Intro.

Having finally unpacked my belongings in luxurious apartment in the very center of magnificent Saint Petersburg - my hometown, which I left many years ago, without having the slightest idea of ​​all the wonders of life that awaited me ahead,

To me, closing a chapter doesn’t mean forgetting and moving on. I feel like I’m here to walk through life collecting the most unusual experiences and passing them on - to those who might find them, at the very least, interesting, and at best, truly helpful.

The past three years have been revolutionary for me - a chapter of deep self-discovery and profound mental healing. A period of coming to terms with my deeply contradictory and unconventional nature. It’s these three years I now feel ready to capture in a novel called Shaded Light - a story of how I embraced my shadow side and began shaping myself into a whole being.

It matters to me that the scenery pleases my discerning eye, that sounds caress my ears, that every cell of my body rings with the pleasure of the moment - even in times of heartache. That’s why the stories I create in my life are always full of beauty, sensuality, soulfulness, and a distinct philosophy I carry within me.

When I started writing this novel, I wasn’t entirely sure what I wanted to tell. I didn’t feel like inviting the reader too deeply into the study of my personal life. And yet, I didn’t want this book to be just another piece of entertaining fiction. What mattered to me was to fully integrate the experiences I’d lived through and extract every drop of meaning from them - so I could build upon that foundation and continue this fascinating exploration of life.

I want to share the moments that shaped the course of the story; to describe this experience in vivid, unapologetic detail so that my audience could not only feel it, but possibly use that knowledge; to pass on the wisdom that helped me along the way, as well as the practices and tools I developed in the process of discovering myself.