HolaEco! team congratulates you on this honorary title. September in the Eco community was full of interesting and exciting events in which you took an active part, and I am very glad to have the opportunity to ask you a few questions and learn a little more about you.

Tell us about what you were doing before you became interested in the crypto industry? Is participation in various projects your main source of income or do you consider it as a hobby?

First of all, thank you so much for such an honor!

I graduated with a degree in heat supply systems engineering and I devoted the initial stage of my career to this work. I was lucky to realize very bold ideas, thanks to which I quickly grew up the career ladder. At the same time, I worked very successfully and profitably as a freelancer. I loved to travel the world and in 2018 I decided that I wanted to do tourism professionally, now it is our joint venture with my wife. And in the last summer, my friend suggested that I try to explore the world of crypto deeper, said that my lateral thinking would be in demand here.

Thus, today, I have as many as 4 types of activities, among which Crypto takes up 70% of my working time here. But while I cannot tell that Crypto is the main source of income, it is rather an investment in the future.

When and how did you find out about the existence of Eco? Despite the wide variety of projects, why did you choose this one? What, in your opinion, are the main advantages of Eco and what value does it represent?

I read about ECO project on the ICOdrops website. I was interested in the idea of the project to unite the world of “traditional money” and crypto assets, to create an alternative to the existing imperfect system of finance.

As for the value and uniqueness, I will say this: ECO gives us all an opportunity, a certain resource- Points. Yes, they are for research purposes only. Everyone implements this experiment as he sees fit, as an individual and as part of the community. And everyone will get what they deserve, I’m sure.

I am a moderator and an active member of the communities of several projects, but Eco is absolutely unique and my favorite. Eco has an audience both in the “real world” (app users) and in the crypto world (our community in Discord). I believe that mass adoption, which we are all waiting for, will start from here.

Here, by far, is the best and most lively community (thanks to Dave and Rob for their work, loyalty and kindness).

You have done a lot for the project and continue to implement your ideas and help other participants contribute to the project, are there any ideas or plans that you failed to implement and do you regret it?

YES, there is one idea that I could not implement. In winter, together with inny#6499 and Docdim#1444, we decided to create an NFT collection with a dancing robot. The idea was to create a limited collection and distribute them for free to active participants. We worked with Kristina, a wonderful artist who has done many other art for ECO in the past. But, unfortunately, the war in Ukraine deprived Kristina of the opportunity to work. Actually, I do not know how Kris is doing right now, I hope everything is fine with her. Of course, I regret that we did not succeed…

Surely you devote a lot of time and effort to the project. Have you ever tried to count the number of hours per day that you devote to the Eco Community in order to be useful to the community and track events happening on the server?

On average, 5 hours a day.
I’m not the most active in chats, but I work a lot and often with different people from ECO community directly or do something on my own.

I noticed that if challenges provide for the possibility of choosing to work in a team or act independently, you often prefer teamwork. Why?

I had managerial experience – I was the head of a team of 7 designers, often we had to solve difficult tasks together.

Since then, I am sure that one head is good, and two are mutations (joke).
In short, I am very comfortable working with people, communicating and finding cool solutions together. And there are a lot of cool guys in Eco, it’s an honor for me to work with them.

Are there people in our project with whom you have not yet interacted and would like to have experience working together?

Of course there are!

Of course, you need to understand exactly which task it would be better to work with, but in general, here is my list:
I would love to work with each of Heralds and Prefects, MikeWeb#6752, Dmitry Lunin#3302, Binn#4896, Irina2610#2451, Mark Tishkin#9749, Yaga#2981, Mewtwo#5956, qwizor#9876, yanmaragar90s#5177, k3100690pdi#0012, Lewis_08#6059, denverbeatsky#2298, facts parade#4191, makc_kr9#4533, Katya#4740.

And there are a lot of cool people, I just have a very bad memory for names.
And I would be happy to work with those with whom I have already worked before. and they know about it

You had so many different activities in the project. Tell us, which one are you most proud of?

Of course, EcoEducation. The idea of creating courses simultaneously arose from several people independently of each other. And I am very glad that we managed to combine all this and systematize it into a single Education project. The school is very popular and we are constantly looking for new ideas and opportunities: many people come to me with a request or a suggestion to add a particular course and this is very pleasing!

I am also proud of the idea of creating a Happy Birthday channel in which we congratulate birthday people. More than a hundred people have already told me their dates of birth, thank you all!

By the way, October 12 will be exactly one year for this channel, also a kind of birthday.
In addition, there is another idea that I have been preparing for a long time and now I am waiting for the team’s opinion.

Before I ask you a question, I would like to congratulate you. At the last Eco chess tournament, your students, led by you, took five out of seven prizes, this is an excellent result! I would advise anyone who finds chess boring to enroll in your author’s course! You really turned many people’s ideas about chess around and made them fall in love, as it turned out, with this very interesting and gambling game.

What does chess mean to you? In your opinion, is chess just a game or something more?

Thank you! I am incredibly proud of the successes of my students, especially Oleg’s (GdSt#8975) progress amazes me.

For me personally, chess is, first of all, a certain way. Following him, I discovered a lot of important and necessary things in life. In my youth, chess saved me from the streets. I grew up in a very criminal area of the city and could easily have gone the wrong way. But our brilliant coach Vladimir Melnikov managed to interest us and gave us a ticket to another life. His story is quite similar to the plot of a Hollywood movie. He independently opened a course in the basement, taught us for free. Among his students there is a girls world champion and several grandmasters of international class! I dedicated my course to his memory.

I also taught chess to both my sons and now we have our own mini club at home.

Since we are talking about chess, I would like to draw a small analogy. Everyone is looking forward to the launch and changes in the ECO. As an experienced player and an excellent chess player, do you have an idea about the future development strategy of the project?

A very interesting question! I like the pace and discretion with which the team is looking for its way, the way it interacts with its community. The important and profound tasks that ECO sets for itself can be achieved with a mature, conscious approach. It takes time to find the best solutions.
I am sure that the strategy of the future of this project is closely connected with us, with each of us. A big step forward is waiting for us soon. A very responsible step, I am sure, and before we get the long-awaited result, we will need to work together qualitatively.

I am very glad that among the members of the Eco community there are such friendly and responsive people like you.

At the end of our interview, can you share with our readers important and valuable thoughts and wish something to everyone who reads this interview?

Be more critical of your work, be the strictest judge of everything you do and be responsible for it! This is how high quality is achieved.
Don’t be afraid to try non-standard methods, experiment! This is how uniqueness is born.
And take care and protect your families. This is the main thing in life, everything else is secondary.

Lilishka#8053