“The black night calls my name”  

I was born in Russia in 1994. It was a turbulent period after the collapse of the USSR, known as the “wild nineties.” Though I was a child, the chaos of that decade left a deep imprint on me.

I vividly recall stepping over bodies of drug addicts sprawled in stairwells, the crunch of discarded syringes underfoot, my grandma’s scary tales about rapists, sectarian symbols on neighbor’s windows. Crime shows ran nonstop on TV, and every unexpected doorbell sent me hiding, as if it foretold the dangers the screen depicted.

Paranoia, like a low and constant hum, shaped both my perception of the world and, inevitably, myself. But what if, in fearing aggressors so obsessively, I unwittingly absorbed their traits? As I confront my blind spots, I dread discovering a monster born of that era lurking within me.

Trying to identify areas of uncertainty within myself, I come across the universal mechanism of unpredictability: the external environment influences us in ways that are impossible to foresee.