Hey, I'm Mawt! Born in Moscow, spent my formative years in St Petersburg, working as an ESL teacher and living in Eskişehir, Turkey with my husband.

Couchsurfing used to be an essential part of my life as both a traveler and a host, but I haven't been active in recent years.

Interests

• culture
• literature
• poetry
• folklore
• womens rights
• wine
• vegan
• music
• animation
• anthropology
• teaching
• etymology
• history
• languages
• psychology
• hitchhiking
• cinema
• linguistics
• lgbt
• gastronomy
• graphic novels
• social studies
• comic books
• ethnography
• stealth camping
• lgbtq+
• bookstores
• protesting
• documentary film
• book crossing
• western animation

Music, Movies, and Books

Music:
emo, post-hardcore, melodic hardcore, punk rock, pop punk (don't judge me), folk punk, post-rock, experimental, indie
__________________________________________________________________________________________________
Literature:

Into non-fiction recently (gender studies, political studies and political anthropology, social anthropology, economic anthropology). Fiction-wise, I'm into Italian literature A LOT, and here's a list of my all-time favorites:
Probably everything by Italo Calvino
'L'Écume des jours' by Boris Vian
'Balthazar and Blimunda' by José Saramago
'Everything is illuminated', 'Extremely loud and incredibly close' by Jonathan Safran Foer
'The twins trilogy' by Ágota Kristóf
'Catch-22' by Joseph Heller
'The suitcase' by Sergey Dovlatov

Also, INDIE COMIC BOOKS! I love collecting print comics and getting to know local comic artist scenes. No marvel/dc or weeb shit, please.

+ A huge advocate of book swapping/book crossing. Also, a huge sucker for second-hand bookstores and public libraries (any tips will be most appreciated).
__________________________________________________________________________________________________

Movies: mostly documentaries recently.
All-time favorite movie? 'Rocky Horror Picture Show'!

Favorite animation films:
'Persepolis' by Marjane Satrapi, 'Sita sings the blues' by Nina Paley, 'Le chat du rabbin' by Joann Sfar, 'I married a strange person!' by Bill Plympton, 'The Prophet' by Roger Allers, some works by Michel Ocelot and Jean-François Laguionie
__________________________________________________________________________________________________

TV series: lots, mostly sitcoms.

It's always sunny in Philadelphia, Trailer Park Boys, Parks and Recreation, The Office (US), Seinfeld, Bojack Horseman, Scrubs etc.

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

Hitchhiked with an ISIS fighter, slept in a remote desert wrapped in the goat skin, spontaneously visited the residence of one country's king, stayed in the house of a security guard of a well known war criminal and human rights violator... Just to name a few (the 'amazingness' of those, however, is highly debatable).

Teach, Learn, Share

Can teach you Russian, English, or basics of East African languages (if you ever need them).

Countries I’ve Visited

Albania, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, Iran, Jordan, Lebanon, Macedonia, Russian Federation, Rwanda, Serbia, Turkey

Countries I’ve Lived In

Russian Federation, Rwanda, Turkey

•