A year ago, I was “happy” to get a position as a sales manager trainee on local radio. “At least I’ll be employed,” I was saying to myself, “and then I’ll get a chance to actually become a journalist.” After a dreadful, pointless month of spamming businesses with cold calls and not bringing a kopek to my employer, the future seemed grim.

Now, however, I can say with confidence: not only, after almost a decade of writing commercially, I work as a full-time journalist, I’ve actually become one. I’ve got the gist of the profession, fully assured myself that’s what I want to do for a living and started improving my skills in this specific field. Besides simply writing for a local newspaper and web outlet, I’m happy to have an experience of acting as their editor-in-chief for a few weeks. I am also enjoying writing for other outlets – and in English, too.

I don’t want to confuse my English-speaking readers with Russian articles they cannot read. Thankfully, my most important piece was written for the international audience. My report on the abusive culture inside Nintendo’s Russian division sparked a corporate investigation on it’s General Manager, Yasha Haddaji, and so far made him go radio silent. Of course, I’d like to advance the story for the good of Nintendo RU’s workers, but right now we’ll have to wait – at least till Nintendo of Europe comes back from holidays.

Feature: Inside The Twisted And Abusive Culture Of Yasha Haddaji's Nintendo Russia https://t.co/m7921xB3ln #Features #Russia #YashaHaddaji pic.twitter.com/AnjucjyXwS

— Nintendo Life (@nintendolife) 17 ноября 2018 г.

The passing year was pretty notable for me, but the upcoming one might be the most important in my life. While I’d rather not jinx myself by announcing all my plans, they include writing more in English than I currently. This site is my means of doing so without relying on other publishers.

Let me be frank: my top priority will still be contributing articles to press outlets. (If you are a publisher and you like what you’re seeing, I’ll be happy to get mail from you.) However, I am constantly ending up with drafts for articles not making sense for pitching – like ones about the history of computing, another passion of mine. On top of that, there is an urge to talk about personal matters more than Twitter allows me for, and I don’t want to invest in another social medium just to be able to write bigger posts.

Please note that, as the webmaster – who is not me – is on holidays, some things might not work as expected. Notably, you might stumble on the engine’s welcome page, which is a giant lemon, when entering the address incorrectly. Make sure the address has HTTPS protocol and no www prefix if you stumble on the error. Fixing it is my top priority as far as technical ones go.

You might expect one of my articles made specifically for this site in January, hopefully till the end of the New Year holidays in Russia (January 9th). I’ll aim to update this site often enough to not be counted abandoned, but I won’t be writing for it just for the sake of it. That way, I can actually use it as my self-improvement platform, with all respect my readers deserve.

Happy New Year to everyone, and happy holidays to my Russian readers!