I'm a Russian. And I'm Just the Same.

The series titled I'm a Russian. And I'm Just the Same is a part of my bigger project titled Self and Other. It is not accidental that the attempt of my national self-identification is behind it. At some moment, having broken out through the “iron curtain” in the early 1990s, traveling over the world, I felt myself to be a “man of the world”, without any ties to my national roots. And I inevitably asked myself: why am I Russian? What do I have in common with other people around me? In what are they like myself? Am I the same, or am I different? And, last, but not least, why do we, Russians, unmistakably single out each other abroad, but prefer not to notice each other? As if we are ashamed of the fact that we are Russian. So, what makes us special? Or are we just like everybody else?