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[Alexandr Korol]

I just removed those scary windows, the plain white double-glazed ones, and put in windows like they have in England. I forget the name now, I knew it all when I was working on construction, but now it’s slipped my mind. These are the windows with the grid, the English-style windows that lift up. I also took out the horrible, dull brown door, the ugly metal one, and replaced it with a beautiful, bright, English-style door. And that’s it. I repainted the cabin, of course. I repainted everything inside as well. And so, I transformed it into a more modern level. And here, it’s not about one culture being against another. No, it’s much simpler than that. It’s about time. The cabin just exuded the past, and if you connected with that, it felt like you would erase yourself along with that past, like you would die with it. I kept the cabins in the same style, with the same triangular roofs, but I updated them as much as possible to a modern standard. If you Google or look on Pinterest for “Cabin,” “Tiny House,” “Cabin House,” you’ll find a whole bunch of beautiful cabins, with string lights hanging, a beautiful stove in the form of a fireplace, dreamcatchers hanging, cool ethnic blankets, palo santo, and all that. Well, I transformed it all into something like that — still in the 21st century, I’m a guy who’s not exactly from those old times. I’m modern, and I turned everything into something modern, to clear out that terrifying spirit that was there, that fading something that had been left behind. I kept the trees, of course, only the pines and fir trees. The big birches were left, of course, but those small ones, like in the swamp — why? I tidied up in that sense. And yes, the place itself, you see, seems like a swamp and all that scary stuff, but it’s clear that Karelia, the people there are poor. They’re on a completely different level of living, with different values, but that’s how it should be, it’s all part of the world-system, we need to accept it, there’s no point in judging it. So, my position was this: I’m not, you know, some blogger from Moscow who came there and is like, “God commands, bow before me.” No, I was as humble as possible, didn’t bother anyone, as quiet as a mouse. Everything by the rules, everything by the laws. I was open to the border guards, open to the city administration, ready to help everyone if needed. But still, some of the local residents, they started acting up: “Who is this? What is this? Why? Where did they get the money? Who are they?” Since I had long hair, they thought that meant I wasn’t a man, but a woman — this old mindset was still there. Well, let them think that. And many of them were taken by COVID, some remain.