I’m a production designer. I create sets for film, television, music videos, ads; at the moment, I’m working with Kirill Serebrennikov on the film adaptation of the Alexey Salnikov’s book, Petrov’s Flu. My father is an artist, and my grandfather is an artist — and I am my parents’ son, which can’t help but manifest itself in my work or in my abilities, which I probably got from my parents. I’ve never asked myself whether it’s Korean or some other culture, though, it’s just something within me that helps me work, paint, and create, and there’s no escape from that.

My mum is from Tashkent and my dad is from Stavropol Krai. My parents lived in a town called Izobilny (“copious” in Russian), and that’s where I lived all my childhood, too. My dad’s father used to work in Moscow, and it’s my understanding that because of the whole complicated situation with Koreans he was not allowed to hold senior positions and was sent to the south of the Soviet Union for the Virgin Lands campaign. That’s how he ended up in Stavropol Krai and, thus, so did my father.