I fell into journalism straight after university. By accident, you could say: I had trained to be a psychotherapist. But I got a job at a newspaper. At first, I was just intrigued, and then I fell in love with it. At the end of day, psychology and journalism have two common denominators. The way I see it, they both exist to make people more able to adapt, smarter.  They are both built on the discovery of surprising worlds, which often appear as if they can only exist in a separate universe. The only difference is in the perspective - one looks from the inside out, the other from the outside in. 

My career in journalism started in quite a modest way (but it was really fun) – I edited readers’ letters. After that I became a correspondent for the “opinions” column, before later becoming a staff writer for the international politics section. Then, one thing led to another: Reporter, editor, special correspondent, producer, and now, I’m an investigator. 

I have worked in many places and with many people. Among those are: Novaya Gazeta, Russian Reporter, Meduza, Afisha, Bolshoi Gorod, Citizen K, The Washington Post, Aftonbladet and OCCRP. I have produced documentaries and news stories for the BBC, Vice and France24 in Russia, as well as for RTS, CCTV, NPR and TV3 in Donbass and in Crimea. 

And almost all of these were important stories. Now, I will only be concentrating on those.