At a certain point, you realize that he is mad; then you realize that he is magnificent—sometimes profound, sometimes tedious, but everywhere an astonishing genius. I feel love for Kalmykov. I am absolutely in awe of him. There is an extraordinary fullness in him, which allowed him to declare himself so boldly a genius and to leave behind an incredible legacy—around one and a half thousand paintings and sketches, and ten thousand pages of diaries and novels. He wrote that he could speak for 200 million years and that in one lifetime he needed to complete one hundred million sketches. In his diary there is a humorous note: “Lord, if only there were no war, otherwise I won’t have time to finish my sketches.” That is virtuosity of the highest order.

When I was studying at the institute, I went to a large exhibition of Kalmykov at the Kasteev Museum. His diaries were displayed there. In them I read: “I am a genius of the first rank of the Earth and the Galaxy.” At the institute, in my view, there was very little real creativity. And here I encountered this astonishing consciousness that insists, that does not doubt. His texts are very funny. He was fascinated by the Futurists, strongly influenced by the Budetlyane and Velimir Khlebnikov, the “Chairman of the Globe.” In an extraordinary way, he carried throughout his life the dream of a beautiful, ideal world that never came into being.

In his diaries he wrote: “I am a genius, I will endure through the ages,” yet in life he did not know how to promote himself and did nothing to do so. He did not strive for fame or for work in major cities. There are records in which his sister recalls that he showed great promise, but did not promote himself or insist on recognition. He was simply invited to Almaty to work as a theatre designer, and he accepted. He lived in poverty, in a dormitory, until he was given an apartment—which he never even asked for.

I don’t like the word “disorders”; I call them “features.” At the very beginning, when we started preparing the performance, I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. At that moment, I understood what had been happening to me my whole life: I felt emptiness alternating with fullness, and then back again. And this is exactly what I saw in Kalmykov. From then on, I stopped being afraid of the condition, began to accept these features within myself, and realized that this, too, is beautiful. For me, it was a liberation.

I was struck by a note Kalmykov wrote: “I am a happy person—I have spent my whole life working on the circle of themes that interest me.” It made me ask myself: what am I doing? Will I be able to say the same in the future? It affected me so deeply that I began to focus on what truly interests me.

ORTA is not a business. We found the possibility to create something of our own. Rustem and I kept asking each other: “Are we living the way we want? Why is it so important for us to be liked by others?” We let go of what was unnecessary and began to live for our own pleasure.