Drinking beer in a children's playground is an old Soviet tradition.

It's great to be excited by your profession, whether you are a doctor or a writer. I started writing books when I was in medical school and, by the time I graduated, I realized that writing was more exciting to me than being a doctor. And if I tried to be a doctor and a writer, then both would suffer.

Drinking beer in a children's playground is an old Soviet tradition.

At home the very walls lend you strength.

You're a big boy, you ought to understand that punctual transport, public order and safe streets, polite people and good medical services are all the achievements of dictatorship.

Love was something different. Love was pure delight, a fountain of emotions, sensual delights, and enjoying spending time together.

A writer who wants to be translated and published abroad faces a very difficult challenge: first of all, he must make sure that his book is cosmopolitan in the best sense of the word, that it is interesting to a global audience. Nobody is going to read about problems that they don’t care about.