Alexandr Korol

And I felt this way about everything, about work and about people: either yes or no, and I lived by these feelings. But this is only in this magical world — you have to enter it to be able to trust these feelings like that. Back then, and I see that now, imagine, the same thing is happening — it is incredible — I thought it was because I was small and naive, but in fact it is the world itself, this magical one. Imagine, before, if I had money in my pocket — I did not want to count it, so as not to be upset if there was too little, or not to start thinking about how much there was, because then I would start to think, and I did not want that. I avoided everything that would make me think and somehow define things. I was afraid to know how much money I had and never wanted to count it or think about it, when I was young, when I had left home and lived on my own. And even when I earned money, when I first photographed and got paid, I did not need it. I was only afraid of one thing — that I had to pay rent, 20,000 rubles, later 25. My main concern was just to scrape together enough for the apartment rent, pay it, and that was all. I remember people would bring me food and worry about me, because, you know what is interesting about this magical world, what began happening again now, precisely when I am in this magical world? I forgot to eat. I forgot to eat and did not want to eat food. In the morning, maybe I would eat one small sandwich with sausage, with tea or with water, or with juice, and that was all. But if I got hungry, I might eat one cookie in the evening, just so it would not distract me.

And my attitude was — I remember — that I said this directly back then, and now I say it again the same way. But this comes from a feeling, not from my mind, not from memory. The point is, I recalled that back then I used to say that food seemed to distract me. How can one think about food, or spend so much time eating? I felt that if I sat down at the table and ate with people, I became dull somehow, because they had another rhythm there. They maintained that stale world through it. I always avoided thoughts about food, the desire for food, and whenever possible I would just eat some small piece of something, only so I would no longer have to think about food, so that hunger would not distract me. This is very unusual, and I noticed that the same thing began to appear again now.