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[Alexandr Korol]

in a Russian megapolis, because it felt like people are more dangerous — people can betray you, set you up, there’s all this anger, envy, and bitterness. But there, none of that exists. It’s like nature is all in its place, everything is fair — as if, if you don’t harm the animals, they won’t harm you. But people? You don’t even have to touch them, and they’ll still attack you. That’s the paradox. Who’s really more wild? But again, this is just the kind of time we’re living in now. Of course, times are tough. People used to be kinder, no doubt. But if I focus specifically on when I found the places of power in Karelia and started walking through them and studying them — of course, that was a wow moment. I started to feel a presence, like someone was there... I started having visions, like something had happened there, that someone had lived there, like an entire city, or that maybe something is still going to happen there. It felt like there was something very specific — like... Well, I’m a dreamer, a creative person, right? So when you watch some magical adventure movie, I don’t know, The Wizard of Oz or The Chronicles of Narnia, you want to touch something magical if you’re a child — you want to find something like that. I know a lot of people from the CIS countries, and for some reason, maybe because of all the foreign movies, music, and cartoons, they believe that you can only find such things in England somewhere, like in a little village, that maybe there’s some kind of mystery. And they really think you can find something unique, ancient — where the last vampire is buried. But in reality, I was so amazed to discover that all of this ancient and magical energy, like finding some enchanted stone or portal or something else — it’s all right here, near Petersburg. And you really feel it, like you’re not just outside of time — you’re in an entirely different time when you’re in that forest. That’s what I felt. And it really felt like magic — in the good way, not scary, but truly magical. Something mystical or enchanted, like an otherworldly forest, an otherworldly lake, as if it holds some kind of secrets or mysteries, as if someone once lived there and now it’s all abandoned. And I loved sitting there outside at the table on the terrace, and it felt like I was on an expedition — with picks, compasses. I would lay out all the stones and minerals I had collected, wash them, clean them, inspect everything. I watched documentaries about all this, read scientific articles — it was amazing! Fascinating. Yes, it was wonderful, especially when a friend or one of the workers would join me. Then we’d go together to look for something unique or anomalous.