It’s always darkest before the dawn. I am a graduate of the International Relations department of the third oldest university on the planet located in northern Italy. I am also a graduate of the Law department of a university located in the very heart of Russia. The search for the darkest time that we are trying to achieve has truly fascinated me throughout all my life and it is getting more and more ironically hilarious to witness this seemingly never-ending fall into darkness day after day. But, as stated in the very first sentence, - it is just a necessary requirement for the turning point for things to eventually get better. My life experiences vary quite drastically. I’ve spent my early academic years working with people in dire need of juridical help, volunteering for a non-profit organization.

The darkness becomes quite obvious when you spend your evenings talking with people who are desperate enough to put their legal fates into the hands of law students. Employees getting robbed by their employers, tenants left out in the streets by their landlords (and landladies of course!) and senior citizens fighting with the government to get 200 euros of pension instead of the normal 150. The inhumane cycle of juridical nonsense destroyed my belief in law and order, and so I decided to pursue understanding the minds behind the aforementioned laws. And that had led me into the gaping hole of politics. I started quite high, helping the advertising campaign of a guy getting into the Russian parliament. One thing that became clear right from the get-go was that it was not a competition for the best candidate, but a rat race deciding which of the rats could clean itself of its sins quicker.

The experience itself was fascinating. Online or offline, there was a constant battle for the hearts of unsuspecting citizens for whom politics is a curse word that would much rather be beeped on the TV. Fake accounts, fake news, fake smiles at the fake meetings—the inner darkness grew on me. It was a perfect time to escape from the original country and try my luck elsewhere. Italy had been as good of an option as any other. And the experience did not disappoint. Layers upon layers of international bureaucracy multiplied by COVID restrictions and later perfected by war sanctions. If it wasn’t the perfect time to dive deep into international politics, I do not know what is.

Predictably, getting a degree in politics and figuring out the details of an imaginary world we call the “international community” even further darkened the picture for me. Maybe the famous phrase is wrong after all; maybe there is no dawn and no light at the end of the tunnel. Maybe the leviathan of never-ending, never-working, and never-helping NGOs combined with the socialist-warped minds of state officials will put us all into our graves soon enough. Maybe so, but… Along the way, I was searching for the answers elsewhere. In some place where politics do not matter, laws do not exist, and time does not move even. I found my answers in the world of art. What is the point of being on the cover of Time magazine, of being a geopolitical genius, or of inventing a new law if it will be forgotten in a blink, not even in a year now, in a week tops? The only way to find real light and to make a real difference is through something that lives longer than a mere human, through something bigger than life, death, pain, suffering, or short dopamine bursts. Only art can show us the dawn, and only on the screen can we see the real light of the day.