art department seemed gods to me and I wanted to join them.
I was painting and drawing without stop and finally, in 2003, I was transferred to the Art department.
I was 18 years old and I got married.
Other people were familiar with oils, but I missed an important year in technique of painting.
As you know I never asked for advice and the first year turned into a torture.
The problem was not only how to paint, but even the paints I used would not lead to success.
I was lucky, although, to study with really talented students.
We were fans of painting.

During my study, I gave birth to 2 boys.
I had conflicts with teachers. I did not stand critics and suffered from it in silence.
I was at the edge of failure. For two years I did not paint at all.
But then Eldar Eshaliev offered me to open a workshop with him.
I am very grateful to him for this. He gave me a dozen of advice, encouraged me.
There are some people whom you never know how to thank because they give yourself to you.
So, running from workshop to my children, I became an Artist.
Having found myself in a fortunate situation,
I mastered elementary elements of oil painting,
the first principles I gained from longtime knowledge of composition, 
to revive and to gain strength. At 23 I earned my baccalaureate diploma.
At age 24 I started to teach the students, and what I have is not bad, as it turned out,
because I knew well what is impossible and how to get something out of it. 

But one question for me always remained: What is the meaning in my activity?
Absence to an answer to this question impeded me from rushing into my art with full force.
I think it also impeded me in college and in secondary school.
Self-expression for me does not appear to be a worthy objective.
The phrase of a favorite writer, "Beauty will save the world," consoled me but did not uncover the point.
It was most terrible to wallow in frivolity.
(Art balances between two precipices --- frivolity and propaganda.
On the crest of a ridge where the great artist moves forward, each step is an adventure, an extreme risk.
In that risk, however, and only there, lies the freedom of art. --- Albert Camus).
I found the answer from Vonnegut. He wrote that an artist was like a signal of the society in which he lived.
The Artist feels, composes and reflects what he senses.
Look! Each stage in the development of the humanity is discovered through works of art, creativity, myths, folklore, music.
The art cannot be studied apart from the person or epoch.

Consequently the Artist is a philosopher, looking at the process in general and sharply responding in particulars.
Composition . . . in general, the philosophical kind of activity . . . the Artist is a conductor, a nerve center, etc.
Up to now I have done much guessing in terms of meaning.
And I have rushed to write without taking time to dream or rest.
And anything I have again is impossible. But now I know to what to do.
And I love the pictures, knowing how much work, feeling and ideas I have put in them.
Each work is a step. I often change my style of painting, throwing out favorite colors,
searching continuously for this damn painting, that I give it so much time I cannot leave anywhere because,
as is the case with the big sports, a week without training means a month of restoration.
I find an outlet in my students that I cannot tell, for while I am a great teacher,
my greatest joy is sharing new ideas with children as come across them.
At present I have taken a great interest in psychoanalysis, which I try on my students,
as it is possible to address the subconscious for what to display most,
that it become full of treasured subject matters. To be freed from worry.

I look for the technical process in the work, the way in which the image was inspired.
Well, in general it is my small joy, keeping my Saturdays busy.
I am proud that at times students come by to ask for advice.
One fine student works with me almost the entire year. Her paintings are all better and better.
One year ago she wanted to toss them all, but that was not possible.
Having completed such a complex way of training,
I would always like to precisely understand the problem and promptly solve it.
To reveal to a student something to which is intrinsic to him.
By the way of that miracle in 2012, I received a professional diploma.
But as often happens, to me it didn't really matter, although I was very much delighted that things ended so well.
Now my dream is to create my school, following the sample of a medieval guild.
And to create at least one masterpiece.

I have everything which a person can have and everything which an average Artist encounters -
depressions, tortured creativity, failed family life, unfortunate and happy love, losses, finds,
envious persons, friends, enemies, victories and defeats, search of meaning,
insomnia, the wear and tear of work, despair and narcissicm.
There is hope that all is not done in vain and that one day the effort will come to fruition.
I try to enrich my inner world the most, to make it responsive,
for images to become deeper and more expressive.
Most of all I love Kurt Vonnegut, Dostoevsky and the artist Andrei Tarkovsky.
A couple of years ago I rediscovered the work of Erich Fromm, which explained to me about human nature.
I don't eat meat. I adhere to leftist, radical viewpoints, and I love children very much.