Research clearly shows that visual arts can greatly reduce levels of anxiety and depression in hospital patients. It can also make significant improvements to health and wellbeing. Being able to be around art, to draw, paint, create can really help reduce anxiety in children. It's even been shown to make an impact on clinical result — it literally heals. I create two projects together with kids: 'The Avant-garde Zoo' and 'The Labyrinth'.

My other charity project 'Knit in Need' addresses another category of people not protected in Russia at all: the elderly people. This initiative also has a personal story behind it. My dad has severe and incurable Alzheimer's disease. He was a scholar, a very intelligent and kind person. I started the project of helping old lonely people in his honour.

The Labyrinth

Knit in Need

The Avant-garde Zoo

Сharity Projects

A hospital is a place where children, albeit temporarily, find themselves in a space of unfreedom. They have to play, eat and sleep strictly on schedule. They can't leave the hospital when they want to. The smallest ones stay with their parents; the older ones are alone. Adults understand that this is right: quarantine and hospital care is often better than at home. But for children, it is important that they were left without a family and a familiar atmosphere. Time moves slowly in childhood. What seems like an hour for adults is almost an eternity for children.

Russian poet Samuil Marshak wrote the brightest work for children on this comfortable unfreedom. In 1923 he made his debut with the book 'Kids in a Cage', one of the... more

The children's Department of the Bakulev Hospital commissioned this public art project. Its head Professor Leo Bokeria invented a unique open-heart operation called 'Labyrinth-3'.

I was inspired by the idea of the labyrinth that the surgeon has to pass through to get to the desired area of the heart. This is a difficult path where every mistake can be fatal. My labyrinth is lined with square bars in the cross section, which have different heights. The pattern follows the outline of the cardiogram of the heart of a healthy person.

Since this sculpture is located on the territory of the children's department of the hospital... more

When I was born when my father has already reached a very respectable age. I am a late child, and I am very grateful to him for having had me. He could have lived his life fashionably child-free and enjoyed it. But instead he became a very devoted dad. He would take care of me all the time: he carried me on his back when we went on tours up till I was nearly seven, he played with my toy theatre, he made up fairytales, he took me to museums, he read to me a lot, he played dress-up games with me. He celebrated my birthday two times a year - once in winter so that my school friends could attend, once in summer so that my dacha friends could be there. He was my best friend, he dedicated poems to me, he would check me at least twice during the night to see if my blanket was in place; he ironed my clothes on both sides, he praised all... more

Staying in hospital can be a daunting experience for any of us — but especially so for children. In my childhood, I spent a month in the children's infectious diseases hospital at the age of 7. It was an isolated institution where parents and friends were not allowed. And all the books and toys that I brought there with me had to be eliminated upon leaving the place. In the Soviet Union, the rules were very strict. Until now, it is one of the worst memories of my life. A lot has changed by now, but charity organizations and volunteers in Russia are still spending a lot of time and effort to break through the bureaucratic system in hospitals and organize events for children there.

Several years ago, when the charitable organization 'Another Atmosphere' offered me cooperation, I immediately agreed. It is important for me to provide personal assistance, to take part in the process, to figure out how to make the life of children in the hospital more fun and interesting. 'Another Atmosphere' collaborates with various Russian hospitals, organizing workshops and events with artists for kids.