In my younger days, during the Soviet era, I would have been considered an asocial type, for I was not a member of either Octobrist, Pioneer, Komsomol, or the Communist Party organizations. I certainly belonged to what Vaclav Havel called a "parallel culture"--a culture of semi-clandestine intelligentsia and artistic circles and notorious kitchen debate clubs. It might be a carry-over from the Soviet era, but even today (in the United States) I am not particularly enthused about any appointment-type social posts and prefer a free association of friends and fellow intellectuals., Since I received a Fulbright grant to Ukraine for 2007-2008, I had to pack my suitcases and move East for the next ten months to do research work for my doctoral dissertation entitled "Protestant Minorities in the Soviet Ukraine, 1945-1991: A Social History." For ten months I worked in the two major archives in Kiev, studying the Soviet era documents. Upon return home in the United States, I continued teaching various courses in history and writing my dissertation. I successfully defended my enormously long dissertation (934 pages!!!) in May of 2010 and graduated with a PhD the next month. It's hard to believe, but I am finally a Doctor (something that should have happened 10 years ago). I am proud though that as a son of a semi-literate Russian WW II veteran I still managed to receive the highest academic degree... I wished this degree came with a million dollars or something, especially given the fact that the job market this year is very poor and the prospects of getting a decent job are very slim...

History in general and Russian/Soviet history in particular; literature, poetry (which I used to write myself before I got into a graduate school), art, especially iconography in which I dabble a little bit myself; religious and (how paradoxical!) existential philosophy; woodworking and general construction (that on so many occasions saved my butt); guns, target shooting and, occasionally, hunting

Presently, I enjoy most of classical music, jazz, and folk music from all over the world. I especially like flamenco, but, in moments of nostalgia, I still listen to "Deep Purple, " "Pink Floyd, " "Akvarium, " "Kino, " "DDT, " " Mashina Vremeni, " Vysotrkii, etc

Monty Python's "The Meaning of Life" and "The Life of Brian"; The Russian TV series "Doctor Zhivago"; Stephen Spielberg's "Saving Private Ryan" and the series "The Band of Brothers"; "The Beast, " "The Lives of Others, " "The Devil Wears Prada, " "Enter the Dragon, " "Gladiator, " "Charlie Wilson's War, " "Atonement, " "Romance and Cigarettes, " etc

All of Dostoevsky, especially "Notes from the Underground"; Astafiev's "Veselyi Soldat" and Tatiana Tolstaia's "Kys"; Pavel Florenskii's "The Pillar and the Foundation of Truth" and "The Iconostasis"; Miguel Unomuno's "The Tragic Sense of Life"; Omar Khayyam's poetry; Camus' "The Myth of Sisyphus, " Sartre's play "No Exit, " Beckett's "Waiting for Godot, " and Lyotard's "The Inhuman"; most of Nietzsche's works; Thomas Mann's "Doctor Faustus" and Shakespeare's "Hamlet"; most of Victor Pelevin and Victor Suvorov; most of Edgar Alan Poe and Mark Twain, and so forth. Oh, and did I mention Peter Chaadaev's "Philosophical Letters"--perhaps the post profound and the most underestimated piece of Russian literature and thought

"Jay Leno, " "Mad TV, " "Saturday Night Live, " History Channel, Discovery, PBS, Travel Channel, The Animal Planet, any dog shows, "Seinfeld, " "Sopranos, " and some other shows that I often watch with my wife but cannot remember their names

"Man would sooner have the void for his purpose than to be void of purpose."
F. Nietzsche

"Man does not pursue happiness, only the Englishman does."
F. Nietzsche

"God made a major mistake when he tried to improve upon a dog and created a man."
Popular wisdom

"I live in order to die" sounds like a great slogan for an idiot...although it stands as the most self evident and scientific truth for all of us.
Alexander Kashirin

"Art, we've got art, in order not to die from the truth."
F. Nietzsche

Volumes have been written about the conflict between Faith and Reason, whereas from the point of view of practical wisdom, it is quite sufficient if one has either one or the other component of this classic dichotomy. The real problem arises when one has neither religion nor brains--these two most powerful instruments of self-discipline...That's how one becomes a moron, or "zhlob."
Alex Kashirin