It seems that they are trying to stop all of our activities, because of course without money we can do nothing.

It always goes badly for Russia. It's bad when we don't have money and bad when we do.

The authorities make it sound as though we're instructing people to build barricades. But we are engaged with things that would not be considered partisan political activities in any developed country, such as holding classes to teach proper political debate, respect for law, civic cooperation, and tolerance.

I don't want to be a Cassandra, but I fear the entire nonprofit sector in Russia is facing dark times. There is spy mania in Russia, and they are specially scrutinizing any organization that has foreign funding.

We are trying to keep ourselves from panicking but, of course, there is fear.

The 'Hercules' role just kind of came to me, but I had a lot of fun trying something new.