SLOVO SOFIYA

Book / Sergey Malikov

The American Dream Hacked the USSR

A politician from the slums. A personal dream, a great era and an attempt to change the rules of one’s own life.

On request: availability, format, terms

ABOUT THE BOOK

A story about what happens when one person’s dream collides with the inertia of a vast system.

Politics, personal choice, social mobility and the price of independence. This page will soon feature the synopsis, the table of contents and book ordering options.

Book description and possible ordering terms. Co-authored projects are published with the consent of their subjects.

Book / Sergey Malikov

MOM’S Book

Love, happiness and what matters most. One woman — many lives lived and unlived.

On request: availability, format, terms

ABOUT THE BOOK

Valentina’s story is about family, dreams, choices and memory. A real biography becomes the starting point of an artistic journey through possible destinies.

This book is being created together with its heroine. Publication and the final version of the materials require her consent.

Book description and possible ordering terms. Co-authored projects are published with the consent of their subjects.

Book / Sergey Malikov

To Be Me

A story of searching for one’s own self among cities, memories, other people’s expectations and personal decisions.

On request: availability, format, terms

ABOUT THE BOOK

A literary search for an answer to the question of how to remain yourself when the world offers dozens of ready-made roles.

A joint book project with its heroine. Publication is possible only after approval by the participant.

Book description and possible ordering terms. Co-authored projects are published with the consent of their subjects.

Book / Sergey Malikov

Seven Realities of Brain

Seven possible lives of a single hero. Creativity, choice and the realities that might have happened.

On request: availability, format, terms

ABOUT THE BOOK

A novel about choice: how far can you go if you imagine not one life but several at once?

Real stories intertwine with fictional scenarios and future versions of the hero. Publication is agreed with the participant.

Book description and possible ordering terms. Co-authored projects are published with the consent of their subjects.

Book / Sergey Malikov

YAMECHNIK

Outer strength and inner freedom. A novel about a warrior who learns to choose his own path.

On request: availability, format, terms

ABOUT THE BOOK

A road through trials, contradictions, loyalty to oneself and unexpected opportunities.

The story combines a real biographical foundation with artistic alternative lives. Publication is agreed with the hero.

Book description and possible ordering terms. Co-authored projects are published with the consent of their subjects.

Story / Sergey Malikov

Islands

Sometimes, to find yourself, you have to stop believing you are cut off from the world.

Original materials · SLOVOSOFIYA

MATERIAL

Every morning the captain of a small boat passed between the islands. He knew every shore, yet he had never once stepped onto the one he could see from his own window.

“There’s nothing to do there,” he told his passengers. And every day the passengers asked to dock at exactly that place. One day the boat broke down and the current carried it to an unfamiliar pier.

Beyond the island there was ordinary life: children were playing ball, nets were drying by the pier, someone was reading a book on the veranda. No great discovery happened. Except one: for years the captain had forbidden himself to approach a place he did not know at all.

In the evening he returned home and for the first time drew on the map not only the route he had travelled but also the place he would like to go tomorrow.

Sample material. To be replaced with approved authorial text before publication.

Story / Sergey Malikov

Cities

In every city you can meet the person you have not yet had time to become.

Original materials · SLOVOSOFIYA

MATERIAL

An architect collected postcards from cities he had never visited. He sorted them alphabetically and assured his friends that he knew enough about the world.

One day he bought a ticket with no return date. In the first city he lost his umbrella. In the second he met a musician. In the third he overslept an important meeting and suddenly realised that nothing terrible had happened.

No city made him a new person. But each one took away a small certainty that everything was already known in advance.

He brought home just one postcard — a blank one. It had room for a city that did not exist yet.

Sample material. To be replaced with approved authorial text before publication.

Story / Sergey Malikov

Roads

Not every road is meant for getting there faster.

Original materials · SLOVOSOFIYA

MATERIAL

A taxi driver knew the shortest route between any two points. His navigator never made a mistake, yet his passengers kept asking him to turn off.

“It will cost more,” he replied. “That’s fine,” they said. Someone wanted to see an old house, someone a tree by a school, someone the sea before reaching the airport.

Over time the driver noticed: people pay not only for arrival. Sometimes they simply need to prolong the road a little to prepare for a meeting or a farewell.

One day he switched off the navigator and asked himself where he wanted to go today.

Sample material. To be replaced with approved authorial text before publication.

Story / Sergey Malikov

People

A person often turns out to be more interesting than the role we assigned to them.

Original materials · SLOVOSOFIYA

MATERIAL

In the coffee house there was a table where two strangers sat every Thursday. One always arrived earlier. The other invariably asked whether the seat was free.

They talked about the weather, books and the price of milk. And never once did they ask each other where they worked. This seemed strange to the other customers: isn’t that how an acquaintance begins?

Six months later one of them stopped coming. The other kept ordering two cups. On the last Thursday he left a note: “Thank you for never asking what I was supposed to be.”

Sometimes the best encounter is the one where no one tries to turn you into anything.

Sample material. To be replaced with approved authorial text before publication.

Story / Sergey Malikov

Life

A story about why a new beginning does not have to wait for a special date.

Original materials · SLOVOSOFIYA

MATERIAL

In a small town there was a clock that was always three minutes fast. People had grown used to it and believed they had become slightly more successful than those around them.

A repairman came to fix the clock and asked: “Do you care about the exact time, or about the feeling that you have overtaken everyone?” No one could answer.

The clock was fixed. The next day the residents noticed that the three minutes had not disappeared. They could now simply be spent differently: calling someone close, drinking tea, not rushing.

Life did not become longer. But it stopped being a constant race against the clock face.

Sample material. To be replaced with approved authorial text before publication.

Article / Sergey Malikov

Freedom and Choice

Freedom is tested not by the number of roads but by the willingness to answer for the one you chose.

Original materials · SLOVOSOFIYA

MATERIAL

When we talk about freedom, we often imagine the absence of prohibitions. But the absence of prohibitions does not in itself tell us what we really want.

Choice begins where a person can say, “This is my decision,” without shifting the consequences onto circumstances. There may be ten options, but you can only act on one at a time.

At the same time, freedom is not the same as solitude. Advice, help and cooperation do not take away the right to decide. That right disappears only when a person voluntarily hands the final word to someone else.

The question of the day: what small thing will I choose for myself today, without having to prove anything to anyone?

Sample material. To be replaced with approved authorial text before publication.

Article / Sergey Malikov

The Human and Reality

We see not only the world but also our habitual way of explaining it to ourselves.

Original materials · SLOVOSOFIYA

MATERIAL

Every person has a personal map of reality — a set of expectations, memories and habitual explanations. The map helps us navigate, but sometimes it begins to seem like the territory itself.

When an event does not fit our expectations, it is easy to call it a mistake of the world. A more productive question is: what exactly in my picture fails to account for the new facts?

Reality testing is not a rejection of imagination. On the contrary, the more precisely we see the limitations, the more boldly we can look for unconventional ways to overcome them.

The world changes not only through new ideas. Sometimes the first step is to notice what has been right in front of our eyes all along.

Sample material. To be replaced with approved authorial text before publication.

Article / Sergey Malikov

Money and Meaning

Counting money is useful. It is equally useful to understand what we are counting it for.

Original materials · SLOVOSOFIYA

MATERIAL

Money is measured by numbers. Meaning is not. That makes it easy to confuse a convenient metric with the ultimate goal and turn the growth of a number into an end in itself.

Resources give freedom of time, action and the ability to help others. But any financial plan needs not only a return forecast but also an honest conversation about risks, the cost of the decision and the margin of safety.

A strong project answers two questions at once: how much it can bring in, and what kind of life you will have to pay for that result.

The wealth of possibilities begins where numbers serve the person, not the person the numbers.

Sample material. To be replaced with approved authorial text before publication.

Article / Sergey Malikov

Simple Rules

Good rules help us live. Bad ones start living in our place.

Original materials · SLOVOSOFIYA

MATERIAL

Rules exist to save attention. We cannot reinvent every decision from scratch each day — from crossing the road to working with documents.

But it is useful to distinguish safety rules from habits that no one has revisited for a long time. The former protect us. The latter sometimes limit us without our noticing.

Before breaking a rule, it is worth understanding why it was created and whom it protects. Before following one, check whether its purpose is still relevant.

Independence lies not in rejecting all rules but in the ability to choose meaningfully which of them actually work.

Sample material. To be replaced with approved authorial text before publication.

Article / Sergey Malikov

People and Time

Time does not always heal. But it gives you a chance to see the story from a different angle.

Original materials · SLOVOSOFIYA

MATERIAL

The past cannot be fixed literally. We cannot rewrite what happened, but we can change our present attitude towards it and our future decisions.

Time alone does not do this work. Sometimes a person carries the same story for years without asking it any new questions.

A dialogue, a letter, a book or a meeting offers a chance to look at the event from the outside: to see another person’s role, your own motives, chance and pattern.

You do not have to forget the past in order not to repeat it. Sometimes it is enough to finally read your own story carefully.

Sample material. To be replaced with approved authorial text before publication.

Dialogue / Sergey Malikov

Dialogues about Life

About what matters — without obligatory agreement or ready-made answers.

Original materials · SLOVOSOFIYA

MATERIAL

Question

At what moment does a person begin to live their own life?

Answer

Perhaps at the moment when they stop looking for a universal permission and start taking responsibility for their own choice.

Question

And if the choice turns out to be a mistake?

Answer

Then it will be material for the next decision. Independence does not require being error-free.

Sample material. To be replaced with approved authorial text before publication.

Dialogue / Sergey Malikov

With Participants

A conversation as the beginning of a personal story and a book of one’s own.

Original materials · SLOVOSOFIYA

MATERIAL

Host

If your life were a book, with which scene would you begin?

Guest

Not with my birth. With the moment I first realised I could act differently.

Host

Would you like to rewrite that episode?

Guest

No. But I would like to see how many different stories could have begun from it.

Sample material. To be replaced with approved authorial text before publication.

Dialogue / Sergey Malikov

Questions and Answers

A simple question sometimes opens a complicated door.

Original materials · SLOVOSOFIYA

MATERIAL

Question

Why do people often know what to do but not do it?

Answer

Because understanding and action are different processes. Between them there can be fear, habit, a lack of resources and the cost of a mistake.

Question

What helps to bridge that gap?

Answer

A concrete small step, after which you can test reality instead of endlessly discussing it in your head.

Sample material. To be replaced with approved authorial text before publication.

Dialogue / Sergey Malikov

People and Situations

One event, different views — and not always a single right answer.

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MATERIAL

Guest

We argue about the same event, even though we were both there. How is that possible?

Host

Because you may have seen different details and given them different meanings.

Guest

So everyone has their own truth?

Host

Facts are worth checking together. And it is useful to distinguish feelings from interpretations without declaring them interchangeable.

Sample material. To be replaced with approved authorial text before publication.

Dialogue / Sergey Malikov

About Myself

A difficult conversation with the person you meet every day.

Original materials · SLOVOSOFIYA

MATERIAL

Question

Who are you if you remove your profession, your title and other people’s ideas about you?

Answer

A person who keeps getting to know themselves.

Question

Is that really enough?

Answer

For a definitive biography, no. For starting to live today, quite enough.

Sample material. To be replaced with approved authorial text before publication.