Before I left Russia in 1999, I was living in a very poor factory town with my family and friends, and nothing was ever going to change.

I was born in Nizhny Novgorod to a very poor family and unfortunately my father and mother separated when I was very little.

The best part of work is always working with people and getting to know them and having the sense that you're not actually working.

I believe in reincarnation of the soul.

When you are at the bottom, you find beauty in such little things, and goodness in such little gestures. When I compare any struggle today to ones that I may have had in my childhood, there is nothing that can bring me down.

It's better to be skinny than to be fat.

When I was a teenager, I remember I wanted to put so much makeup on - it was just a natural thing over there. Why they do it, I guess, is because historically, there were twice as many women as there were men after the World War II.