CURRENT MISSION

To expirience as widely and deeply as I can the richness of, well, existence.

ABOUT ME

In three words: nomad book junky. Addicted to stories and travel. Born in Russia, raised in San Francisco, lived in Europe, worked for years in India, now existing in the medieval university town of Oxford in the United Kingdom. Studying the processes and contradictions of international development. Can't get enough of travel, especially outside of the west - love the colors and the chaos and the sounds, and most of all the feeling of possibility and the unexpected.

Interests

Reading (Jane Austen, the Bronte sisters, Tolstoy, Virginia Woolf, EM Forster, Herman Hesse, Evelyn Waugh, Jack Keroauc, Michael Chabon and Jeffery Egenities), making art and keeping a sketchbook, listening to any form of live music, but most especially guitar, cooking communally (especially various ethnic food), and of course travelling and living abroad.

• arts
• books
• dining
• cooking
• reading
• traveling
• music
• live music
• guitar

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

Spent a month meditating in a Buddhist monastery in Burma, in near total silence. Perhaps psychologically the most difficult and painfull thing I've ever done, but also one of the most cleansing and illuminating, forcing a degree of self-honesty and self-exposure I've never expirienced before. Not to mention self-control.

Teach, Learn, Share

teach: cooking - creating, recreating and reinventing the foods of various ethnic traditions.
learn: more of the above. also making music.

Countries I’ve Visited

Argentina, Cambodia, Cyprus, Finland, Greece, Israel, Italy, Jordan, Kenya, Malta, Mexico, Morocco, Myanmar, Nepal, Puerto Rico, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Thailand, Turkey

Countries I’ve Lived In

France, India, Russian Federation, United Kingdom, United States