I recently listened to a radio programme More or Less on BBC Radio 4 where they talked about whether birds started singing more loudly. It surely felt this way in spring 2020 when during the lockdown in London birds were having a field day. It turned out that birds weren’t in fact signing more loudly: if anything, they didn’t have to strain themselves in the absence of traffic and other human noise pollution. Ordinarily, birds have to raise their volume to get heard but this spring we happened to make their job easier by giving them a platform to express themselves with gusto. 

In the aftermath of the murder of George Floyd in Minnesota and the rise of #BlackLivesMatter movement in the US, UK and globally, some may wonder why black people are shouting. The answer is simple. They are protesting and rioting because otherwise they cannot get themselves heard. They have tried and tried, but little has changed. They are shouting in desperation hoping that this time the rest of us will listen.

I sat down to write this not because I want to teach someone a lesson - there are plenty of preachers out there on social media summarising #BlackLivesMatter into neat Instagram images. I’m writing this, like pretty much every Life Tonic I’ve written to date, to process this matter myself. Writing helps me so after watching and reading and talking and listening, I sat down to put my tangled thoughts down. 

I’m pretty sure I haven’t figured it all out and that’s OK. There is plenty I don’t know. I wish our leaders admitted that more often. It’s OK to make mistakes. It’s not OK not to try to do something when our fellow citizens are risking their lives amidst the pandemic to campaign for change.

The first #BlackLivesMatter message I heard loud and clear is that we, white people, need to shut up and listen for a change. I did some DIY over the weekend, a rather thought-provoking activity, as it turns out, and found myself contemplating my white privilege. It sounds funny only if you haven’t thought about it properly. 

White privilege quite simply refers to the fact that white people don’t have to deal with negative assumptions made about them based solely on the colour of their skin, whereas black people experience it every day. Black people have to “prove themselves” in everyday situations because of the prejudicial assumptions made about them at work, on the street, etc. Someone put it well: white privilege doesn’t mean your life isn’t hard, it just means that the colour of your skin isn’t making it harder.  

I admit that I have not thought much about it before. Now that I have, it makes me look back and realise that black people have to make so much effort just to avoid some of prejudice they experience. I work closely with a black person who never swears and is exceedingly polite. In Small Island by Andrea Levy I read about black kids of the British Empire being taught manners by their mothers so that a white man could never find a reason to reproach them. Last week I cycled to Finsbury Park where a black man about to enter the gate ahead of me attempted to give me way. Why? I arrived after him. And I saw very clearly it was his habit to let people like me go through first. 

Another thing I learned about myself walking with a friend along the Regent’s Canal on Saturday is that the colour-blindness I pride myself in may be missing a point. I understand colour-blindness to be a virtue in that I see the person not the colour of his skin. Indeed, I never think of my people of colour friends any differently than I think of my white friends. And yet this means that I also choose not to see the colour of their skin and how it may affect their lives. I see a handsome, successful, interesting to talk to Goldman Sachs banker but not what it might feel like to be one of the very few people of colour at the top of that institution or what it took him to get there. I see a beautiful, fun-loving, exercise junkie I used to work with, but it never occurred to me that she was once explicitly told what kind of hairstyles were acceptable for a black woman to wear in our office. 

Having said that, I don’t know what to do with this new angle I now see. I tried calling a black friend and asking if she had a racism-free day and we both laughed. I don’t expect anyone to call me and say: “Any casual sexism you experienced today?” either. But perhaps we could all learn to open up a bit and talk about our experiences. 

Some say don’t make comparisons of your own experience to #BlackLivesMatter but I disagree. Comparisons is what helps us relate, understand and learn. Empathy isn’t something you can buy on Amazon, it’s a muscle which gets better with exercise. #BlackLivesMatter took over our lives in the same way #MeToo hashtag took over social media a couple of years ago. I will never forget that experience of seeing so many women posting their stories or just #MeToo on their Facebook walls. It was truly overwhelming and brought up some deeply buried memories. It was also life-reaffirming and gave me hope that going forward we won’t tolerate harassment, and the new generation of women especially would be brave to speak up.

I realised that watching a black man pinned down by a white policeman begging for mercy and the subsequent outcry from the black communities must have brought up all sorts of memories for people of colour. We are advised to check up on our friends and I tried. But that isn’t easy either. I struggle, for example, to find the right words for a grieving person, but formulating a text message about racial abuse is something else entirely. 

Yesterday the chief executive of my company invited all of us to write to him and suggest what we could do to make sure that Black Lives Matter. If there is thing you could do, what would it be?

I was sort prepared because I did spend some time thinking about it and bouncing some ideas off my friends. We talked about mentorship and even more importantly sponsorship of black talent, creating opportunities where rather than having a token black presence in governing institutions, companies and on screen, we should encourage and support people of colour to progress their ambitions. Plenty of such initiatives already exist, e.g. a friend of mine is involved in promoting greater diversity of undergraduates in Cambridge, venture capital fund Backstage Capital runs an accelerator programme to help underrepresented founders in the US and in London. 

But if I had to choose one thing with the widest reach and longest impact, it’s education. I’m not familiar with the school curriculum be it history, literature or arts here in the UK or in the US and I would leave it to specialists to educate us on that. What I have in mind are two practical ways we could try to reach everyone from preschool kids to pensioners promenading in Thanet.

First, we need to give black people a platform to speak while white people should just shut up and listen. 

Right now black people / people of colour talk in an echo chamber while we, white people, occasionally put black people on comedy panels, insert them into theatre plays, even elect them so we can pat ourselves on the back and move on. This is tokenism. 

Let’s give black people the platform. If you currently work in a company hosting regular Zoom meetings, invite non-white members of your staff to speak. Sure it requires some bravery but they don’t need to talk about racism. They could simply share their everyday experiences like the achievements of their kids or the last holiday they enjoyed and keep longing for during lockdown. Maybe the next person will talk about people who inspired them or how they felt when Obama was elected and how they feel now. Someone may even talk about how they taught their kids about racism and even invite white parents to share what they told their kids about prejudice. 

This is practical and I believe it could make a huge difference in a small way. 

Second, we need to create and market content which educates the public at large. 

There is plenty to cover.

For example, did you know that black women are five times more likely to die in pregnancy, birth or postpartum than white women in Britain? I listened to a Woman’s Hour podcast about it last summer and I still remember exactly where I was and what I was doing (hiking to Kilemche village in Kyrgyzstan). 

We need to inspire black kids to reach for the stars, teach them confidence, encourage all young adults to call out discrimination when they see it, prompt teachers to think harder about books and art works they choose for their pupils. 

I started following an amazing account on Instagram called @ablackhistoryofart. It’s run by a Cambridge student studying art who discovered there was no black art on the curriculum so she started posting works of black artists and putting interesting captions like what does a hoody symbolise or how does it make you feel. Next thing you know people will start buying paintings from black artists… or so I hope. 

Luckily, we now live in the world with an abundance of media platforms with films, TV series, podcasts, books, blogs, radio shows, plays, live events - all of these are capable to educate and inspire us to become better citizens. Why, even pub quizzes could include questions like “How many CEOs of Fortune 500 companies in the US are black?” or “What was the highest grossing movie made by a black director?”  or “Which sport is Simone Biles famous for?” or “Whose real name is Michael Omari or, if you like, Michael Ebenazer Kwadjo Omari Owuo Jr? (The answers are below.) 

I’m pretty confident that most people reading this are already doing something to educate themselves. Have you heard that Brit-ish, a book by Afua Hirsh has actually been sold out on Amazon? But let’s be honest, not everyone is like that so we need all types of content to reach every white policeman in Minnesota and every Wetherspoon’s patron here in the UK. We need broadcasters, publishers, movie studios to put some money behind content highlighting black lives, and we, as consumers, need to spend our money so that it becomes not just a nice thing to do but a profitable thing too. (Here is an independent publisher which creates shelf space for diverse writers.)

If this ended up being a long article, this is by no means all. I'm still thinking and processing it all and I hope I won’t ever stop. All thoughts and ideas welcome. 

Answers: 4; Black Panther; Gymnastics; Stormzy 

It's topic du jour and I too decided to try my luck as a clairvoyant.

1. Life will largely go back to normal
Every time I go travelling to some remote place where life is slower and everything is cheaper, I come back to London resolved to spend less money on such extravagant things as takeaway coffee and workout classes when I could easily go for a run or find something on YouTube. I vow not to buy clothes and cycle to work more often. I promise myself not to order overpriced wine at the theatre and just enjoy the art. These resolutions don't last a week.

Let's face it: once we are allowed to go out again and go back to some modified version of the previous routine, life will largely go back to normal. Sporty people will exercise more, couch potatoes will abandon their attempts at Zoom yoga as soon as the hype dies down. Health evangelists will buy organic, cook from scratch and monitor their quality of sleep, while the rest of the population will live off Deliveroo and easy meals. People who love being sociable will organise parties, BBQs and pub quizzes. Introverts will stay at home loving the fact that they choose, rather than are forced, to do so. 

Postmen, bus drivers, doctors and nurses, cash till operators and rubbish collectors will get their thank yous from people who always thank them. They will still be shouted at by some others. 

Someone I knew had bone marrow cancer. He was an investment banker - a stressful job with long hours, unhealthy lifestyle and superiors with pretty poor management skills. He recovered... and went back to banking. Plus ça change. 

2. Cash will be out
It's been a long time coming and finally cash economy received a fatal blow. I predict that in developed economies we'll go completely cashless just like they did it a decade ago in Iceland. Here in Britain some retailers were still insisting on minimum spend to accept cards, while some self-employed demanded cash for their undeclared services. The UK government offered a rescue package to self-employed promising to pay up to £2,500 a month or 80% of the average monthly profit for the last three years to anyone with trading profits of up to £50,000 a year. That is incredibly generous - if only every hairdresser, handyman and cleaner was honest with the taxman in the first place. 

I hate carrying cash and have been long applauding businesses which went "card only" before the lockdown. Portable card readers, card companies and mobile-only banks will benefit from going cashless as will we all from avoiding dirty banknotes.

3. Gloves will be in
When did we stop wearing gloves? In the last novels I read set in Russia in the XIX century and in the 1948 England upper and middle class women wore gloves. I predict that pretty summer gloves will soon pop up in your Instagram feed. 

4. Telemedicine will finally become widely adopted
Lockdown is a strange time. You get a cough or chest pain and yet because you aren't critically ill - gasping for breath or unable to bring down high fever - you can't see a doctor with a stethoscope. This is definitely not normal. However, when I wasn't well, I was able to call my GP surgery and a doctor called me back using WhatsApp's video function. I received medical advice just an hour after I called for help and I got it remotely. Normally, it takes 7-10 working days for me to get an appointment, and then a GP would refer me to a specialist. That is nonsense. Clearly, there are lots of conditions which need to be examined face-to-face and you can't get a jab remotely but telemedicine is extremely useful to deal with many maladies. 

What's interesting is that my GP used WhatsApp. Perhaps fancy telemedicine startups like Babylon Health have overcooked their solutions to the most acute problem - access to a doctor. 

5. What good leadership looks like will change
I don't read many Harvard Business Review articles on management and leadership, yet it's impossible not to pick up on an academic shift away from charismatic "save the day" superheroes towards practical, empathetic kind of leaders we really need.

Covid-19 set the world to rights.

In politics, caring, compassionate, decisive and prudent leadership of Angela Merkel and Jacinda  Ardern appear in stark contrast to high octane, shambolic, "essay crisis" style of Boris Johnson and Donald Trump. Vladimir Putin who has self-isolated in a cosy dacha with open fire and pretty Easter cakes will hold on to power but he will never recover his popularity. 

In business, it's managers who overcommunicated, showed empathy and acted early and decisively, will harvest staff loyalty, productivity and better performance from their teams. We will see a shift in values in all spheres of life which will hopefully trickle down to electoral booths.

6. Masks will become ubiquitous
Do you remember when we were first ordered to organise toiletries into 100ml bottles and take just a small bag of them on a plane as hand luggage? We aren't quite convinced it helps prevent terrorist attacks but we got used to travelling this way. We don't mind it much at all. 

Masks will probably be enforced on public transport, flights and, who knows, perhaps even in theatre. Entrepreneurial folks will be selling masks outside popular attractions like Sagrada Familia or Pyramids of Giza. Why, I can even see a basic face mask included in the entrance ticket to Westminster Abbey!

Masks are uncomfortable and I would much rather have a shift in public consciousness so that contagious ill people would stay at home than potentially infect us but unless companies make it a rule that you mustn't travel to then office if you are sick, unless yoga studios allow you to cancel a class for free last minute if you wake up feeling unwell, people will keep "soldiering on" and spreading the viruses in public places. 

I remember getting my nails done in December. The technician was ill with watering eyes and sneezing constantly. She wasn't wearing a mask. I could either lose money (because I had booked in advance) and risk ending up without a manicure in the busy pre-Christmas period or I could hope for the best. I stayed and luckily I didn't get infected, however, I will never behave so carelessly again. Nail art might be someone's livelihood but not at the expense of my health. 

7. Content will forever be king but it will change
You know when someone recommends you a novel or a TV series and says: "You've got to persevere a little bit, it gets better after the first 100 pages / couple of episodes." Such stories will not survive.

We are already spoilt for choice when it comes to books or filmed entertainment because it takes just a couple of clicks to order a new book on Kindle or check out a new show on Netflix. The lockdown caused by the pandemic has also had an effect on our tastes. When I pick up a book, I want it to grab me and not let go (until it's mealtime). When I watch TV, I don't have the patience to persevere either. I want to be entertained and enthralled; I want a proper switch from BBC News. A kid put in front of an iPad by exhausted parents will have to get hooked instantly, and the same applies to adults. Storylines will have to become more gripping.

In fiction, I recommend Zuleikha Opens Her Eyes by Guzel Yakhina, Small Island by Andrea Levy or The Book Of Dust series by Philip Pullman. Watch Quiz (on ITV Hub in the UK) for filmed entertainment. 

8. Travel will become more of a luxury.
Travel is where my crystal ball betrays me. I want everything to go back to just as it was: cheap flights and hostels, low insurance premiums, frequent and careless weekend aways and the world staying open without travel permits and other virtual borders. But that's very unlikely. My rational mind tells me that flights will become expensive, hostels will be banned, travel insurance policies will become mandatory and expensive. Most countries will require you to produce a health passport showing that you've been vaccinated against Covid-19 if that's possible. 

Travel will become much more of a luxury, like it used to be for the generations before us. City breaks will be less popular than quiet retreats in the middle of nowhere. This is because Paris, London, Rome and New York will be full of masks reminding us of Covid-19 and the unease of the lockdown. By contrast, in nature it would be possible to surround yourself with mountains, meadows and the sea and pretend that the pandemic of 2020 never happened. 

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About a week ago I was having a conversation with someone about a Russian friend of mine - a beautiful woman and a successful entrepreneur who had to kiss a few frogs before she had found her prince. It's not uncommon for intelligent, ambitious women to struggle to find a match: men are said to be intimidated by them. The man I was talking to suggested his own explanation which relates to Russian women in particular. "Russian women", he said, "are guilty of double standards. On the one hand, they want equal rights and opportunities but on the other hand, they expect men to do the DIY and buy them roses." Is that true? Are Russian women and women in general who want to get on in life but choose to look and behave in a traditionally feminine way guilty of having their cake and eating it?  And what should we do to avoid the unhappiness such alleged double standards cause us? 

Fortunately, the answer came to me just a couple of days later. I went to the Harold Pinter Theatre to see Conor McPherson’s new adaptation of Anton Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya. The play, written in 1898 and widely performed ever since, goes some way to explain the female psyche we desperately need to change. 

In the play Sonya and her uncle Vanya manage the country estate which supports the urban lifestyle of Sonya's father and his second wife, Yelena, a young and glamorous woman who dazzles everyone during their brief stay in the countryside.  Sonya is bright, hard-working and kind. She is hopelessly in love with the local doctor, Astrov, who is in turn obsessed with Yelena. Sonya is in despair. She thinks she is ugly, certainly in comparison to beautiful Yelena. She sees herself as a pathetic grey mouse doomed to spinsterhood. A modern Instagram influencer would have told Sonya to own her assets: her ability to run the estate and her generous heart. But back in the 19th century Sonya was up against the force no positive mental attitude could have beaten. I'm talking about the patriarchy. 

The patriarchy made sure that women were judged first and foremost by their looks. Astrov the doctor knew very well that Yelena was an idle, empty person. She did no work, she had no hobbies. She constantly complained of boredom yet she thought teaching peasants' children or volunteering at a local hospital would be pointless and beneath her. Her indolence disgusted the doctor but he was in love with her because of her looks. Sonya would feed him, cared for him and listen to his woes but he simply didn't see her as a woman. 

In a patriarchal society there is only one set of values - the one established by men. In Chekhov's play, Sonya had no chance. A woman's worth was set by her beauty and that paradigm has been internalised by Sonya and generations of women after her. A Russian woman does not need to go to the theatre to admire the timelessness of Uncle Vanya. By and large the society and its attitudes towards women haven't changed that much. 

A modern woman might not realise it, but she has been born with misogyny deep inside her DNA. How many times have you seen a woman wearing make-up at a 7am gym class? Last September when I told my father that Bianca Andreescu beat Serena Williams in the US Open Final, his response was: "The Canadian? Not a beauty, that one".  It is common knowledge that female politicians receive a disproportionate coverage of their outfits rather than deeds. The virtue of femininity is not just about the looks. Harvard researchers found in 2010 that voters in the US regarded “power-seeking” women with contempt and anger, but saw power-seeking men as stronger and more competent. No wonder female candidates in the current primaries are having a hard time to convince voters. 

The internalised misogyny is what's driving some women to play damsel in distress or appear less intelligent than they actually are because our society is still stuck in the so called traditional ways of valuing women for their femininity. A woman may well choose to play a role of a DIY ignoramus and to show particular appreciation for flowers just to fit the stereotype. In Britain, a third of women earn more than their male partners, and most of them lie about their salaries no doubt to preserve fragile male egos. 

Dear readers, it is our responsibility to change the norms we inherited from Chekhov's Doctor Astrov and his 19th century pals. When considering female politicians, let's assess their competence not their likability. When complimenting young girls, let's use "strong", "kind" and "smart" at least as often as "pretty".  Let's celebrate women's ability to choose whether to have children, whether to become a stay-at-home mum or return to work after maternity leave and whether to look feminine or androgynous.

​As a Russian, I admire the longevity of Chekhov's plays but as a woman I despair. I honestly wish that one day we'd watch Sonya's anguish and Doctor Astrov's blindness and think "I can't relate to that at all."

Have you ever felt that making a wish when blowing out your birthday candles is a bit pointless? I think I might have come up with a better idea… 

A couple of months ago I was travelling in Ethiopia, an incredibly diverse and interesting country with stunning mountains and ancient Christian churches. I loved it but at times I found the experience a little exasperating when kids in rural areas would run towards me chanting “Pen, pen!” or sometimes “Money!”. It’s been a while since I’ve travelled to a country where kids pester tourists quite so much. My guides tried to tell me that it was their way to practise English but if that were so, “Welcome to Ethiopia” would be a better way to start a conversation.

It might be that my experience of local people in the countryside of Ethiopia came in such a contrast with my recent travels in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. In Kyrgyzstan, when I was hiking in the mountain pastures and was passing a shepherd’s yurt, I was often invited to come in for a cup of tea. The locals would offer me bread and freshly churned cream and would absolutely refuse any money I tried to offer them as a thank you. Hospitality is of course something Central Asia is renowned for which makes travelling there incredibly special. 

Thinking about my experience in Ethiopia made me wonder whether kids who grow up asking for gifts become adults who expect them. It might be a crude extrapolation, but we can all think of people expecting to win a lottery rather than investing in their health, education or personal development. Indeed, our culture makes a habit of wishful thinking and I for one don’t think it’s a helpful one. What good would it do to remind yourself that there is something you lack?

Ever since I remember, I was encouraged to make a wish when blowing out candles on my birthday cake. I don’t actually celebrate my birthday that often but opportunities to make a wish are plentiful: think New Year’s Eve, shooting stars, rainbows, four-leaf clovers, five-petal lilac blossom, three cherries joined together by a stem, finding a lucky Russian dumpling, breaking a wishbone, finding a coin head-side up, crossing bridges, etc.. I would always ask for something grand and abstract. In recent years I’ve only ever wished to get my health back. You may say that my wish has come true as I’m now feeling much better but I have another explanation.

What has really helped me to live better with a chronic condition (I have myalgic encephalomyelitis also known as Chromic Fatigue Syndrome) is to accept it and then learn to live with it. One practice that really made a difference to every aspect of my health was to notice little things which made me happy and to recognise small improvements with gratitude. When I stopped working due to ill health I noticed for the first time that there were birds, mostly blackbirds, which sang right outside my apartment block in the very metropolitan area of London. Even on dark February mornings they sang! Previously, I never had breakfast at home. I would rush to work and grab something to gobble up in front of my computer. After I left my job, I was still waking up early and I would cook porridge or make a smoothie and take my time to have a pot of coffee, taking in my immediate environment. I also wrote a gratitude diary which would list three things a day, nothing more profound than “I’m grateful I talked to my mum today” or “I’m grateful I found time to read today, not just watch TV.”

A few years later on a holiday in South Africa I got up early one morning and climbed to the top of Lion's Head in Cape Town. I remember the profound sense of joy and gratitude I felt. It did not bother me in the slightest that some people ran up that hill and that they probably did that every day as their exercise routine. I remember feeling so happy – it was actually my birthday and there was no cake, no candles and no expectations to wish for anything more. 

So here is a thought: what if each time you blow out your birthday candles or spot a shooting star, you remember to swap a wish for a gratitude? Rather than wishing “to get my health back”, I would think “I’m so grateful that I have plenty of energy for a party with friends”. Happy thoughts not wishful thinking make us content.

Social scientists such as Tal Ben Shahar and Yuval Noah Harari have been writing on the latest scientific thinking on happiness. What I took away from their books personally is that we feel unhappy when we want something and we can’t have it (e.g trying for a baby unsuccessfully or missing out on a promotion). Conversely, when we don’t build up any expectations and live like nothing is amiss, we feel much happier. Learning to live in the present and appreciating what we have is key to a happy life. Fortunately, there are simple techniques to train your mind to get there.

Back in 2015 I wrote about gratitude being scientifically proven to enhance wellbeing. In his book 59 Seconds Richard Wiseman quotes psychologists Robert Emmons and Michael McCollough who conducted an experiment, investigating gratitude and subjective well-being (2003). Three groups of people were asked to spend a few moments each week writing. The first group listed five things for which they were grateful, the second noted down five things that annoyed them and the final group jotted down five events that had taken place during the previous week. The 'gratitude' group remarked on seeing the sunset or on the generosity of their friends. The 'annoyed' group wrote about bills and arguments. The 'events' group detailed making breakfast and driving to work. The results were startling. Compared to those in either the 'annoyed' or 'events' groups, those expressing gratitude ended up happier, much more optimistic about the future, physically healthier and even exercised significantly more. Similarly, research by Seligman, Steen, Park and Peterson (2005) suggests that writing a gratitude diary every day for a week makes one happier and more resilient with the effects which may persist for months.

I have recently spent some time with two ten-year-olds I have known all their lives. I am fascinated to watch them grow but I'm also wary about their personal development being shaped by the modern culture.  For example, both of them are already aware of different iphone models and the perceived status of owning the latest one. I'm not their parent but even I want to exclaim: “Don’t grow up too soon!”. I want them to learn to appreciate little things like going out for a proper Italian pizza or being engrossed in a book. I want them to learn to recognise what they already have and understand that much is possible if they put their mind to it. I rather they try and fail than simply day dream. But I know that the only person I can influence with some success is myself. From now on I’ll start counting rainbows as blessings and see whether that takes me to the proverbial pot of gold. 

How to read in 2020?

The answer is widely. 

Think diversity - not in the overused corporate virtue-signalling context - but rather in a sense of striving to consume many different opinions, expressed by people who live in a different land, age and circumstances. Travel the world through works of fiction and sprinkle a little foreignness onto your customary Anglo-Saxon fare. Take up new genres: a sci-fi adventure or a fantasy tale may well surprise you. Not convinced? Putin's latest move to give more power to State Council, a previously advisory parliamentary committee in Russia, surprised many. Interestingly, in his latest book The Secret Commonwealth: a Book of Dust Volume II, Philip Pullman described just such a move (and its consequences) by a scheming central character, Marcel Delamare. Still think children's fantasy books are not your thing?

Last year I was inspired to diversify my reading list as much as possible. Rather than choosing to read  more female authors (something male readers are statistically proven guilty of ignoring - a little hint right there!) or to vary genres, I decided to focus on international fiction.  I made it deliberately a little difficult: once I read an English writer, all English fiction was off the list until the next year. As a result, I simply had to seek out writers from different corners of the world. I did well. Here is a full list of countries I have "travelled" to last year:

Afghanistan (Kite Runner), Belarus (Chernobyl Prayer), Canada (Station Eleven), England (Lady Chatterley's Lover), France (Adele), Germany (Alone in Berlin), Iran (Persepolis), Ireland (The House of Names), Israel (Liar), Italy (I'm Not Scared), Japan (The Last Children of Tokyo), Kyrgyzstan (Jamilia), Latvia (Soviet Milk), Nigeria (My Sister the Serial Killer), Pakistan (Unmarriageable), Russia (Rock, Paper Scissors), Romania (The Land of Green Plums), South Korea (The Vegetarian), Sweden (Let the Right One In), Switzerland (Agnes), Syria (Death at Intervals), Turkey (Red Haired Woman) and the USA (White Houses).

That's nice stats. So what has made my reading journey so spectacular? Here are my thoughts.

I contemplated things from a different perspective. 
Russians and Brits alike love reading books about the Second World War. There is, if we are ready to admit this to ourselves, a certain comfort in a familiar angle. The Nazis are sometimes referred to as simply the Germans. The baddies are based in Berlin. You get the gist. A friend of a friend recommended I read Alone in Berlin by Hans Fallada, a classic novel about the grassroots resistance in 1940s Berlin. The original German title of the book is even more poignant: "Every Many Dies Alone". It is a devastating but also a humorous and a life-affirming novel which placed me in a seemingly unfamiliar setting. Yet some pages in I was nodding as I was reading about repressions, fear, neighbours who reported each other to the authorities and ordinary people being extraordinary brave. 

I felt humbled by my own ignorance. 
I was six years old when a nuclear reactor exploded in Chernobyl on 26 April 1986. It is now common knowledge that the Soviet authorities did everything to suppress the news and the extent of the catastrophe. Indeed, Mikhail Gorbachev, who was in power at the time, didn't make a public announcement about Chernobyl until after the 9 May, the Victory Day public holiday in the Soviet Union. Chernobyl disaster eventually made it front-page news but up until recently my understanding of it was limited. It was a tragedy for the Ukraine, which still bears scars. I had no idea though about the catastrophic effect Chernobyl had on Belarus until I read Svetlana Alexievich's brilliant oral history book Chernobyl Prayer: Voices from Chernobyl. 

I have read nearly all the books by the Nobel-prize winning Belorussian author so I should have known what I was getting myself into. Her books are without exception - painful, raw, brutal and shocking. Yet nothing prepared me for Chernobyl: I was in tears first few pages in. Perhaps, I am not selling this book well. It certainly isn't a dreamy romantic novel. Just trust me when I say this: read this book. It is the oral history of humanity set in a place few of us have been to or will ever visit. Travel there with Alexievich and let her be your guide. 

I felt inspired to travel to new places. 
Anyone been to Pakistan? Keen to explore Lahore? I am. Unlike my previous recommendation, Unmarriageable, a retelling of Pride and Prejudice based in modern day Pakistan, is a joyous and light read. The author, Sonia Kamal, has been obsessed with Jane Austin all her life. This is her tribute to the master storyteller. Kamal stayed true to the classic plot, but she also managed to fill her work with delicious Pakistani cuisine, local customs and wonderful philological tidbits. A middle-class Pakistani who speaks better English than Urdu is apparently colloquially called a "burger", while if your English isn't up to scratch, you'd be referred to as "paratha". Wonderful, isn't it?

I discovered brilliant books I should have read a long time ago. 
Ever heard raving reviews of a recently published book from several different sources and thought "I'm too cool to jump on this bandwagon, I'll let the dust settle first."? Me too. The more accolades something receives the greater my resistance. The thing is - books won't go anywhere. The good ones will stay and bring joy years later. Up until last year I have not read the Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini. Thankfully, as I was browsing articles with recommendations on international fiction, I came across this bestseller and immediately ordered a copy. It deserves every praise it gets. 

I read my first ever graphic novel.
I ran out of books during a weekend trip to Slovakia. Fortuitously, I stumbled upon a bookshop with an English section. It's always interesting to see what gets stocked in a fairly random place like Bratislava. Marjani Satrapi's bestselling graphic memoir, Persepolis was on the shelf.  It's the most delightful read and a great way to try to understand modern Iran. 

I stumbled upon a real gem. 
I was opportunistically looking through a book selection in a charity shop in Chiswick when I saw a slim volume with a familiar name: Chingiz Aitmatov. Aitmatov was a Kyrgyz-born Soviet writer, who wrote both in Russian and Kyrgyz, famous for his novels, such as "A Day Lasts Longer than a Century", but I haven't read anything by him myself. I bought his novella Jamilia and was deeply touched by a beautifully told love story. Russian prose like Russian classical music has an unmistaken cadence to it. Enthralling. 

I discovered people who share my passion for international fiction. 
I picked up a copy of Soviet Milk by a Latvian writer Nora Ikstena at Waterstones on Piccadilly. It was beautifully bound and published by Pereine, a publishing house specialising in contemporary European fiction. I enjoyed Ikstena's story about three generations of women in Soviet Latvia, which, by the way, made my weekend trip to Riga especially enjoyable. I also learned that Pereine Press runs a subscription service where you can sign up to receive their well-curated new books. Indeed, this model allows them to make bold choices, commission new translations regularly and let readers discover books outside the mainstream market. It makes a wonderful present too!

I hope I made a convincing argument to read more widely. 
​
"We need sometimes to escape into open solitudes, into aimlessness, into the moral holiday of running some pure hazard, in order to sharpen the edge of life, to taste hardship, and to be compelled to work desperately for a moment no matter what."

George Santayana said this about travel, but I think it relates to books too. 

If you are a young parent, there comes a time when you'll be explaining to your children how babies are made. You might buy them a book with child-friendly illustrations or give your own talk (you will still probably ask Google for help or buy a parenting book to find something age-appropriate). And so the "big reveal" will probably feature something like this:

Babies are made when a male sperm meets a female egg. Each man has lots of sperm cells stored in his testicles. A woman has internal organs called ovaries which release one egg each month. When a man and a woman make love, sperm travel from a man's penis into a woman's vagina. Man's sperm cells compete with each other to reach that one precious egg. Only the fastest and the strongest sperm manages to get to the egg and impregnate it.

There is another way to tell this story:

A female egg is sitting in the uterus and looking at all the male sperm cells swimming towards her. She selects one sperm she likes, temporarily lowers the chemical barrier, sucks the sperm in and raises the barrier once again so that none of the other sperm can get in.

Scientifically speaking, I have described exactly the same process, but notice how different these two stories are. In the first story, we have a "princess" waiting to be "rescued", and we applaud male strength and agility. The female egg here is passive, while the sperm is the noble warrior doing all the work.  In the second story, it's the female egg who is in control. She is there screening the candidates, making the selection and putting up her defences against the unwanted intruders. She isn't a "princess", she is the boss.

For me, this is a powerful example of how gender bias controls our everyday narrative. Until I heard the alternative story of conception (on BBC Woman's Hour), I have always thought about it as a male sperm contest. It's like suddenly realising that virtually all movies released in the last century starred glorious men with women in supporting roles. It's the same bias that we apply subconsciously when praising boys for their strengths and girls for their beauty. Everyday gender bias is invisible until we start paying attention.

It's 21st century: our society is finally focussing on the problems of gender pay gap; lack of diversity in business and arts; gender discrimination in sports and gender bias that exists in the seemingly neutral science and technology. What we need is to examine our language, especially when addressing children, who, like sponges, absorb prejudice in the environment they grow up in. Please remember to praise girls for their wit and strength and boys for their sensitivity and compassion. When discussing husbands or boyfriends, it's time women stop using such expressions as "Sam is helping me about the house" because Sam (bless him, he sounds like a keeper) is only doing his fair share of running a household. Try to notice when you are saying "Football World Cup" referring to men's football because it's time to be specific whether we mean women's or men's game. 

Many of us - men and women - want equality of opportunities and are hopeful for change. Yet change isn't something we should be expecting to come from the top. Our politicians, employers, filmmakers and scientists need us to act in small but meaningful ways to change everyday behaviour and narrative. They'll follow suit. Young parents, we are all relying on you. 

A new exhibition has opened recently at the British Museum in partnership with the St. Petersburg Hermitage Museum. Scythians: Warriors of ancient Siberia is a fascinating discovery of culture and customs of the ancient nomadic warriors, who flourished on Siberian plains between 900 and 200 B.C. Archeologists working in Altai in Western Siberia found a rich collection of jewellery, clothes, weapons and religious artefacts in brilliantly preserved tombs thanks to permafrost. One of the items exhibited by The British Museum is a woman's boot, dating back to the 400-300 B.C. It is intricately decorated with red fabric, golden thread and miniature crystals.  A helpful caption explains that looking at the boot we can see that it must have been customary for Scythians to sit cross-legged on the floor, otherwise why would the shoe soles be so richly decorated. Exhibition curators also pose a question: "What would historians learn about you from your clothes?"

The question is presumably aimed at children visiting the museum, but I too found it fascinating. What indeed will the future generation make of our clothes?

One obvious conclusion would be that we have too much stuff! A recent Telegraph article quoting the Great British Wardrobe Report commissioned by Ariel found that on average Brits spend £1,042 on their wardrobes per year. An average woman (man) owns 95 (56) items of clothing and only wears 59% (62%) of them regularly. Thanks to convenient online retailers such as ASOS and Boohoo and discount chains like Primark and TK Maxx, it became really easy to shop. Marketing specialists employ an army of influencers and social media tricks to encourage us to take our credit cards out. It's true that many speak today of sustainable fashion and decluttering, yet overall we are the generation of walking wardrobes, shoe collections and shopaholics. I truly hope the humans have peaked, and that the next generation will opt for a capsule wardrobe of sustainable, breathable and colour-changing variety.  

Zooming into London, future anthropologists would probably take note of the sheer variety of garments.  One could spot a Sikh wearing a turban, an American tourist with a Harvard sweatshirt, an Italian with a fitted monogrammed shirt and a Nigerian woman in a bright dress heading into church on a Sunday.  Personally, I stopped taking any special notice of unusual outfits on the streets of London. To me, diversity here is a given.  

Zooming even further, I would probably nominate my friend James for a future anthropological case study. You see, James has recently bought two pairs of vegan shoes. (We used to call this "fake leather" but veganism has crept into all sorts of aspects of our daily lives.) The scientists would determine at once that James was a dapper vegan who worked in the City (who else wears brogues?). 

Perhaps it's too early to talk about the historic significance of the 2017 fashion. Instead, I'm inviting you to travel back to Russia in the 1990s. The Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, and Russia was tentatively trying out free trade. The first wave of Russian solopreneurs travelled to Turkey and China where they had bought lots of cheap textiles and brought them back to Russia in giant zipped plastic bags. Open-air markets sprung near train and bus stations all over Russia. Solopreneuers displayed their goods with even less thought that Primark or TK Maxx do today. Even in harsh winter months women would try on dresses and jeans in makeshift changing rooms behind a plastic curtain. Visiting such markets became the favourite pass-time not least because for once in their lifetime, former Soviet citizens were overwhelmed with choice.

Inevitably, women opted for brightly coloured clothes, as if to banish their grey-coloured Soviet past.  Counterfeit designer garments with frequently misspelt labels were a popular choice. I too had a bright green crop top with black letters D&G imprinted on my chest. It was mildly scandalous to wear that to school at the age of 15 but most teachers had no will to fight our obscene taste. They also shopped at the same markets, and perhaps looking at young girls in mini skirts and tucked-in checked shirts, they secretly wished that they too had had a chance to dress so boldly back in the days.   

Men were undoubtedly the main victims of the 1990s fashion in Russia. Many wore sweatpants and trainers to the office or on a night out. A must have accessory in those days was a golden chain - its thickness signalling the relative importance of the wearer. Mafia boys in Ekaterinburg wore ludicrously thick gold chains with newly cast orthodox crosses and matching thick golden bracelets.

Curiously, despite all that newly found abundance, people still wore the same things. I remember that at some point many girls wore identical black, stretchy miniskirts; then we swapped them for thin and shiny black leggings. Men bought tight-fitting, black, wooly hats which acquired an obscene name pidorka (I dare not translate it). I suppose that we may have evolved since the cave days but tribalism is deep in our DNA as is the desire to belong. 

Thankfully, Russian dress sense has recovered, and I dare say that you'd spot more stylishly dressed women on the streets of Moscow than London today. My biggest regret is that I haven't kept any of the gems I had worn in those days. I'd open a museum called "Russian Fashion of the 1990s" where one could try on garish outfits and take Polaroid pictures home. There'd be queue, I tell you!

This summer I spent a couple of days in Yerevan, the capital of Armenia. It's a charming city, which gets scorched by the heat during hot summer months. In the evenings local residents and tourists fill up the centre of Yerevan, walking up and down the Cascade, an outdoor collection of modern sculptures from all over the world, donated by Gerard Cafesjian, a wealthy American benefactor with Armenian roots. You'll find visitors posing by Fernando Botero's works and snapping sculptures by Barry Flanagan, Lynn Chadwick and Jaume Plensa. In fact, even away from the Cascade, walking through many Yerevan's parks, squares and avenues, I kept bumping into monuments, commemorating Armenian and Russian writers, poets, architects and scientists. It felt as if the old town is a treasure trove of Armenian cultural heritage. I liked it very much.

Come to think of it, every city probably has a monument or two it becomes associated with. There is a Little Mermaid in Copenhagen, which transports me back to my childhood, spent reading Hans Christian Andersen fairy tales. There is the Statue of Liberty in New York, but also a Raging Bull on the Wall Street in Manhattan. There is Motherland Calls! (Родина-мать зовёт!) in Volgograd in Russia, commemorating the battle of Stalingrad in the Second World War. There is Romulus and Remus statue in Rome depicting a she-wolf nursing two brothers. And of course, there are plenty of religious monuments of all faiths all over the world, which also speak for the local customs and traditions. Every monument - be it sombre or playful, old or new - is a cultural symbol which echoes national values.

So what kind of values come to mind when we hear about a new monument to Mikhail Kalashnikov, the designer of the infamous AK-47 automatic rifle, which is to be unveiled in Moscow in September 2017? The 7-metre sculpture is said to cost 35 million roubles ($538,000). Don't get me wrong - Kalashnikov was obviously an ingenious designer, but even he was tormented by his own invention. In a letter to the head of the Russian Orthodox Church before his death in 2013, Kalashnikov wrote that he was haunted by the thousands of deaths his invention was responsible for. “My spiritual pain is unbearable,” he wrote. “I keep asking the same insoluble question. If my rifle deprived people of life then can it be that I … a Christian and an Orthodox believer, was to blame for their deaths?” It's not Kalashnikov that unnerves me - it's the commemoration of his gun, the weapons in general, the cult of war and, inevitably, of murder.

What kind of city or its government chooses to put up a monument which celebrates the act of killing? I imagine taking schoolchildren to see the new statue and instilling in them - what exactly? You see, I have been brought up on the cult of the Second World War, everyone in the Soviet Union was. We read books and watched films about the Great Patriotic War, the exceptional sacrifice of our grandparents; we were taught to hate fascism, to worship our heroes and to be ready to die for our motherland, should the need arise. And it so happened that later mere boys, who had been spoon-fed war stories, were sent to Afghanistan between 1979 and 1989 and then returned to their mothers in zinc coffins. To add insult to the loss of grieving mothers, there was nothing remotely patriotic about that war.

And so I have been hoping all this time that the cult of war has been fading in my home country, but the opposite is true. The new statues being erected in Russia are commemorating Stalin and now Kalashnikov. I see that and I understand it, but I can't accept it. My own values have changed.

If I were asked to come up with an idea for a new monument for a city I live in, here is what I'd suggest. Recently I spent a day at a Central London hospital, which for me was an oasis of unreserved kindness. I have been incredibly well looked after even despite the long wait and the nervousness about being in a hospital. It's as if the staff were wired differently from the phlegmatic, chronically stressed Londoners one accounts on the tube every day. My nurse came to London from the Philippines.  She works 12-hour shifts four days a week and a short shift on her fifth working day. A short shift means an 8-hour day. She was cheerful and gentle. She taught me what dedication to one's work really means. She was the model of empathy. She made me want to cry from the sheer gratitude to be showered with so much kindness. And so if I were to commission a new monument in London, it would be a work of art dedicated to a NHS nurse. Something life-size and approachable. Children would be taught to value our healthcare staff, diversity and kindness. And I hope adults too would nod with gratitude passing it by.

As for Kalashnikov in Moscow, I'm sure it'll serve its purpose and instigate fear cultivated by the current Kremlin government. I can only hope that one day Russia will earn its respect through its achievements in science and technology, education and healthcare, art and social justice.  

Right now a couple of friends and I having a pretty heated discussion about the upcoming UK elections: some are supporting Labour and its socialist policies, others are criticising Jeremy Corbyn and are querying his ability to execute the Labour manifesto. Debates on Facebook are a little bit pointless because everyone knows that your comment may be removed if your friend feels offended by it. Or worse: you yourself may be un-friended in one click. Another problem with arguing on Facebook is that typically you may be juggling several things at once like tinkering with a spreadsheet and typing which means your brain is never really fully engaged with either activity. Finally, a lot has been written about the silos environment created on Facebook, and it's very true: however different our views are on Jeremy Corbyn, ultimately my Facebook friends and I have a lot more in common than not. We are mostly in our 30-40s, well educated, independent and well travelled. We could learn something from each other but when it comes to truly opposing views or new information, social media isn't the right environment to challenge your views.

The best way to get yourself better educated is to read. Well-researched and elegantly written non-fiction books and long-reads published in reputable media offer an opportunity to consider matters properly, to digest the facts and to form your own opinion in the absence of social media buzz. Recently I came across a number of start-ups which summarise business and self-help books and deliver bullet point digests to those who "don't have time to read". I was astonished that these apps are gaining popularity. Who are these people who want summarised conclusions such as "sugar is bad for you", "meditation is good for you", "it's all about the feedback loop" without understanding why? Who are these authors who have spent years researching, writing and editing books and then agree to have them abridged into sound bites? Apart from getting all the facts right, reading in private (as opposed to social media reading) allows you to hide your ignorance, take time to think and make your own (as opposed to popular) judgement calls.

I recently read Sapiens, A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari , which could well be one of the best books I've ever read. If you haven't read it yet, order it now - you won't regret it. In his book Harari takes readers on a 100,000 year journey from the time when homo sapiens were just one of the homo species (alongside Neanderthals, Denisovans etc.) and to the present day when modern science (bio-engineering, cyborg engineering, nanotechnology, etc.) suggests that soon homo sapiens (us!) may disappear as the new species evolve to replace us. Last time I read about Neanderthals was at school and I was surprised to discover that we didn't evolve from them. Instead, about 50,000 years ago, Sapiens, Neanderthals and Denisovans were almost (but not quite) entirely separate species. Modern anthropology suggests that Sapiens drove other homo species to extinction (because Sapiens had superior social skills and technology - they cooperated, hunted and fought better than other species). Sapiens did the same to animals. It is us who have destroyed much of the the indigenous fauna of Australia and the Americas. I probably would have tried to hide my ignorance at a dinner party but reading a book gave me time to catch up on prehistoric genocide. 

It's impossible to take time to think about the role of capitalism in the foundation of the modern society because just merely saying the word makes some people's blood boil. Yet capitalism in its objective sense is nothing but an economic or political system in which means of production and distribution are privately owned (as opposed to owned by the state). Harari is able to explore the merits of capitalism dispassionately as a good academic should (and newspapers never will). The media are unlikely to ever say something like "I don't know", yet Harari examines the proliferation of patriarchy in all medieval cultures of the world, examines its possible causes and finally admits that none of the theories which attempt to explain why is it that men rule the world makes much sense. "If, as is being demonstrated today so clearly, the patriarchal system has been based on unfounded myths rather than on biological facts, what accounts for the universality and stability of this system?"

Much of the book is dedicated to religion. This is the matter we can hardly discuss in depth in a conversation. This is because it is very personal. Yet when Harari compares world's most prominent religions side by side, it becomes clear why Buddhism is today gaining popularity in the West. I would not want to be converted to any religion by some missionary, yet reading about a religion which recognises that human suffering is not caused by devil or relieved by god, makes me pause and listen. Buddhism is based on the idea that suffering is a human condition: "no matter what the mind experiences, it usually reacts with craving, and craving always involves dissatisfaction. When the mind experiences something distasteful, it craves to be rid of irritation. When the mind experiences something pleasant, it craves that the pleasure will remain and will intensify. Therefore, the mind is always dissatisfied and restless." Buddhism teaches to accept things - sadness, pain, joy - as they are, to live in the present and to practise meditation to help us do that.  It helps that modern neuroscience confirms the benefits of mindfulness Siddhartha Gautama had been banging on about around 500 BC. 

Let's fight the fake news and post-truth, sound bites and click bates by reading books (unabridged). It takes time, attention and dedication to read a book - the opposite is true for the Daily Mail headlines. To say that you don't have time to read is to say that you don't care about the sharpness of your mind or the quality of your judgement. I am convinced that readers (not zealous men of faith or driven entrepreneurs or ambitious politicians) is the one modern tribe that makes this world a better place.

You might be surprised to learn (I was!) that self-help books have been published in the US since 1776. It was Stephen Covey who had written about studying eighteenth century books, articles and essays on self-improvement, popular psychology and success in his book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. It turns out that back in the days scholars were focussing their attention on such postulates as integrity, humility, fidelity, temperance, courage, justice, patience and modesty as the foundations of success. Covey sites Benjamin Franklin's autobiography as a good representative of the historic personal development literature. "It is, basically, the story of one man's effort to integrate certain principles and habits deep within his nature." Covey concludes that those early self-help books were based on "character ethic". 

Shortly after World War I the dominant view of success in the US shifted to what might be called "personality ethic". "Success became more of a function of personality, of public image, of attitudes and behaviours, skills and techniques, that lubricate the processes of human interaction." We recognise this paradigm easily because in the past 100 years this latter view of success and personal growth hasn't changed much. We are still taught "positive mental attitude", "fake it until you make it", "sink or swim", etc. And more specifically, there emerged hundreds of books and "quick fix" courses on how become a "killer salesman" or "get any date you want". These tend to be manipulative, deceptive and devious - quite the opposite of the "character ethic" of the previous era. 

It's not that there is something wrong with learning how to speak in public by faking confidence before it becomes natural or how to write good copy by tapping into popular psychology. It's just that taking a step back and looking at the bigger picture shows a bleak worldview of people trying to outrun each other in the short term and ultimately failing to reach deeper, more important values in the long term. Consider this: an ambitious salesman learns a trick or two and enjoys success in the office before his habits of deception and cutting corners seep into other areas of his life. Before he knows is, he becomes a serial cheater and his idea of looking after his health is taking an aspirin the morning after the night before. By 45, he is deeply unhappy and unwell, his sports car and luxury lifestyle notwithstanding.  

Covey refers to "personality ethic" self-help literature as a band-aid which works well to fix things temporarily but which cannot solve deeply rooted, chronic problems or bring long-term success. His book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People attempts to draw our attention back to the core principles of integrity, humility and "win-win". 

I read his book in January 2017 just as Donald Trump had been inaugurated as the 45th President of the US. It occurred to me that Trump embodied everything that Covey (who had first published his book in 1989) had detested. Trump is the author of The Art of the Deal, How to Get Rich, Think Like a Billionaire, Think Big and Kick Arse, The Way to the Top, to name just a few of his books. These are bestsellers! It's no wonder a ruthless businessman with no morals or personal ethics was elected to lead the US. We should be wondering why so many Americans were surprised about his victory in the first place. Similarly, it's time to realise that populism in other parts of the world (whether it's "right" or "left") is the result of our culture becoming so obsessed with quick fixes and miraculous promises (I leafed through The Times on the tube yesterday and came across an ad which suggested that turmeric cured cancer.) It's our view of success - in its every facet - that desperately needs to be re-examined. 

You reap what you sow. It is now time to ask ourselves some difficult questions. When France goes to the polls tomorrow and Britain a month later, let's try to consider the impact of our vote on the lives of our brothers and neighbours. UK's vote to leave the EU was the selfish outcome for other members of the club who had enjoyed peace and economic cooperation for decades since the World War II. I'm not saying that we should not be putting our own agenda first, but I do believe that we ought to be taking a wider view and multiple factors into account when making decisions which impact other people (and our planet as a whole). And when I say "we ought to", I mean we can no longer afford to do otherwise.