One day a female scientist appears on TV and shows children’s drawings. Her name is Mukhina. These, she says, are traditional drawings, from real life, but these are unconventional, bright drawings with fantasy, a Kikimora is drawn on them. And Sapozhnikov looks at the pictures – an ordinary Kikimora is drawn, no fantasy, also from real life, only imaginary. That’s the whole difference. One reads a children’s fairy tale about Kikimora, in which she was described in detail, and draws it. What kind of fantasy is this? It’s simple imagination. But all we do is imagine based on hearsay.

The word Fantasy is worn out. And Fantasy is like Love. Pal Palych has a great love for handheld jigsaw cutting. Romeo has great love for Juliet, as Pal Palych has a love for his hobby. No more, no less. Either the words love or fantasy need to be changed, or what they mean 

Fantasy is an insight. Fantasy is when you imagine the incredible, and it turns out to be true. Now if a child could see a living kikimora in the female scientist, and it turned out to be true – that would be fantasy. Fantasy is an epiphany . That’s what has been forgotten.

And to imagine Tskaltubo, Zanzibar or Pal Palych from the description – what kind of epiphany is that? You arrive in Tskaltubo, and it turns out to be completely different. What kind of epiphany is that?

Let’s stop there for now. Because this cannot be explained. You have to live it first

Mikhail Ancharov (March 28, 1923 – July 11, 1990) – novelist, poet, bard, playwright, screenwriter and artist.

Sapozhnikov is an engineer, inventor and romantic,  the main character of the novel The Boxwood Forest (1979).

Kikimora – a female house spirit in Slavic mythology. If you don’t know what it looks like you can use your fantasy, AI or just read about it and imagine it.