The Russian writer Vladimir Nabokov once said: In a Democracy, portraits of a nation's leader should never exceed the size of a postage stamp. That won't happen so quickly in Russia.

The word "people" is unpleasant to me. The phrase "Soviet people" was drummed into us from childhood on. I love concrete people, enlightened people who live conscious lives and do not simply sit there and vegetate. To love the people you have to be the general secretary of the Communist Party or an absolute dictator.

The Khodorkovsky case is typical of the "oprichnina" - the system of oppression.

As a child I perceived violence as a sort of natural law. In the totalitarian Soviet Union, oppression held everything together. It was the sinister energy of our country.

Orthodox churches, autocracy and national traditions are supposed to form a new national ideology in Russia. This would mean that Russia would be overtaken by its past, and our past would be our future.

Germans, Frenchmen and Englishmen can say of themselves: "I am the state." I cannot say that. In Russia only the people in the Kremlin can say that. All other citizens are nothing more than human material with which they can do all kinds of things.

As a storyteller I was influenced by the Moscow underground, where it was common to be apolitical.