I mean that at least 80% of the Russian people feel destitute. It's the people who had their past and future taken from them - they don't get paid - many of them face a wall. They have nowhere to go.

Although I am no longer caught in the past, the future seems like a ridiculous thing to me. Try to catch it, hold it in your hand. It disappears every time.

You carry the past with you. Even if there's a before, and an after, in your life. It's still the same life. The trick is to build a bridge between that and what comes later.

You need to come face-to-face with the past, not as some naive, easily wounded boy, but as a grown-up, independent professional. Not to see what you want to see, but what you must see. Otherwise you'll carry around that baggage for the rest of your life.

Like other ghosts, she whispers; not for me to join her, but so that, when I'm close enough, she can push me back into the world.

You must go deeper into Russia - 150 kilometres from Moscow or more, and look there. The kids are fed with cattle feed - people don't get paid for half a year.