Where dreams lead. Alexander Misurkin: “My childhood dreams became reality. I shared good things and received gifts from the most famous secret Santa in the world.

Very often it seems to us that dreams are unrealistic, and we console ourselves with the very pessimistic phrase “a dream must remain a dream.” Get rid of self-doubt and fear that something will not work out. Don’t turn away from something that brings you real pleasure and keep knocking on closed doors, because as practice and our 4 charming heroines show, one of them will definitely open.

1. Coco Chanel

Every woman interested (or not interested) in fashion knows this name. But are you familiar with her story? She is a shining example of how hardships have strengthened rather than broken a person. Gabrielle (the real name of the fashion designer) came from a poor family. While still a child, she lost her mother, and her father, not wanting to take responsibility for her and her brothers and sisters, left the children in an orphanage. Coming out of the orphanage, Gabrielle had neither a profession nor parental support. But she had a dream and aspiration, and that was enough. The girl was not considered an icon of beauty at that time, but she managed to turn her shortcomings into advantages, introducing the fashion for men's suits for women. Gradually her name became significant in the fashion industry, and Chanel became more and more successful. But that didn't mean her ordeal was over. In 1954, her presentation of her clothing collection was a fiasco - critics tore it to smithereens. But determination and inability to give up helped Coco, and already next year she released a new collection, which again elevated her to the fashion Olympus, where the designer remains to this day.

2. JK Rowling

Having read a series of books about the young wizard Harry Potter, having visited cinemas more than once and stood in line for tickets, you could hardly imagine that the author of a series of novels for a long time could not convince publishing houses that her work would be interesting to the reader. Joanne Rowling- a wonderful woman who gave us Magic world, has gone through a lot of tests. After her husband left her, leaving her ex-wife with a small child in her arms, Joan went to her sister and lived only on an allowance, which was barely enough for food and clothes for the baby. The only thing that helped her take her mind off her problems was the book she wrote for five years. It was not possible to achieve success immediately; numerous publishing houses refused Joan day after day. But in 1995, luck smiled on the young writer, and the Bloombury publishing house began publishing Rowling's book. From that moment on, not only every child, but also every adult knows her name.

3. Anna Wintour

A striking example that your ideas are worth fighting for. While still in school, Anna dreamed of conquering the fashion world. Even then, she set out to become the editor-in-chief of the world famous glossy magazine Vogue. But oddly enough, the little girl’s big dream was destined to come true. Of course, it was not without obstacles and misunderstanding on the part of others. Wintour began her career as a junior fashion editor at the equally popular Harper's Bazaar magazine. The girl thought outside the box, and with another attempt to bring in new ideas that did not fit the concept of the magazine, Anna was fired. As the editor-in-chief of Vogue herself says: “Everyone should get fired at least once in their career because perfection doesn't exist. It's important to fail sometimes, because that's life.". Soon after the incident, she became the head of British Vogue, and in 1988 - American. Her non-standard approaches increased the circulation of publications from issue to issue, and her good instincts opened the world to the world's most famous fashion designers.

4. Meryl Streep

Dignity, courage, perseverance - all this is about our next heroine. Meryl Streep is an American actress who is loved not only by the cameras, but also by her many fans. And it seems strange that for such a talent as she, everything did not always go smoothly. For a long time, Meryl could not get not just a leading role, but even a supporting role. Conquering Hollywood is not an easy task, and we know that only a few succeed, because the majority give up and give up. But not Meryl Streep. It is worth remembering a special event that influenced the actress so much that it made her the person we know now. Once a young actress was trying to get a role in the film “King Kong”, but during the casting the producer of the film not only did not give the future star a chance, but also insulted Meryl, making it clear that her appearance did not meet the standards of beauty, much less for the profession she chose. Give up and give up on her dream, or get together and prove to everyone what she is capable of - Meryl chose the second and was right. Thus, the incompetence of the producer gave the actress in the future the opportunity to receive an Oscar (more than once!) and other equally prestigious awards.

For a long time we could not decide who to give the honor of being the first in our new section « » . There was and is a huge amount in the world successful people who deserve to be an example for many.

Since our blog is about wonderful moments of life and positivity, meet the creator of the fairy-tale world of several generations - Walt Disney(Walt Disney).

This man with a difficult and unhappy childhood was able to fulfill his dream and bring a lot of positive emotions to millions of people. Disney cartoons are now considered classics that others look up to.

What is the secret of his success?

Lifetime dream

« If you can imagine it, you can do it." Walt Disney

Very often famous and successful people have an unhappy childhood. Perhaps that is why, despite everything, they try to achieve success in the future in order to compensate for the beginning of their lives.

Walt Disney was no exception. He was the fifth child in the family. His father was very strict and constantly beat his children. The family lived poorly, so the children were not spoiled with toys.

Little Walt really wanted to draw, for which he was often punished by his father, who considered all artists to be slackers. But desire and dream are the strongest!

So, without pencils or paper, 4-year-old Walt used a stick and resin to draw a house on the wall of his own home.

Conclusion one - Don’t look for excuses for yourself - you can always find opportunities to make your dreams come true .

Most of all, Walt wanted to draw drawings like in comics, but he did not have free time for this. But still, when Disney, in a free moment, drew a neighbor’s horse on a piece of paper, the resemblance was so striking that its owner paid 25 cents for this drawing.

Conclusion two - Hobbies and interests can also become the main part of income .

Many years later, thousands of dollars were paid for Disney drawings at auctions. And although Walt did not draw much later, he was able to discover his talent as an organizer and create a fairy-tale world in which more than one nation lived.

In addition, Disney was another dream I had as a child. There was a beautiful mansion behind the fence next to their farm. It was then that Walt decided that he would definitely build a huge house where there would be entertainment for children.

As we now see, Walt Disney realized this dream.

Conclusion three - You can make more than one dream come true, the main thing is to decide on it and believe with all your heart .

Is money the main incentive?

« I don't make films just to make money. I make money to make films" Walt Disney

Disney started working early - from the age of 8 he got up at 3.30 and delivered newspapers. He gave all the money to his father.

Conclusion four - People who started working early know the value of money and its place in their lives. .

Money in Walt Disney's life was only a way to fulfill his dreams, and not an end in itself. He created films based not on box office success, but on their artistry.

Walt Disney could have invested all his money in one project and failed. His company, Walt Disney, was on the verge of bankruptcy many times. It cost him 8 nervous breakdowns.

But every time his dream brought him back to life, and he created again, creating his ideal fairy-tale world. Walt Disney risked everything to achieve his dream.

Conclusion fifth - Very often in order for your lifelong dream to come trueyou have to risk everything you have.

Life principles

« I just hope we don't lose sight of one thing: this whole thing was started by one mouse" Walt Disney

Conclusion sixth - Always remember the beginning of your journey from dreams to success - this is where your main secret is .

"I love Mickey Mouse more than any woman I've ever known". Walt Disney

Conclusion seventh - Love what you do .

« Make sure you are right and follow your path" Walt Disney

« I don't know what depression is Bad mood. I am a happy man". Walt Disney

Conclusion eighth - Only a positive and happy person can achieve success .

« Find out the opinion of experts and do the opposite» . Walt Disney

Conclusion ninth - Do something that no one could even think of before you .

Epilogue

The result of the realization of Walt Disney's childhood dream was the birth of more than 100 films, 26 Oscar awards, the Disney Land amusement park and 212 million fans of his cartoons.

Dreams come true if you just want to. On this topic, people have put together sayings and proverbs with meaning. Beautiful aphorisms, sayings, phrases and quotes about dreams and reality from great people also easily prove this. After all, statements about a dream are a kind of instruction on how to achieve a dream, completely change your life and become happier.

Women dream of having narrow feet but living large.
Anton P. Chekhov
Throw your dreams at your enemies, they may die while fulfilling them.
Stanislav E. Lec
The living are fighting... And only those are alive whose hearts are devoted to a sublime dream.
Hugo Victor Marie
Oh no! you won't break your heart
Not flattery, not beauty, not words.
I will be stranger and new to you,
Everything is a ghost, everything is dead, in the rays of a dream.
Alexander A. Blok
It is in the dream of life that a person exists who finds his truths and loses them on earth...
Albert Camus
We waste, let the best moments slip through our fingers, as if we had God knows how many of them in stock. We usually think about tomorrow, about next year, while we need to grab with both hands the overflowing cup that life itself holds out, unbidden, with its usual generosity - and drink and drink until the cup passes into other hands; nature does not like to treat and offer.
Alexander I. Herzen
A dream attracts you, seduces you, lures you, draws you into its net, then turns you into its accomplice: it makes you an accomplice in deceiving your conscience. It intoxicates you and then corrupts you.
Hugo Victor Marie
So is it worth dreaming of an immaculate life in the world, where, like smoke, everything is unsteady and fragile, Everything is changeable, like the wind and the wave!
Pierre de Ronsard
If you’re going to dream, then you don’t have to deny yourself anything.
Honore de Balzac
He who does not know how to restrain his imagination is a dreamer; whoever combines unbridled imagination with ideas of goodness is an enthusiast; He who has a disordered imagination is a dreamer.
Immanuel Kant
Hide your desires, secrets and dreams.
Pierre Corneille
He played with his dreams, and his dreams played with them.
Franz Kafka
A dream is good and useful, as long as you don’t forget that it is a dream.
Joseph Ernest Renan
The impossible was possible
But the possible was a dream.
Alexander A. Blok
Thought is the work of the mind, dream is pleasure. Replacing a thought with a dream means mixing poison with food.
Hugo Victor Marie
It is easier to hope and dream than to think, and it requires less effort, and a kind of intoxication and tranquility is born.
Lion Feuchtwanger
A young man dreaming of Great love, gradually learns to take advantage of the opportunity.
Marina I. Tsvetaeva
Every person can have two types of tragedy: either he gets what he has long dreamed of, or he doesn’t get it.
Oscar Wilde
To commit a crime beautifully,
You need to be able to love beauty.
Or you will vulgarize with a hackneyed motive
Bold mother of pleasure, dream.
Friedrich W. Nietzsche
Without seeing a person, you can assume any perfection in him.
Hugo Victor Marie
I want to talk to at least one person about everything as if I were talking to myself.
Fyodor M. Dostoevsky
A dream is more powerful than reality. And how could it be otherwise if she herself is the highest reality? She is the soul of existence.
Anatole France
Looking to the future is better than dreaming about the past.
Voltaire
“Ah,” said the mouse, “the world is getting smaller and smaller every day.” At first it was so wide that I was scared, I ran further and was happy that I finally saw walls in the distance to the right and left, but these long walls were moving towards each other so quickly that I had already reached the last room, and there There is a mousetrap in the corner that I can jump into.
“You just need to change the direction of your running,” said the cat and gobbled up the mouse.
Franz Kafka
The unfulfilled is called that, so as not to come true.
Boris Akunin
Democracy is just a dream, like Arcadia, Santa Claus and heaven.
Henry Louis Mencken
Every action is limited and relative. Only a dream is limitless and absolute.
Oscar Wilde
No matter how successful someone's life is, there is certainly a huge difference between what you dreamed of in your youth and what happened.
Andre Maurois
It is dangerous to joke with a dream; a broken dream can constitute the misfortune of life; chasing a dream, you can miss life or, in a fit of insane inspiration, sacrifice it.
Mikhail M. Prishvin
If something is worth doing, it is only what is considered impossible.
Oscar Wilde
Dream, because by the beauty of your dreams you will take your place in the future!
Jonathan Swift
I deeply love nature, the power of the human spirit and the true human dream. And she is never loud... Never! The more you love her, the deeper you hide her in your heart, the more you protect her.
Konstantin G. Paustovsky
Send your dream to your enemies, maybe they will die while realizing it.
Stanislav E. Lec
Socrates
Whatever you can't do or dream about, get started. There is genius and strength and magic in audacity. Get started now!
Johann W. Goethe
Dream big: only big dreams have the power to touch people's souls.
Marcus Aurelius
It is not what is that causes us to feel impatience and suffering, but what it is that is not what it should be.
Georg W. F. Hegel
A poor man is not one who does not have a penny in his pocket, but one who has no dreams.
Socrates
In Rammstein you are a working machine. There is little room for improvisation here. My biggest dream still is to play a show with AC/DC, where you can do whatever you want. But with us, take an extra step forward during pyrotechnics - and that’s all, trouble.
Paul Landers
Until you achieve happiness, everyone shares your dreams. But fate has elevated you, and your well-wisher is only you.
Abay Kunanbaev
I don't believe in luck. Luck means being persistent, working hard and following your dreams.
Janet Jackson
Dreams are not an escape from reality, but a means to get closer to it.
Somerset Maugham
August and February are similar in that they both end the dream.
Katherine Paterson
Only making your childhood dreams come true can bring happiness.
Sigmund Freud
... if you express your dreams out loud, they will definitely be heard and become a reality.
Anthony Hopkins
People's problems arise mainly from imagination. If you didn't have imagination, you wouldn't have problems, because you would accept life as it is. But then you wouldn’t have romantic love, because romantic love is when you found your dream embodied in someone who was not even close to it.
Andy Warhole
Dream big. Only great dreams have the power to touch human souls.
Marcus Aurelius
Which bitch told you that you won't achieve your dreams?
Lady Gaga
Look at yourself in the mirror and say: you deserve it. You have one life, so live it, follow your dreams. Quit your job, drop out of school, tell your boyfriend he's a loser and just close the door. This is your time and this is your life. And dream big, it costs the least, okay?
Jared Leto
There is no need to talk about your dream, keep it to yourself, otherwise it will become like a dirty banknote.
Nikolai Petrovich Karachentsov
I won't live to see my dream come true; your job will be to finish it...
Nicholas I Emperor of the Russian Empire
I talk to Katy Perry all the time about guys being intimidated by strong girls. I have not yet found someone who could understand my lifestyle, support, love, and not be afraid of it. It's complicated. I think I can scare guys because I act like, “I want to change the world! I have a dream! What do you want? I only think about myself." I tried to change for the sake of money, but it was completely useless. Eventually I'll find someone who likes someone as crazy as me.
Selena Gomez
In old age, you yearn more for the dreams of your youth than for its happiness.
Maria von Ebner-Eschenbach
Optimists' dreams come true. Pessimists have nightmares.
George Bernard Shaw
Those who insist that one fine day they will finally realize their dream should remember: “one fine day” is today. It will never be more beautiful...
Chester Bennington
I have long had a dream - to make anti-Russian rock! That is, so that the texts are not social, but such texts-stories. That’s what happened with “The King and the Jester.”
Mikhail Yurievich Gorshenev
If you can dream, you can make your dreams come true.
Walt Disney
Don't believe your dreams. They are volatile, like light smoke, but they are also dangerous because they can come true.
Edith Södergran
The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.
Eleanor Roosevelt
Want people to realize their dreams of money and fame so that they understand that they will not help them achieve a sense of worth.
Jim Carrey 1962
If you give up your dreams, what is left?
Jim carrey
The dream of millions cannot belong to one.
Marilyn Monroe
Looking into the night sky, I thought that there were probably thousands of girls also sitting alone and dreaming of becoming a star. But I wasn't going to worry about them. After all, my dream cannot be compared with anyone else's.
Marilyn Monroe
If you have a dream, nothing will stop you from making it come true as long as you don't give up.
Nelson Mandela
Every girl, girl, woman dreams of a wedding! But, ironically, it is the wedding and the marriage that follows it, like nothing else, that can shatter all rosy dreams, romantic illusions and hopes for “happily ever after.” After the wedding - a bright, sparkling carnival - comes family life, which very often mercilessly tears off the masks so carefully selected and put on during the period of dating and courtship, turning fairy-tale princesses into “boring slobs” and “clueless hens”, handsome princes into “greedy goats" and "insensitive idols", and a beautiful celebration of life - into boring and monotonous chronicles of everyday life. But all these transformations do not happen by magic. magic wand some evil witch. After all, it's a ball family life we rule, which means it depends only on us how long the holiday will last...
Oleg Roy
It is difficult to live in peace with your soul when there is this screaming confusion around. But despite all the pretense, hard work and broken dreams, it's still a beautiful world. Be careful. Try to be happy.
Johnny Depp
When I see someone who just follows their dreams and succeeds, doing only what they want to do and not answering to anyone for it, of course, without hurting anyone, I think that's beautiful.
Johnny Depp
The greatest enemy of a good plan is dreams of the best plan.
Carl von Clausewitz
It's never too late to leave the crowd. Follow your dream, move towards your goal.
George Bernard Shaw
Some women chase men and some women chase dreams. If you're at a fork in the road, remember: your career won't wake up one morning and tell you it doesn't love you anymore.
Lady Gaga
When I was seven years old, I told my dad that I wanted to have a house like Michael Jackson's. And then he told me that dreams remain dreams, this is the privilege of rich people. I have grown up, and now my dream has come true - it’s a pity that my father doesn’t see this.
Cristiano Ronaldo
If there is no God, and our whole life is a second on the way from dust to dust, then why do we need everything? Why our dreams, aspirations, suffering? Why know? Why love? Why live, after all? I can't believe it's just like that. I can't and I don't want to. I care what happens after me, because I will too. Because there was someone before me, and there will be someone after me. And it's not pointless. It's not just like that. We do not live just to pollute water and air. We all exist for something greater. For what - I don’t know, and I’ll never know. Each of us individually is for happiness. And all together?
Mikhail Borisovich Khodorkovsky
Everyone has a dream that warms even the coldest nights. A dream that can't get out of your head. And even if you are destined to remain alone until the end of your days, this dream will always accompany you. So I would put everything into such a dream.
Tom Hardy
Never regret anything: sometimes troubles happen for good, and dreams don’t come true for the better.
Oleg Roy
Vodka is the most proven remedy that turns dreams into illusions, and illusions into virtual reality.
Stas Yankovsky
Dreams don't work until you work.
Stephen Covey
High dreams and ardent impulses - Only the flame of youth quickly goes out.
Shimazaki Toson
The dreams of the weak are an escape from reality, the dreams of the strong shape reality.
Jozef Bester
The dreams of great dreamers not only come true - they come true in an even more daring form than the one in which they were initially clothed
Alfred Whitehead
Morning is a dull blow, a concentration of emptiness, morning is a fire in which dreams burn...
Alexey Nikonov
There is nothing wrong with desires if they are good.
Venedikt Nemov
It’s stupid to grieve about what didn’t happen - about unfulfilled hopes, broken dreams, disappointed expectations.
E. L. James
When all your wishes are fulfilled, many of your dreams will be shattered.
Marilyn Manson
My life is essentially a fairy tale. Once upon a time there lived a poor guy from the village, he slept on the floor - there was no bed, he did not know what a TV and refrigerator were. Well, who could I become at home? Just to herd cows. However, I had a dream - and I did not give up until it came true. The main thing is to believe and not give up, and everything else will work out.
Arnold Schwarzenegger
Life while traveling is a dream in its purest form.
Agatha Christie
Joy is the force that makes us fight for our dreams!
James Rodriguez
How to distinguish desires from dreams? The first generates words, and the second calls for action.
Mukhtar Gusengadzhiev
I'm only bad because I grew up. I'm bad because I live my dreams. Okay, there's nothing better than being just a bad girl.
Miley Cyrus
By choosing the wrong definitions of a dream, we follow a phantom goal along a false road that has no final destination.
Marina Matisse
For thousands of years, people were born giants, and society turned them into dwarfs. Our generation is different. We will not give up on our dreams because of the noise of others' opinions. And we will not exchange creativity, search and the spirit of freedom for the comfort of the sausage-TV world.
Pavel Valerievich Durov
He was small, this very first artificial satellite of our old planet, but his sonorous call signs spread across all continents and among all peoples as the embodiment of the daring dream of mankind.
Sergei Pavlovich Korolev
Life is better lived in dreams than in reality.
Marcel Proust
There is only one thing that makes fulfilling a dream impossible - the fear of failure.
Paulo Coelho
Old age, as we know, fulfills the dreams of youth; an example is Swift: in his youth he built a house for the insane, and in his old age he settled in it himself.
Søren Óbut
Experiencing the happiness of “blooming love,” a person pictures in his imagination a colorful and beautiful image, widening the gap between dream and reality, although he himself does not notice this for a long time.
Peter Kutter
Always believe in yourself – no matter where you are from. Believe in yourself and in your dream.
Klaus Meine
The only things that come to a sleeping person are dreams.
Tupac Amaru Shakur
...but if you don’t want to hear the whispers, one day a stone will fly at you.
Svetlana Vadimovna Kopylova
If someone tells you that you will never achieve your dreams, or tries to push you down, show your claws, tell them that you are a little monster, and get the hell out of what you want!
Lady Gaga
If you dream about something alone, it’s just a dream; if you dream about it together, it’s reality.
Yoko Ono
The impossible was possible. But the possible was a dream.
Alexander Alexandrovich Blok

Every person should have a dream, quotes about dreams encourage people to achieve their desires. Also, a well-chosen quote about dreams and reality makes beautiful statuses for social networks.

Happiness is when in the morning you want to go to work, to the laboratory, where your favorite thing is waiting for you, your employees with whom you can discuss any ideas and problems. In this sense, the guest of our column, Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences Yulia Germanovna Gorbunova - the happiest man. She created a scientific group of European level, in which talented young people successfully work. Its employees, who periodically work in the West, always return home to create in Russia. Yulia Germanovna and the editor-in-chief of the magazine talk about chemistry as a creative space of science, where you can dream and where dreams come true. Lyubov Nikolaevna Strelnikova.

- When did you have a clear desire to become a chemist? Who and what shaped him?

When I was very little, I wanted to become a doctor like my grandmother. I treated the little ones: I put them under a lamp to warm up their tummies, and the little ones melted; I performed operations on them with my grandmother’s nail scissors, for which I received a scolding. Then I went to school No. 29 in Chernigov and wanted to become a teacher. And then it started school chemistry, and I literally fell ill with this subject. Chemistry seemed extremely logical to me and interesting science. I had an absolutely amazing chemistry teacher, Elizaveta Lvovna Leikina. She said this: “Children who are interested in chemistry, I will teach you, and for those who are not interested, don’t bother, I’ll give you a C.” And indeed, noticing my interest, she brought me books for additional reading, after lessons she solved problems with me that were not according to the program, and answered my endless questions.

And I often remember how she said: “Children, they assure you that all doors are open to you. Don't believe it - all the doors are closed. And until you break through them with your foreheads, these doors will not open.” Agree, a bold statement for Soviet times, but it encouraged hard work, overcoming difficulties, which, in essence, are what life is made of. If you want to succeed, work, work honestly and well. There is no other way. I learned this lesson for the rest of my life.

- You entered the Faculty of Chemistry at Moscow State University. Did your parents easily let you go to Moscow? Didn't they persuade you to stay to study in Chernigov?

It's the other way around! It was my dad and grandmother who decided that I needed to go to Moscow and enter the Moscow State University. State University. My dad, by the way, was a mechanical chemist and engineer who designed various devices for industry. He held numerous patents, including British patents signed Queen of England, they are stored at our home. I myself have set my sights on enrolling in pedagogical institute in Chernigov. There, a new faculty “Chemistry and service work for girls” had just opened, which was popularly called the “faculty of ideal wives.” But when I won the regional Olympiad in chemistry and received a gold medal at school, it turned out that I could enter the Chernigov Pedagogical Institute without exams.

It was 1985, the XII World Festival of Youth and Students was taking place in Moscow. Exams at Moscow State University were taken in July, earlier than at all other universities. Therefore, it was decided to go to Moscow and try my hand. That year, because of the festival, we had to take exams at an accelerated pace, four exams in ten days, rather than the usual three weeks. So by July 12, enrollment lists were already ready. By the way, that year the chairman admissions committee there was V.V. Lunin, later the dean of the Faculty of Chemistry, and our parents still remember him with warmth.

During the entrance exams, the Faculty of Chemistry was crowded with “buyers” from other universities. If someone did not score the required points, they were immediately picked up by MITHT or the Gubkin Institute. But when I arrived at the chemistry department, I realized that I would never leave there, even if I didn’t pass now, I would try again. The atmosphere of the chemistry department captivated me, fascinated me, I realized that this was mine! This is how I took a step towards my first dream - to become a chemist.

- In our time, when we studied at universities and institutes, we thought: “I’ll graduate from university, and then...” And then what? What did you dream about as a student?

I dreamed of becoming a criminologist. This profession seemed simply magical to me - every day there are new tasks, secrets, the search for truth, helping people. Therefore, when the question arose of which department to choose, that is, what I wanted to specialize in, I chose the department of analytical chemistry and went to the laboratory of Inga Fedorovna Dolmanova. And then we started studying organic chemistry, and I wanted to go into organics. In inorganics you have to remember a lot, but organics are surprisingly logical. Here it is enough to know and understand the basic laws of structure organic matter and their interactions to design and create new molecules, to literally create. However, they didn’t take me to organic. They said that with my small height (really small - 148 cm), there was nothing for me to do with organics - “unsafe due to safety regulations.” When many years later I told this story to Academician Irina Petrovna Beletskaya, the world’s leading organic chemist, she laughed for a long time.

But everything worked out in an amazing way. After graduating from the university, Larisa Godvigovna Tomilova invited me to graduate school as an analytical chemist and offered to study the spectroscopy of phthalocyanines, which they would synthesize for me and bring them for research. But when I came to graduate school, it quickly became clear that no one was going to synthesize these compounds for me. I had to do it myself. Thus two of my dreams came true, analytics merged with organic chemistry. And I have never regretted that it turned out this way.

- What about forensics? Wasn't it worth fighting for?

It's a funny story. Then it was difficult to get into the Forensic Center, only through connections, because there were high salaries, shoulder straps... In general, I graduated from the university at a not very good time. It was the 90th year. We were the first issue for which government distribution was cancelled. They didn’t take me to the institutes of the Academy of Sciences because nothing was clear about the Academy itself. They didn’t take me into industry because everything started to fall apart. Fortunately, I was offered to enroll in graduate school, which I took advantage of with great joy.

Fifteen years passed, and one day the Intertek company, which sold American analytical equipment, invited me to give a lecture at their visiting seminar on the use of IR spectroscopy in various scientific and semi-scientific tasks. This company supplied us with an IR spectrometer and an ICP spectrometer, so we were active users and the company was friendly with us. After the lecture, the head of the Forensic Center came up to me and said: “Listen, I really liked your speech, your approaches. Would you like to come to work with us, at the Crime Center?” It’s too late, I say, if they had invited me fifteen years ago, I might have agreed. And now I have another love.

- Porphyrins and phthalocyanines? Can they be loved?

Still would! After all, natural porphyrins are chlorophyll, without which photosynthesis in plants is impossible, and blood heme, without which it is impossible to provide cells with oxygen in the body of mammals, and vitamin B 12, without which a person cannot live. And phthalocyanines, synthetic analogues of porphyrins, have also taken a strong position today, but in the man-made world. Copper phthalocyanines are used to fill copier and printer cartridges, using their ability to conduct electricity, copper phthalocyanines of blue color Today they paint jeans, but in Soviet times they painted trolleybuses.

I fell in love with these substances and their capabilities in graduate school. We then developed methods for the synthesis of compounds of rare earth elements with phthalocyanines and studied their spectral properties. These are so-called sandwich structures, double- and triple-deck compounds, which are good as sensors for gases, as electrochromic substances that change color when a potential is applied, as semiconductors, and it is now known that they are good for nonlinear optics. In a word - absolutely amazing substances.

I started doing my PhD dissertation at NIOPIK, and completed it at IONKh, in the laboratory of academician Aslan Yusupovich Tsivadze. Here, in addition to my favorite substances, supramolecular chemistry was added, which had just begun to be studied in Tsivadze’s laboratory. And it gave me new incredible opportunities for creativity.

- Just a few years earlier, the Nobel Prize was awarded to Jean-Marie Lehn for supramolecular chemistry. I remember that many people grumbled back then that the prize was given for hydrogen bonds, which had long been known to everyone.

And also dipole-dipole interactions, electrostatics... Yes, all this was known. However, the merit of Nobel laureates Jean-Marie Len, Charles Pedersen and Donald Crum is that they drew attention to the exceptional importance of these connections for living matter. Despite the weakness of these bonds, they play a decisive role in nature; they allow molecules to be connected and separated if necessary, that is, they provide dynamics to molecular systems and processes. Any material, natural or non-natural, does not consist of one molecule, it consists of a huge number of molecules that can be interconnected different connections. When these molecules are connected by weak interactions, non-covalent ones, which can be quickly destroyed and recreated, this is supramolecular chemistry, the chemistry of weak interactions that nature actively uses. For example, photosynthesis is triggered by a so-called special pair consisting of two chlorophyll molecules - magnesium porphyrinate. When light hits this dimer, the entire chain of photosynthesis starts. If it were one molecule, then photosynthesis would not occur. The same is true for blood heme, which carries oxygen into cells. Four molecules of substituted iron porphyrinate form a quadratic structure, and oxygen is well sorbed into this structure.

In general, supramolecular chemistry is an interdisciplinary field of science, since when studying supramolecular systems we take the position of a chemist, a biologist, and a physicist, we include all these aspects in our consideration. And in this sense, we are much closer to nature than a chemist, physicist and biologist individually.

- In other words, you armed yourself with the technology that nature uses and began to imitate it.

Not so much to imitate as to be inspired by nature. After all, from different porphyrins and phthalocyanines, as from parts of a construction set, you can assemble different structural ensembles: if you want - a dimer, if you want - a trimer, you can have a linear stack or brickwork.

Why is it important? These systems are rich in electrons, these are chromophores - they are all very bright, green, blue, red depending on their electronic state. This system can be controlled without changing anything in it, but simply by arranging the molecules in the ensemble in different ways relative to each other. In fact, this is exactly what nature does - it takes the same molecules, but assembles them into different ensembles. And we get systems with different properties. To change the properties of the ensemble, you can vary environmental parameters, such as acidity, or light, or temperature. Switchable systems operate on this principle.

In fact, in my PhD thesis I talk about creating compounds based on phthalocyanines that could participate in supramolecular assembly. We added crown ether to phthalocyanine, created a kind of “two in one” molecule, that is, two classes of compounds in one molecule, and then learned to control such molecules using external factors. We have developed approaches to synthesis, approaches to research. This is also very important. After all, if we are talking about new materials and a deep understanding of how to do this, we need to learn how to obtain them in their pure form, obtain them reproducibly, make a passport for each connection, a card index for everyone, so that the next generation of researchers and technologists who will take on this , had the “fingerprints” of these compounds.

If we are talking about phthalocyanines and porphyrins, then at the moment information about them is collected in the old 20-volume encyclopedia and in another 40 volumes of the new encyclopedia ( The Porphyrin Handbook). But the field for activity here is endless. It just takes my guys' breath away.

- In my time, in the early 80s, when I worked in science, it was a male profession. And the world as a whole was masculine. But today everything is different. You come, say, to the traffic police, and there are only girls in graduate school. You come to radiochemistry and there are girls there. Where are the boys?

I can tell where my boys are - those with whom I studied on the course. I very often say that my achievements today are very relative. In the absence of fish, Yulia Gorbunova is a cancer. My generation, the generation of those who graduated from university in the early 90s, was largely lost to science. When we graduated from the university, science was so disrespected and lacking in money that the guys simply could not afford to go into science - they had to support their families. And many of my friends became accountants for the same reasons. Working in science was then a luxury that either the wives of wealthy husbands or the children of wealthy parents could afford. Those were very difficult times. But most of my classmates, bright, strong, talented, could become absolutely outstanding scientists. Of course, they all found themselves in life and became successful, but in completely different professions. Among them there are very wealthy businessmen who fully pay for the regular meetings of our large course. A small part of my course went to the West. But in general, boys want to actively promote what they do; this is inherent in a man’s character.

In general, boys are interested in technology, making something with their hands, inventing it, bringing it to fruition, building a factory, starting a process. In a word - engineering, which has been ruined in our country. But the desire to “do something useful for the country and people” remains in fundamental science. First-year students of the Higher Chemical College of the Russian Academy of Sciences come to work with me and are required to engage in scientific work from the very first days of their studies. And almost everyone always asks - are you making new medicines? We want to make them. The motivation is good, but not realized in our country. To make a new medicine, you need to spend fifteen years of your life, and this is in the best case, if you are lucky. However, we must understand that no new medicine is possible without preliminary fundamental research.

All innovations are born in fundamental science, where any result is important, especially negative ones. I remember how our Nobel laureate Vitaly Lazarevich Ginzburg in one of his speeches said that all these televisions, smartphones, cars would have been impossible without millions of studies that showed that this cannot be done this way. The research results were negative, but the following researchers and technologists who followed them knew what not to do and how not to do it.

Therefore, there really is “nothing more practical than a good theory,” as the German physicist Robert Kirchhoff, who discovered rubidium and cesium together with Bunsen, said. Here's another story that I really like. Once a member of Parliament, the future British Prime Minister William Gladstone, asked Faraday: “Why is this electricity of yours so important?” “Someday you will tax him,” Faraday replied.

- You mentioned a negative result in science. Indeed, his role is exceptional. Discoveries and new directions begin with a negative result. If something goes wrong in an experiment, rejoice! An opening looms before you! Previously, scientific journals published negative results - exactly what Ginzburg was talking about. And today no journal will publish such a result. Why?

I totally agree! Unfortunately, it is now very rare to find information about negative results in articles; often researchers completely miss the details of the experiments. But sometimes these details can take years. But, apparently, this is due to both high competition in science and, in general, the ever-accelerating pace of development of science. In our scientific group, we try to be honest and indicate in publications all the details, including experiments that did not lead to the solution of the problem.

- Do you agree that efficiency and success scientific work Can a particular researcher be assessed by the number of publications in scientific journals?

No, I cannot agree that the criterion for success is the number of scientific publications. I constantly talk about this at every opportunity when I visit the Ministry of Science. Officials in the ministry do not really understand the specifics of scientific work, they tell us - come up with it yourself and give us criteria by which a scientist’s work can be assessed and compared. It is difficult to develop such criteria; they do not exist in the West either. In my opinion, peer review should work in science, because it is difficult to find universal criteria. Einstein would not have passed certification today with his isolated articles and insignificant Hirsch.

- But, you must agree that in the scientific community, without any criteria, everyone knows perfectly well who is worth what according to the Hamburg account. Maybe it’s time to learn to trust the heads of laboratories, allocate money to them to carry out government tasks and a little more for creativity and scientific research, as was the case in the USSR? And let the head of the lab deal with the ratings and success of his employees himself.

It seems that this is where everything is heading, and there are more and more supporters of this approach. But this applies to government funding. And now we are talking about grants, for which there are many applicants, and the selection must be carried out somehow. Someone has to do it competently and honestly. This is what we're talking about.

But you are also right that in the USSR, where there was no grant system, the state knew how to work with science and got a decent result. Today, at leading American universities, when graduate students and postdocs come to physics and chemistry laboratories, they are given a kind of briefing and explained: if you think that you have discovered something outstanding, go and read the works of Soviet scientists of the 60s and 70s and with a high degree of probability you will find your discovery there. And American physicists honestly say that they take our translated articles from the 70s, find interesting ideas and experiments, do them on good modern equipment - and here is an article in Nature. In the USSR there was no grant system, but there was motivation, there was respect for scientists, trust, there was a clear and justified state task. And now we give ourselves the task, because the state does not know how to do this.

- In general, the inability of the state to interact with science today is amazing. In this sense, the story of how the Accounts Chamber reprimanded the Russian Foundation for Basic Research for spending money on sending scientists to international conferences is very indicative. The Accounts Chamber considered that scientific conferences are tourism and entertainment, which the state should not finance.

Yes, it is absolutely impossible to explain to people far from science that participation in scientific conferences- This is an obligatory component of scientific work. Approbation of any scientific result occurs only in the process of scientific discussion - in scientific journals and at conferences. Not to mention, communicating with colleagues from all over the world generates new ideas.

I’ll tell you a story that happened to my graduate student Ivan Meshkov. He studied in a joint graduate school, so he spent six months in Moscow, at the Institute of Physics and Chemistry of the Russian Academy of Sciences, and six months in Strasbourg, with Professor Mir Weiss Hosseini, a leading chemist in France working at the University of Strasbourg. Weiss and I came up with a topic for Ivan - using supramolecular chemistry methods to create a molecular tourniquet, a molecule from the class of porphyrins with a phosphorus atom in the center. This molecular machine had to rotate and switch from one position to another.

In general, we drew a beautiful picture from balls and sticks - the future molecule. The project seemed brilliant to me, I was sure that we would do it quickly, because we already know how to synthesize all the parts of this molecule. However, it took a year to cook it. Now the molecule had to be examined and studied from all sides, and for this a pure substance was needed. Ivan receives 200 mg, starts cleaning, and the substance literally melts before our eyes. Each subsequent cleaning operation takes away half, and in the end we are left with nothing. The substance decomposed without a residue. Ivan even called it a suicidal substance.

We can’t understand anything, Ivan is nervous, time is running out. Two years of graduate school have already flown by, but nothing is working out! And then I go to our conference in Istanbul. I was sitting listening to reports from a completely different story - about phosphorus porphyrins, which have been studied very little, about systems for photosensitization, something about singlet oxygen... And suddenly an idea literally struck me. I grab the phone and immediately write instructions to Ivan: take two cuvettes with the substance, bubble one with argon to remove oxygen, leave the second as is and shine a lamp on both. He did it, and within five minutes we realized what was going on. In the cuvette with oxygen, the substance decomposed in two minutes, while the substance in the cuvette without oxygen remained stable. This means that these compounds are afraid of oxygen and light, and therefore, as molecular machines, no one needs them. But they are very good for generating singlet oxygen!

As a result, from these substances that Ivan created, we began to make photosensitizers and opened a whole direction - photosensitizers based on phosphorus porphyrins. These substances dissolve well in both organic solvents and water, which in itself is very rare. This means that from these substances that produce deadly singlet oxygen, antibacterial ointments or water injections can be made that replace antibiotics. However, we also completed the planned turnstile in the end. After all, when you understand what is happening, it is easy to find a solution. So it is in this case: we quickly found axial substituents for phosphorus, which blocked the generation of singlet oxygen, and obtained the long-awaited tourniquet. Ivan successfully defended his dissertation twice, in Strasbourg and Moscow, and now he has two diplomas - a Candidate of Chemical Sciences (HAC) and a PhD from the University of Strasbourg.

By the way, this story is also about a negative result, which opened up for us a whole area of antibacterial substances that can replace antibiotics. In science, it is very important to learn not to brush aside things that don’t work out. And of course, you must definitely go to conferences, preferably large, international ones. Under no circumstances should you cook in own juice. I always try to use grants to take my employees to large international conferences, where they can immediately get acquainted with a variety of topics. Our specialized conference takes place every two years in different countries. This summer we were in Munich. There were seven of us, and ten sections worked in parallel at the conference. Every day the guys wrote down who was going to which section in order to cover as much as possible, and then tell each other. Everyone returned with sparkling eyes - let's try this, let's try that...

- What is it? Russian Academy sciences today? Has she retained at least some influence on government processes? What is its function if FANO and the Ministry of Science are now in charge? Do you feel comfortable at the Academy?

The RAS today is separated from academic institutions. Now it’s just a community of scientists, a club of scientific leaders, if you like. Today the Russian Academy of Sciences has two main functions - expert and prognostic. The Academy examines all scientific activity in the country, including universities and applied institutes. Therefore, membership in the academy imposes very big obligations - when receiving a scholarship from the state, it must be honestly earned. After I became a member of the Academy, my worries increased greatly - organizational, scientific, and expert. The circle of trusted scientists who are ready to perform complex expert work is not so wide, but there is a lot of expertise now. It is very difficult to select experts who have time for this work, to find a competent reviewer who will agree to do a review in a timely and qualified manner. Last year I did more than two hundred examinations for the Russian Science Foundation, the Russian Foundation for Basic Research, the ministry, scientific journals. There is nothing to be proud of here; two hundred examinations a year is not normal. But this is evidence that we have an acute shortage of scientific experts and reviewers.

The RAS tries to participate in important government processes. RAS professors worked a lot on the new law on science, participated in the work of the Science Council of the State Duma, introduced more than a hundred useful and significant amendments to it, and ultimately received a completely different document compared to what was originally prepared by the ministry. So the Academy lives according to Mendeleev, who said that he was a scientist, teacher and adviser in government affairs.

In general, a member of the Academy must have a certain set of qualities and inner core in order to lead a discussion; This is a man's story, undoubtedly, which is why there are not many women in the Academy. But I feel quite comfortable in this society of very strong and very different men - like a woman in a normal, intelligent male society, where women, by definition, are in an advantageous position, because there are few of them.

- But let's get back to dreams. What new goal did you set for yourself after defending your PhD thesis?

By this point, I realized that I was generally lucky. I ended up in the laboratory of Aslan Yusupovich Tsivadze, behind whom I felt like behind a stone wall. He supported and supports me in all my scientific endeavors, trusts my intuition. In addition, I occupied a niche that was incredibly interesting to me - supramolecular chemistry, the chemistry of organic and coordination compounds. And I decided to create a scientific group, ideal and self-sufficient, in which we could solve most of the problems ourselves, without leaving the laboratory.

My first guys came to me from the first year of the Higher Chemical College of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Very gifted guys, today they form the backbone of the laboratory - Sasha Martynov, Kirill Birin, Yulia Enakieva. True, Yulia came from MITHT, where the level of education was slightly lower compared to the College of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Nevertheless, a great desire to work and immersion in our team yielded excellent results. I have 11 protected graduate students, and 10 of them remained to work in the group. I really hope that this year Sasha Martynov will defend his doctoral dissertation. He came to me as a freshman in college in 2000.

There are 21 people in my group together with students today. And students, talented and passionate, continue to come to us - from college, from Moscow State University, Russian Chemical Technology University, MITHT. I try to encourage my youth to play chemistry so that they want to go to work, to the laboratory, to do what they do. So that they are interested all the time. It seems to me that this is the main key to success in any profession. Our chemistry is not easy, but very beautiful. And anyone who gets into my group becomes infected and captivated by the tasks that we do. In a word, in my group there is a team in which the guys are interested in each other, where everyone is engaged in their own area, but everyone is united general tasks obtaining new substances with interesting properties. By the way, I have an equal number of boys and girls.

- What about self-sufficiency? Can you fully serve yourself?

We have made every effort to ensure that our group and laboratory are not dependent on external analytical resources. The fact that today we are well equipped with the most modern analytical equipment is thanks to Aslan Yusupovich. He always invested free money in new equipment, realizing that without it we would not be able to compete with other laboratories in the world. We recently replaced the old NMR with a new one. We have a MALDI-TOF mass spectrometer that allows us to analyze proteins. Previously, without this device, we did thirty tests a year for money, and went to another institute. And today my guys make more than a hundred a week. So today we ourselves carry out most of the physical and chemical studies of the substance.

Moreover, I distributed the methods among my employees. Someone specializes in NMR, someone in mass spectrometry, someone is responsible for luminescence, someone does IR - and we do all this ourselves, without turning to anyone. On the contrary, they turn to us. This is also good, because it develops the children, they get acquainted with new and completely different tasks and topics. We have become a modern European group that can do many things within itself - synthesize, isolate, explore, measure the first physical properties. My guys even design and assemble installations. The same Ivan Meshkov. He is from the Russian Chemical Technical University, he himself invented and assembled, together with the employees of the Institute of Oncology and Chemistry, an installation to measure singlet oxygen. So this dream also came true.

- There are young employees in your group. Don't they really want to go to work in the West? The Higher Chemical College of the Russian Academy of Sciences has always been distinguished high percentage leaving graduates.

There was such a thing. The first graduating class of the college in 1995, with the exception of one person, left for the West. But now the situation has changed. Firstly, there is a crisis in science all over the world, there are too many scientists, there is no room for everyone. Secondly, our home science has become really interesting. But I don’t put any obstacles in front of anyone, because I understand how important this is for the development and professional growth of the guys. And this understanding was formed from my personal experience, which is called "Spanish history".

When I was in graduate school, my supervisor Larisa Godvigovna Tomilova sent me to Spain for two months at the University of Valladolid. She just bought me round-trip tickets with her own money and put me on the plane. Then, in the early nineties, everything was not so simple - both visa and tickets. And yet everything worked out. At a Spanish university, a group of very strong physicists decided to raise sensory topics from scratch. They urgently needed a graduate student who would synthesize phthalocyanines for a stipend of $200 a month. That is, they needed an organic chemist for the team.

Needless to say, it was an unforgettable two months. I met and became friends with absolutely amazing people - Professor Jose Antonio de Saha, Maria Luz Rodriguez, Jorge Souto. We collaborated beautifully and really got the theme off the ground. By the way, they still work on my connections.

In general, Spanish history gave me a lot. Let's start with the fact that I now speak Spanish fluently. But this is not the main thing. This trip gave me self-confidence and the opportunity to look at myself and my country from the outside, with some external perspective. And what did I see? I saw that I had an excellent education, both school and university; Europeans, and especially Americans, simply weren’t anywhere near me. I realized that I have a wonderful country and that I am also worth something. Take any average graduate of a Soviet school and ask what he knows about Spain. He will probably remember Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, even if he doesn’t remember Cervantes. He will definitely call the opera “Carmen”, even if he doesn’t call it Bizet. He knows that the capital of Spain is Madrid, he knows about Seville, Barcelona and bullfighting, about Goya and Picasso. He knows simply because it was all in our school curriculum. And the Spaniards, apart from Yeltsin and Gorbachev, vodka and the strange “Kalinka-Malinka” dance, knew nothing about Russia. I remember how my now friend Maria Luz and I went to the Prado, and when we entered the Goya hall, I began to tell her about the artist. She was surprised: “How do you know all this?” Well, of course, I read “Goya, or the Hard Path of Knowledge” by Lion Feuchtwanger. That is, we, graduates of simple Soviet schools, knew about Spain even what they did not know.

They were also amazed when they looked at my clothes. “Where did you buy such interesting things?” - “I didn’t buy it, I knitted it myself.” - “How are you? Are you a chemist? Well, how can you explain that back then Russian women knew how to do everything - sewing, knitting, and not just walking around naked? In short, the trip to Spain truly inspired me and gave me a powerful impetus towards the right movement in science.

Most of my young employees have either been on internships or are joint graduate students, and I have absolutely no fear that someone will leave somewhere and not return. But they don’t leave!

- No, there is still one story - about a girl who dreamed of working only in America and only in the laboratories of Nobel laureates, you told me about it.

True, there is one case. Katya Vinogradova from the College of Chemistry did my diploma. Came to my place scientific work in the first year. Small, fragile, with blue eyes and curls, but with a completely steel core inside. Already in her first year, she knew that she wanted to work in the USA. And not just anywhere, but in laboratories with Nobel laureates. She studied very well and purposefully went to practice in the summer with various Nobel laureates in the USA, choosing a place for herself. When she graduated from college, she almost had her Ph.D. thesis ready. In general, all my college students, as we call them, those who did their diploma with me, defend their candidate’s theses a year and a half after graduating from college, because they all have scientific articles and a lot of material accumulated over five to six years.

I tell Katya: let us defend our dissertation, and then you will go to your America as a postdoc - to a different position, for different money, in a different status. No, he says, I want to study at an American graduate school, because I want to continue to make a career in America. And she entered graduate school at MIT, with the very famous organic scientist Buchwald, who will definitely Nobel laureate. This is one of the strongest organic laboratories in the world. She completed five years of graduate school under very harsh conditions. There you have to teach at the same time, there you have to come up with everything yourself, no one rushes around with graduate students like we do in my group. She defended herself, now she’s a postdoc, and I laugh: “Katya, we’re raising you up to be a mega-grant, and after some time you’ll return to us in this role.” She is a very successful young scientist and is doing very well. But this is the only case so far.

All my other guys, even those who looked to the West, eventually return after working. I am sure that you need to travel and study in different places, I am ready to go study anywhere - to work on some new equipment, to learn new methods, to feel the way I felt when I arrived in Spain. To understand that I have a good education, and my country is amazing, and I’m wonderful, I also mean something and I can. Most of my guys have been to the West - and all of them have returned! The same Sasha Martynov. He worked for several years with Jean-Pierre Sauvage, winner of the 2016 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. This is very important for him as a person and as a scientist. Working with Jean-Pierre was a godsend. But here, in my group, he is very comfortable.

- What about salaries? After all, today’s kids also need to create and support families?

If you have successfully completed graduate school, you have articles and promising topics, then you will be very well provided for. In our country, up to the age of 35, they literally carry you in their arms - they feed you, they put money in your beak. As a young scientist, you are offered a bunch of different grants both in the Russian Foundation for Basic Research and the Russian Science Foundation, and in institutes you are offered all sorts of incentive bonuses. And all so that you don’t decide to leave the institute, so that your age decreases average age scientific employees of the organization. As a result, young people receive much more than older scientists, who deserve it no less and have worked in science for many years.

But here is another paradox. Here they are carrying you, supporting you from all sides. They brought it up to 35 years old, and then bang! - and the carriage turns into a pumpkin. At 35 years and one day you become a middle-aged scientist. And no one puts anything in your mouth anymore. You are entering adult life, in competition with a large number of adult scientists who mean a lot in science. And there are no more youth grants with a one-to-two competition. Now welcome to the adult competition in the Russian Foundation for Basic Research with a competition of one to twenty.

I am not a supporter of copying Western experience in organizing science; in our conditions and given our specifics, this does not lead to good. But it is precisely on this issue that the Western approach seems to me more logical and justified. One of the reasonable things is to be attached not to age, but to status. In the West there are grants for students, there are grants for graduate students, there are grants for postdocs. A postdoc is seven years after defending a PhD thesis. Someone defended it at 23, and someone at 32. Accordingly, he can be a postdoc until he is 40 years old. In the West there are grants for beginning researchers ( Early Career Researchers), within three to four years after postdoc. In other words, funding depends on how you move in the scientific hierarchy, and not on how old you are.

My young people, in our laboratory and in my group, are doing well financially. And in general, young people who want to make a career in science and achieve something today have financial support from the state. By the way, this government measure yielded results. For many years I have been conducting an examination of the same youth grants at the Russian Foundation for Basic Research. And I can say that every year the competition becomes larger, that is, there are more young people in science. And she works in the laboratories until late. So financial incentives are a good thing within reasonable limits.

- The group has been created, the team has formed, modern equipment is at hand, there is funding, grants, protection, international cooperation... Everything is going as it should. And what are you dreaming about now?

My dream now is to create some new smart materials. Materials that can switch properties under the influence of some external factors. I know that my group can do it now. Many people don’t like the words “molecular design,” but I do because I understand what is behind these words. First, we must come up with the right molecule, based on our knowledge and understanding of what and how in the structure of the molecule affects its properties, and synthesize it. This is what we can do. Then we need to properly organize these molecules relative to each other using the methods of supramolecular chemistry. And then we will get a smart material that can be inserted into a device or made into a coating. Of course, this must be technologically feasible, economically feasible and useful for society.

We are already working in several directions - we are trying to create nonlinear optical materials together with materials scientists from the Institute of Physical Chemistry, antibacterial substances based on photosensitizers, new magnetic materials, molecular machines, smart switchable materials.

When the Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded in 2016 to Jean-Pierre Sauvage, Bernard Feringa and James Fraser Stoddart “for the synthesis of molecular machines,” many scientists said: “This is science fiction and an incredible thing. Nobel Prizes are given for something that has already happened.” Here I strongly disagree. This is one of the few Nobel Prizes in chemistry that is actually given for chemistry, for the art of modeling a molecule with the desired properties and making it work the way you intended from the very beginning. Of course, the laureates have done amazing things, including smart catalysts, smart coatings, and customized medicines, which is what they deserved.

And here is what the Nobel Committee noted after awarding this prize: “Molecular machines are now at the same stage of their development as crank mechanisms were in the 1830s. Nobody knew that this would lead to trains, washing machines, food processors, cars, and so on. This is an area that can make revolutions in technology, in human understanding of the world.” And I dream of participating in this revolution. Here nature will be my teacher and inspirer, because in the living molecular world much is based on the work of dynamic systems, that is, molecular machines.

How do literary heroes experience separation from reality?

Text: Anna Chainikova, teacher of Russian language and literature, school No. 171
Photo: Pikabu

FIPI comment

The concepts of “dream” and “reality” are in many ways opposed and at the same time closely related; they aim at understanding different ideas about the world and the meaning of life, at thinking about how reality gives rise to a dream and how a person’s dream raises him above everyday life. There are many heroes in literature who have different attitudes to dreams: some are inspired by noble aspirations and are ready to realize them, others are captured by beautiful-minded dreams, others are deprived of a high dream and are subordinated to base goals.

Vocabulary work

DREAM

1. Something imaginary, mentally imagined and very desirable; object of desires, aspirations. 2. A mental image of something strongly desired, alluring. 3. Something unreal, unattainable, unattainable. ( Dictionary Efremova)

REALITY

1. The material world, which objectively exists in reality (objective reality); and the world created by individual consciousness (subjective reality). 2. A given, independent of the subject, his thinking and cognition. 3. The actual state of affairs. 4. Feasibility, feasibility of something.

Aspects of consideration of the thematic area

The role of dreams in a person’s life (dreams and the meaning of life; is it necessary to have a dream; what happens if a person loses it)
The influence of a dream on a person (it elevates a person, creates or destroys him, subjugates his life)
A person’s attitude towards a dream (follows it/betrays it; can a dream change over time)
The collision of dreams with reality (refutation of dreams by life; reality shaping the dream)

A dream is always something difficult to achieve (or unattainable), important and desirable for a person. Goal and dream are somewhat close, but they should not be confused, these are different concepts. A dream is distinguished by a separation from reality; you can dream about something inaccessible, but the goal is always real, specific and achievable. A dream will be distinguished from desire and need by the high value of what is desired and the participation of the imagination in creating its image.

A dream is always the most valuable desire, so it approaches the concept of an ideal.

Since a dream has a high value, one can use it to judge the worldview of its owner, because it embodies his life values. The absence of a dream or the inability to dream will mark a person who is practical, dry, an adherent of logic and fact.

A dream is of great importance in the development of science and art, because first it appears in the head of a madman and a dreamer, and only then someone, having brought it to life, commits scientific discovery, creates something new, hitherto unseen. “Everything that a person can imagine in his imagination, others can bring to life”, - said . In this way, a dream can create reality, the future. At the same time, a dream can also become a kind of tool for escaping reality, immersing a person in a world of dreams and fantasies, where he lives like the artist Piskarev, the hero of N. V. Gogol’s story “Nevsky Prospekt”.

Sometimes there is a collision between dreams and reality, when the dream is corrected by life or completely shattered by it. This is what happens to Prince Andrei, the hero of L. N. Tolstoy’s epic novel “War and Peace.” Disillusioned with people, fed up with the bustle of the world, Andrei Bolkonsky thinks that only the battlefield, the smoke of cannon salvos and desperate attacks on the enemy can save him from the melancholy of the state halls. Prince Andrei dreams of glory similar to the glory of his idol, Napoleon, he is sure that he, too, is destined for his Toulon, which will elevate him above people.

On the eve of the Battle of Austerlitz, Bolkonsky introduces himself “that happy moment, that Toulon, which he had been waiting for so long”: While confusion reigns around, the commanders-in-chief are in confusion, he alone remains calm and firm, gives orders, leads his division into the attack and single-handedly wins victory. The thirst for glory consumes the entire being of Prince Andrei: “...I want fame, I want to be famous people, I want to be loved by them<…>It’s not my fault that I want this, that this alone is what I want, this alone is what I live for. Yes, for this alone! I'll never tell anyone this, but oh my God! What should I do if I love nothing but glory, human love? Death, wounds, loss of family, nothing scares me. And no matter how dear or dear many people are to me - my father, sister, wife - the most dear people to me - but, no matter how scary and unnatural it seems, I will give them all now for a moment of glory, triumph over people, for love people whom I do not know and will not know, for the love of these people...". For the sake of realizing this dream, the hero is ready to give everything: neither the closest people nor his own life have the same value for him as the dream of glory. The pursuit of a dream becomes the meaning of life for him, because it is for the sake of glory that he goes to war, leaves his old father, his pregnant wife and sister at home.

Having been seriously wounded in battle and looking at high sky Austerlitz, Prince Andrei understands how wrong his dream of fame and human love turned out to be. Seeing Napoleon, whom he bowed to, on the battlefield, Bolkonsky realizes how insignificant his idol is “with this petty vanity and joy of victory, in comparison with that high, fair and kind sky that he saw and understood”. How small and insignificant his dreams of glory turned out to be, “and everything seemed so useless and insignificant in comparison with the strict and majestic structure of thought that was caused in him by the weakening of his strength from the bleeding, suffering and the imminent expectation of death”. Life itself makes Andrei Bolkonsky realize the falsity of his aspirations. On the verge of death, he can see so clearly that he should live not for the glory and love of millions, but for the sake of simple human happiness - “quiet life and calm family happiness in Bald Mountains”. It is about returning to his family, close and dear people who sincerely love him, that Prince Andrei dreams of, bleeding to death on Pratsenskaya Mountain.

Aphorisms and sayings of famous people

You can judge a person much more accurately by his dreams than by his thoughts. (V. Hugo)
If you take away a person’s ability to dream, then one of the most powerful motivations that gives rise to culture, art, science and the desire to fight for a wonderful future will disappear. (K. G. Paustovsky)
There is great wisdom in maintaining the tendency to dream. Dreams give the world interest and meaning. (A. France)
Nothing helps create the future like bold dreams. Today it’s a utopia, tomorrow it’s flesh and blood. (V. Hugo)
Dreams give the world interest and meaning. Dreams, if they are consistent and reasonable, become even more beautiful when they create real world in your own image and likeness. (A. France)
We need dreamers. It's time to get rid of the mocking attitude towards this word. Many people still don’t know how to dream, and maybe that’s why they can’t get on par with time. (K. G. Paustovsky)
The dream also needs to be managed, otherwise, like a ship without a rudder, it will drift to God knows where. (A. N. Krylov)
It is dangerous to joke with a dream; a broken dream can constitute the misfortune of life; chasing a dream, you can miss life or, in a fit of insane inspiration, sacrifice it. (D.I. Pisarev)
A dream often leads to the rejection of laws established from above, to the denial of the highest justice that reigns in the world, i.e. to God-fighting<…>daydreaming leads a person to vulgarity and disgusting meaninglessness of life. (N.V. Gogol)

Sample topic statements

What is the difference between a dream and a goal?
How is a wish different from a dream?
Do you need to make your dreams come true?
Can reality give birth to a dream?
Do you agree with the statement that “a man without a dream is like a bird without wings”?
How are the concepts of “dream” and “meaning of life” related?
What happens to a person if his dream is taken away from him?
Do you agree that you need to dream big?
Does fulfilling a dream always make a person happy?
Should all dreams come true?
Why is it often said: “fear what you wish for”?
Do you agree with D.I. Pisarev that “by chasing a dream, you can miss life”?
Why don't dreams always come true?
Should you be true to your dreams?
Why do people give up on their dreams?
Why is there a gap between dreams and reality?
When does reality destroy a dream?