For more than 20 years now, I've been working across media, narrative therapy, and technology, driven by a passion to explore how stories can both connect and destroy us as a society.

The world is being narrated apart.

I was born in Russia and covered its slow decay into authoritarianism, powered by a 24/7 propaganda steamroller, disinformation, and historical revisionism. I saw firsthand how people, power, and tech shape & exploit human identities: the stories we tell ourselves and sometimes kill for.

Whoever controls the stories controls us. And that happens everywhere, so I'm researching what I call the Dark Side of Storytelling:

• Controlling & weaponizing narratives
• Cognitive warfare
• AI psychosis
• Memory politics

I'm also always hunting for stories of resilience and looking for the limits of narrative control.

I'm now working on Identity Looted, an investigative book on Russia's plunder of Ukrainian cultural heritage and the Kremlin's use of public institutions, museums, and AI in an attempt to rewrite Ukrainian identity.

Since March 1, 2022, I've been living in political exile from Russia.

Some facts & numbers:

• I have mastered all forms of storytelling: I produced four documentaries, two video games, and numerous multimedia features, and edited thousands of pieces.
• I’m bylined in Monocle, Eurozine, The Dial, openDemocracy, IWMpost, Woodrow Wilson Center, Novaya Gazeta, Meduza, GQ, Esquire, Forbes, Quartz, and many other media outlets.
  I'm an alumnus of the Milena Jesenská Fellowship at the IWM, the Klebnikov Fellowship, and the Leader in Exile Fellowship at the John Smith Trust.

• I've covered street protests in Russia, Ukraine, and Egypt, and filed features, interviews, and profiles from the USA, UK, Spain, Iceland, Ireland, Moldova, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkey, China, and Japan.
• I love making things: I founded a media publishing company, an online radio station, a storytelling school, a group support service, an indie game studio, and a narrative agency.
• I bootstrapped my slow-journalism outlet, Batenka.ru, into one of the most prominent independent media companies in Russia, covering the country's descent into authoritarianism, with 150 employees, $2.5M+ ARR, and 1.5M+ MAU. It went brutally bankrupt during the 2020 pandemic.
• I produced Peppered: An Existential Platformer, a video game that earned the Overwhelmingly Positive badge on Steam.
• I produced, compiled, and edited the only reader of Gay Talese's non-fiction writing in Russian.
• I trained as a narrative therapist to better understand how our identities are socially constructed, and have 500+ hours of practice.

I'm always happy to connect. Please feel free to email me at most@hey.com or find me on Telegram.