Greetings, everyone!
I would like to start by saying that I got here by accident. Of course, I had heard of Reddit, nevertheless, I had never visited it because I lived in Russia and rarely visited English-language resources because of my poor English skills, to my shame. "To my shame" - I mean both the fact that I did not know English well and the fact that I lived in Russia. I’ll talk about it later, and for now I’ll focus on the reason how ended up here.
I would like to ask you to comment on the collection I’ve created. It has been evaluated negatively by the people from the places I used to live in my former country. These are some comments I’ve heard from them: “It’s a hype!”, “It’s nonsense!”, “Nobody is interested in it!”, “You fool!”. Someone stopped communicating after that. I explain you my idea and also tell you how my ex-friends reacted to it later in the text. For now, let's get back to how I ended up here and why I am writing all these things in such details.
Prologue. Russian reality pushing for changes.
I mentioned above that I used to live in Russia. And I lived there my whole life, which is 32 years, in the city called Vladivostok. That's the place where I was born, grew up, had my family and my child. Vladivostok is the city where my parents were born and lived their whole lives. It was my motherland and my home. For plenty of years I felt that way, even though there were always some things I didn't like about this place. I think I just didn't know any other life and whether it was possible to live differently at all. I can bring one example from my childhood. The Airborne Troops have this tradition to bathe in the fountain once a year. It was obvious that all the paratroopers were getting drunk to death on that day. Our parents warned us that it would be better not to go to public places on that day so nothing bad could happen. Since childhood, I could not understand how people in the military services, our defenders and the ones who should be a role model and cause a feeling of pride, especially, among children, can behave so disgraceful and mean in front of everyone. Moreover, the most incomprehensible thing to me was the question why the adults said that those people could behave this way on such a day, that it was normal dur to their holiday celebration. Maybe that's why I developed some kind of special attitude to holidays. On holidays, I feel some kind of anxiety and I can't relax. Paratroopers used to put up fights, molest ordinary people and, nonetheless, they weren't arrested by the police which didn't pay any specific attention to it. I have another example. Kids used to go and fight in groups with each other - house against house, street against street. That was also considered normal, and everyone turned a blind eye by pretending that there was nothing bad going on. They didn't pay any attention to it, as if nothing was going on at all. Why am I bringing these examples from such topics now? My intention is to show you that Russia is a country of aggression. Aggression has been the norm and approved by society over there since my childhood. Let’s remember this point as it will be useful for us later on. Even back then, I could not accept the fact that this had been normal. Yes, I lived in that environment and lived by those rules because there was no Internet at the time and I just could not see how different other countries or nations lived. There were quite a few other things I didn't like either but it might require a separate thread to list and discuss them. Now I just want you to understand why I have left Russia. Aggression is not even the main reason in this case. By the age of 30, I formed a fairly clear and frightening picture of the country, taking into account that since being a child, I have already seen and experienced the things that I strongly disliked and could not accept as the norm. I spent a lot of time analyzing people in Russia: their lives, their goals, politics, ongoing events in the country, governmental opinions, promises, and actual actions. Speaking of people's goals, it is worth noting that almost no one has them, except for “the soonest days-off from work”. “This rest from work” means just to get drunk. I have always been interested in what is happening around me (clean streets, people’s attitude to each other and to animals, willingness to help everyone and everything around us for free). All in all, by my 30's, I was completely terrified of most things! When my wife was in the hospital with a baby, there were 6 children with their mothers in a room of 5x2.5 square meters in size. In total, there were 12 people in this room which was initially designed for 2-3 individuals!!! This is the pattern in Russia, the pattern to tolerate such a treatment!!! The ventilation did not work and the walls with ceiling were covered in mold, but the most important thing was that the people who arrived there were fine with it! Nobody complained about it or put the words into actions. That is why this principle (“Do nothing”) has become the basic principle for most Russian population. Absolute lack of participation in all spheres exists in this reality. If you decide to handle something or argue with people who do not do their job properly, they might object with such questions as: "You the smartest in here, aren’t you?” or “You need it more than anyone else, don’t you?” or “Everybody is ok with it so why you're not?”. The saddest thing is that people who ask you the questions use all these things themselves. Simply saying, instead of demanding a proper service, some adequate attitude to themselves, people criticize those who demand it.
It has become the benchmark for them to absolutely ignore the rules, norms and laws, and people even support it, although they receive it all themselves. I can't understand or explain it. After all, they don't even think about it. This has been the picture of my country which I contemplated back then. I lived there, I tried to fight for something. Sometimes I did not try to take some actions, because I understood that I would need help to manage something; sometimes, I simply had no strength for this fight. With regard to politics, I participated in lots of protests, which took place in Russia. In fact, there weren’t quite a lot of them. I looked at the people and how serious they are over there. From what I had seen, there was no seriousness to defend something at all. When the police came, people were just scurrying away with cheerful shouts while recording the current actions on their smartphones. That's what happened in my city. I’m writing this paper to state one simple thing – Russia doesn’t have a civil society anymore. In my opinion, a citizen is a person, part of this society who fights for his or her rights or for the rights of other ordinary people. This citizen understands that these things are closely interconnected. In Russia, there isn’t almost such a thing, which concludes that there is a civil society or a citizenry: there are just people, not a society. These people are not united by anything, one cares only about his or her own well-being. Those who would like to demand and change something, just don't see the point in it because they understand that there would be no support from other people and they would be left alone with the government, which either puts them in jail under any invented and fabricated article, or just kills them. This is the reality faced by a person in Russia today, a person who does not live in his own small world, but who wants an adequate free country. At least, the country where some rights are observed, where two basic things are carried out. In my opinion, we can define whether it is possible to live in such a country or not - that personal level of comfort and a feeling of safety (level of security). For me, there is neither one nor the other nowadays. Besides that, there is no freedom of speech, no basic principles of law, no constitution apparently thrown to trash long ago, as everything possible has been violated. That is roughly how I saw my country before February 24th , 2022. The insanity began after this date. Normal people simply could not believe in this mess. This war codenamed "The Special Operation". You might ask what can be more terrible than a war. Well, it’s the fact that the majority of Russians supported it. That was the hardest thing to accept. If you look at everything that has happened in the country over the past 20 years and analyze the actions of the people, of course, this will not surprise you at all, because the patterns of impoverishment and stultification of people are visible. Theory is one thing and practice is another, that’s why it was not easy to believe everything that was going on around us. One of the most frequent and popular phrases that people of my age and I heard from my grandparents was: "Most importantly, not to have a war". The reason for it is that lots of them had witnessed World War II or were born soon after it and knew that war was fear and horror for everyone. What do you think? The elderly people (most of them) who had been repeating that phrase their whole lives supported the war as well!!!! Then, my eyes finally opened, and I clearly realized that I can no longer be among all these people, I just decided to stop tolerating things that are not acceptable to me. I realized that I’m definitely not part of the Russian society as long as my views and beliefs have nothing in common with this Russian society (society is just a collection of people because, as I have written earlier, I would never call it a civil society) and it causes me nothing but resentment and contempt.
Finally, I'm writing this on Reddit because I want to collect the opinions and views of other people from other countries. I think other people's views on life can be very different from those of my former friends and compatriots.
People, if you don't agree with something or may think that I am a provocateur who tries to smear Russia, who have twisted everything and none of this is actually true, please leave your feedback. If you want to say that this is absolutely everywhere and it is a regular problem, don’t hesitate to leave a comment as well. This is my first post ever, so I apologize for being misunderstood. I don't mind debating, just back up what you say with facts. I am also happy to argue and prove everything I’ve mentioned.
To summarize, share your thoughts, please. Is it readable? Is there any unnecessary information? Should I add more descriptions or details to my stories? Is it useful and interesting to read? Anyway, I’m waiting for your feedback even if it's a criticism!!! I generally believe that a constructive criticism is the best way to make someone a better person.
Chapter 2. "The Simple Solution.
After February 24th , around two or three weeks passed. During this time, I had time to discuss what was going on with many people. Million times I heard: "That's right, now we're going to show those Khokhlyas," or "Who are we to say anything? or "Who are we to say anything because there are smart people sitting up ‘there' and they know better than we do”. I have noticed that there is indeed a lot of slavishness in the mentality of Russians. For some reason, they consider people of any high position to be some kind of "higher intelligence" who is always smarter and knows better, so you should not question what this "intelligence" says. When you start thinking that you are smarter than this "higher intelligence", it generally considers to be a sin and unchristian. That's why you often hear from people, answers and questions like: "How can we know?" and then: "We don't know anything", "They know better up there", "Who are we to judge those people's decisions… ", etc. I think all this has to do with the extremely low level of education and the level of self-development. Moreover, let’s not forget the fact that people are not interested in anything else. It's worth adding a comment about the fact that people don’t have much in life (no goals); they understand that they will never make money for themselves; there are no "lofty" dreams; everyone lives by making ends meet - this is the mentality that they have – to keep a low profile, sit quietly like everyone else, never take the initiative. The only thing they have, as they think, is their great Russia (if you ask them what their greatness is displayed in, people have difficulty answering), as some have been repeating this on TV for decades while the audience believes it. This is also fundamental to many people's support for the war, because if Russia defeats and conquers someone, then people will have reasons to be proud of its strength (in Chapter 1 I mentioned that aggression is the norm, instilled as early as childhood). Since people hardly ever have any reason to be proud in life, they are proud of such sorts of success. In general, I noticed war supporters in the vast majority, the letter "Z" appeared on many cars. At the end of two weeks, I ended up in the hospital. It seemed to me that my heart wasn't beating properly and it gave me a great fear. When I was in the hospital with an ECG device (Holter) for 24 hours, it turned out that my heart was beating well and the whole problem was about panic attacks, which were registered as my diagnosis. And then I realized that I can no longer be among these people because I was suffocating in such a society. We sold the car, packed things up and left the country (it was an easy decision). My wife supported me, the cat did not resist. Although, it was not so easy, because we have left elderly parents there, a couple of close friends who do not want to leave but still treat the situation negatively. Our whole life was spent in Vladivostok. In fact, it was one of the most difficult decisions in my life but there was a clear understanding that it could not be any other way! We can't stay, otherwise we simply suffocate. By staying there, we would be just as useless and unable to change anything, no matter how much we wanted to. No doubts, you can try, but don’t expect a big support ,otherwise, you deal directly with the government. At that time there was no talk about mobilization because they said that the Russian army was crushing the enemy on TV. So we did not leave because we lived peacefully in Russia throughout the war but when mobilization was announced, we rushed to flee. It seems to me that this is an important point, because plenty of people who fled from mobilization now have a positive attitude towards the Russian invasion to Ukraine. They just left Russia to wait it out. We have a completely different story and position in this regard.
Chapter 3: The New Old Life.
To start with a new life, we had to deal with some spending procedures. After spending a few thousand dollars, we found ourselves in a completely new country, which we had never been to and which was 8,000 km away, if you count the distance as a straight line. Our journey was 11,000 km long. By the way, my wife and me have a child and a cat, which we consider a full-fledged member of the family, so there was no question of taking him with us too.
Our new old life began. New means a lot: we do not know the local language (this is not English), everything for us is new and unusual, a different mentality of the population and different rules. There were a lot of new things in everyday life. For instance, the schedule of hospitals, pharmacies and stores – everything is different from what it used to be. It is not a problem of course and it is not difficult, but you still need to get used to it. The child has difficulty in communication because of the language barriers. Don’t consider my story as a complaint, I am not writing this to say that there is something bad. There are pros and cons, and of course we were aware of that and were ready for it. I'm writing this to state the fact that if it was possible to stay in Russia, we probably would have stayed. Nonetheless, everything that was happening there, made Russia and the Russian society completely unfit for our life. This new life with all its difficulties and unknown issues was much better than life in the "motherland". I also call this New Life the Old Life because nothing changes fundamentally, no matter where you live. You still have to work, and most of your time is spent on working. This is what Robert Kiyosaki wrote about and what he called “the rat race”. You work endlessly just so your family has something to live on, and once in a while you allow yourself a break and spend time with family or friends. You have necessary strength and desire to work again. It goes round and round, day after day, month after month, year after year. At this point, many people have probably wondered how you work without knowing the language. It's impossible to work even in the simplest jobs such as a taxi driver or longshoreman, even there, the first thing you need is a language. Thus, you had to use the savings you were traveling with. These people would be right - it's hard to call it savings because we had a total of $10,000. This money covered our tickets, document’s arrangement, the apartment rent for a few months and a residence permit in the new country. After these expenses, almost nothing was left (around 2000 dollars). This is all the money we had for the life of our family. Here it is worth talking about what we did in our "homeland". My wife was a party and event planner, a host and a decorator. I was a builder. That is, I graduated the Institute and obtained a higher Russian education in industrial and civil construction. I had my own small company, which was specialized in doing waterproofing roofs of residential, commercial and industrial buildings. We were arranging monolithic works, we were doing exterior utilities. When my wife and I were at work, the child often stayed with my grandmother. We were financially well and could continue to live like that if we had not paid attention to what was going on around us as most Russians do. So what did we get in the new country as a result of our choices? My wife does not work (although she tries hard), for the reason that, as you have probably guessed, she lacks the most essential part of her job - communication with locals. There is a complete lack of knowledge of the local language. To add, now there's no one to leave the baby with. And of course, we should not forget to add that we received a tourist visa, which is generally prohibited to work in the country. It’s the same story about me - I do not know the language, proven people are needed for the construction company. Understanding of the local market turns out to be challenging because you need all the things I do not have here now. Also, it turns out that we are here with 2000 dollars with no way to work and with a complete lack of understanding of what to do next. The fact is that in Russia, I had a hobby, about 3 years ago, I bought a drone (DJI Mavic 2 Zoom) and began to fly it on some of our trips, in beautiful places, as well as occasionally used it for photo and video reports at work. That hobby of mine turned into a new one - editing all the video I shot. Then, I started getting even more interested in color grading, post production, compositing, 3d animation, chroma key, and everything related to that. Naturally, it wasn't a quick development. I had a job, hard and not easy, with a huge responsibility to the customers. Just a family needs a lot of time that’s why I had very little time for my hobby. Sometimes I could not give even a minute for 2-3 months and forgot what I had learned. This went on for about 3 years. And then we come back to February 24th and the next few weeks. That's when I decided that I was going to use what I had learned and be able to make money from it by working remotely by all means. I heard about Fiverr, Upwork - people from all over the world can work there and I decided that if someone can do it, then I can do it too. Hope in our new life was only for that, although before I moved, I had never worked on those sites and I could not say for sure that I would be able to do something, I had no experience in working for someone else. Today, we are living for 8 months in our new location, besides, I am working remotely and developing my skills. I can not say that I earn a lot, but enough for a modest life. Why am I telling you all this? There are several reasons.
The first is that we have never really planned such a move and have never prepared for anything like this. But if a person really wants something, there is no need to be afraid. It is necessary to use any available skills, knowledge, to give up fear and go forward even if it is completely unfamiliar, new, scary. Life is one, and the worst is that you will not do what your heart truly wants like betraying your desires, impulses, yourself. And then the opportunities and determination will pass, and you will spend the rest of your life thinking that you haven't done something you really wanted to. I have had such moments in my life when I have had many failures in different spheres, and I can honestly say, without deceiving myself, that I would rather fail dozens of times than not do something that I really wanted to do. Because there's nothing more painful than remembering something and realizing that you chickened out of doing it. That's my philosophy, that's what I've come to in 32 years. I mean to say that everybody has to live this way, I don't think everybody has to live a certain way at all. Any kind of limits and restrictions are wrong in today's civilized world.
The second reason is that I want to use my own example to show that it is great to try to be a versatile person, to be open to new information and new knowledge, to have hobbies. Therefore, you try to develop your life and not to stand still, because stability in life is quite a big illusion, which can be changed at any moment. What allowed a person to live and earn money may become unclaimed at some point. Circumstances will be such that it will be necessary to change your life in a short time, as it happened to us. You can also think of Covid19 and how many people all over the world lost their jobs then. This is where the skills that you have, in addition to the basic ones, can come in handy.
And the third is how the idea that follows came about. The idea that I spent a lot of time and effort on, and for the sake of which I wrote this entire post. If it hadn't been for all the things I'm talking about now, if it hadn't happened, I would probably still be in my comfort zone in my former "homeland”. I would not have done any of the things that I have done and continue to do now. Yes, I would also dislike everything I write about, but I think that all that habitual life would just go on.
Chapter 4: The Idea.
That's how we started to live in the new place, adjusting our lives and getting into our new job. But we didn't cut ourselves off from our old life, we keep in touch with our parents and keep a close eye on all the news. This weight on our hearts, because of which we left, did not leave us here, in the new place. We were worried about Ukraine every day, happy about its successes against Russia and looking forward to new victories. I will not specify into details why we feel this way. I think that many of you are aware of this, but if you're not, please ask me and I try to answer. One day I had an idea. Work requires to have a good rest, and sometimes my spare time is spent by playing computer games. In that moment I was playing the World Of Tanks. After the game, I began to discuss game-related things with my wife and why so many people are still into this game, despite the fact that it is very monotonous. In fact, it does not have anything new and interesting - the same battles on the same maps for about 15 years since the release. How come that people are not tired of the monotony after all these years, and they continue playing it? I have not found a single answer, except that people just really love the tanks. These fighting machines, that are capable of destroying everything around them, are the factor that draws people in!!!!! Please write your ideas and why this game has been played for so many years if you are familiar with it!!!! After this conversation, I offered my wife to make an NFT collection with tanks! I quickly opened OpenSea - I had already known what NFT is by that time. I love modern technology and try to be interested in everything new in the world. I saw that there isn't any tank collection, not even one. I made the decision to do it! We need to make the first collection of NFT tanks in the world! My idea sounded very cool at that moment! We got into a heated discussion about this idea with my wife. I decided that it could be connected with the situation in Ukraine and represent tanks - these destructive machines - as peaceful rather than frightening mechanisms, endowing them with peaceful, kind and cheerful images. We want to make people smile when they see these tanks. And from that moment on, the idea took hold of me. I didn’t know anything at all about how NFT collections are made. I went back to OpenSea and started looking at collections there. Of course, I noticed that most of the well-known collections have a lot of items, and I also noticed that they are made of layers (I was also quite familiar with Photoshop, so I knew about the layers), and these layers are interlaced and repeated for different items. Afterall, I got the point that these 5 or 10 thousand items are somehow generated from a fairly small number of other images. I browsed the Internet and Youtube to look at how this is done. I thought that in 5 minutes I would find and download a program which allows to load the images (layers) I’ve created. Then, this program would make the required number of images. What was my disappointment when after surfing the Internet for hours, I could not find any single program like this! After that, I began to realize that it was not as simple as I had imagined. The next few days passed, I had a lot to do every day. In my spare time I started to explore the subject of making NFTs. What follows is a brief recap of what I had to deal with and figure out, so please be patient to read it all. After many hours of searching, I found guides in the programming environment on how to generate different instances of artwork based on the layers provided through written program code, as well as source code editors and software platforms such as NodeJs. To be honest, I was pretty depressed at the moment when I realized quite clearly that in order to create a certain number of images to be used as layers, I need to understand (at least, not deeply) the topic of program code, its editors, and generally how it all works. At that time, I was upset, not knowing that this is just the top of the iceberg. In the future, I would have to learn about the existence of decentralized services, smart contracts, the types and methods of creating NFT, the pros and cons of these types. I have to learn also about the fact that I would have to create a website, and not even one, I would have to deal with domains, hosting, DNS records to connect different sites, etc. If I had known about it all at once, I would honestly have given up the whole thing. It’s for the reason that I should have asked to help other people and paid them for their work. The problem was in having no expenses for it – we only made the ends meet. I have NEVER EVER dealt with any of this stuff or read about any of it - I had no idea how to do it and how long it takes to figure it out. It's definitely a good thing what was waiting for me. Thanks to that, today there are both my sites and my collection in OpenSea and I'm writing this text to inspire some of you and find soulmates or even friends. Getting ahead of myself, I will tell you that it took me 8 long months. I spent 8 months in my free time studying all these topics, creating images (layers), faced with the fact that something did not work and I had to searched thematic forums for answers, ran smart-contracts in test networks in order not to keep money saved (FYI: you just need to pay a couple hundred dollars in Ethereum blockchain for creating a smart-contract). I made breaks and thought that if I gave up, then I would regret it for the rest of my life. Then, I would get back to my computer and overcame all the new problems and studied all those new subjects that I didn't understand before !!!!! If you are interested in any details, write your questions and I will try to answer them. Maybe I can help someone too!!!! Talking about missed opportunities, I have another good example. In 2009, I was a third year university student. I was working on my laptop and came across some site with news about modern technologies. There was an article about creation of some Bitcoin in Russian. I read that news, it described something about some obscure blockchain technology and said that it was going to be something big and new, something that hadn't existed in the world yet. They also wrote about bitcoin, saying that it is already possible to use it to pay for services on the darknet, to pay for drugs, etc. They said that someday it will be possible to pay for food orders with bitcoin and, in general, it will become a means of payment. I got interested in this article (not because of drugs because I never consumed drugs in my life) and even downloaded a program on my laptop. This program can mine these bitcoins. Then, I saw that 1 bitcoin can be obtained, if my laptop will work nonstop for days or weeks, and the pizza was worth several hundreds of coins (I can be wrong in the figures now because so many years have passed). As a result, I deleted this program from my laptop in 10 minutes and remembered it all again only when bitcoin gained the worldwide fame and went up in price by hundreds of thousands of times. And I can honestly say that I get a great sense of frustration and annoyance in myself when remembering this. I've read that there is even a syndrome called a “Fear of missing-out” syndrome. I don't know if I have it but I do know that I have no desire to miss out on anything else because of laziness, inattention, or some other things. If anyone is reading this, then my advice is to do everything you can so that you don't blame yourself for the missed opportunities your whole life! I also want to say that I have absolutely no confidence and understanding that this collection will be successful and will bring me a lot of money. We can quote a great saying: "If you want to get something you've never had before, you have to start doing something you've never done before”. In any case, you shouldn't be afraid to start something new for yourself. Right now I just want you to understand why I didn't quit doing the collection - it wasn't for money. If it will also improve my financial situation, then I will be the happiest person in the world and I will use most of the money to make other people happier. Maybe I will be able to help someone change their life like I have changed mine. I would really like that! In fact, about ten different people (families) have written to my wife with words of admiration for our determination. I'm not kidding about that and I'm not proud of it as I understand that this was a necessity for us. We are willing to fight the obstacles for ourselves and others. People wrote that we had done what they thought was some sort of "incredible" thing. We had decided "to do this," to dare to change our lives in this way. They wrote that they would like to do the same, but they can't yet, they have things that stop them, and, most of all, it is fear of uncertainty. In the end, one family, after observing our new life, did it too. They moved from our former city of Vladivostok, to the city where we live now and they live not far from us. They are very happy that they did it. They said that without our family example with this moving situation, they would never have decided to do it themselves. I'm not making anything up - everything I've written isn’t exaggerated. At the time they told us about it, I felt really proud that there was something that I was doing for good in this life. I wasn't completely useless to a society... and you know, it felt damn good!
Chapter 5. Collection.
Chapter 5 is short, as these are the final chapters that follow. I think you are already tired of reading about my life and listening to my advice. I think you might even say, "Who are you to give anyone advice?" You'd be absolutely right. You know what's another interesting thing I've noticed? If a person who used to be poor gets money, then everyone begins to listen very enthusiastically to everything he says and easily agrees with him. Before, they could easily interrupt him or just listen inattentively. Although this person has not changed much as he stays the same with the same thoughts, principles and knowledge. Although the money concept changes the attitude towards this person completely... It doesn’t work around the globe, but that’s how it works in Russia. Therefore, I will try to quickly get acquainted you with the purpose of this NFT collection and how you can help as my story has already taken a while.
Well, the Peaceful Tanks Club collection consists of 2222 NFTs. At the moment, I have minted 51 NFTs. All the NFTs look the same so you never know what picture you get before you mint NFT by the link. By the way, the link can be found both on OpenSea and on my site Peacefultanksclub.com. Let it be a surprise to everyone. Reveal will take place on 12/22/22. Everyone will be able to see what kind of tank they got on this day. The date 22.12.22 is not an ordinary date, it's my wife's birthday. That’s why I chose it as the Reveal day. I have already given her a tank and she is going to see what she received later. Also, there’s no need to worry about a gift for her.
Chapter 6. Goals.
There are lots of goals this collection pursues but two of them are the most fundamental and vivid.
The first one is as follows. After all the difficulties I encountered, I want to find out if one person without money, without advertising, without a team of designers, without cryptocurrency specialists, without a team of smart contract developers, programmers, website builders can create an NFT collection and earn something from it.
I did it myself for the first time in my life. I did it in eight months. Now I have contacts who are associated with the creation of NFT collections. They taught me that there is a development team with some appropriate skills behind every collection. I think I have an opportunity to give myself a little credit. Should I expect something else besides my own approval and this moment of happiness? I want an answer to that question.
The second goal is much more important to me. It will make me much happier than the first one and, more importantly, make other people happier too. If you have read my whole post from the beginning, I think you have already understood what kind of person I am, what I value in life and what my goals are.
I want to help a country which is very close to me (I have a Ukrainian surname), which has been attacked by my former "homeland" (Russia). I will donate a half of the total income this fundraiser gains in order to support UKRAINIAN civilians. If it works out, I will be insanely happy about two things at once. First, the fact that Ukrainians will get a real financial support thanks to my Collection and all the people who made it successful. Secondly, I will be able to stop being upset that I am a Russian and clear my conscience in the eyes of all Ukrainians. This is selfish, but this is what I really want, because it’s killing me every day. To those who think of my text as a nonsense I would give a piece of advice – don’t judge me just like that. You can’t imagine what it means to take a responsibility for the actions both your own and your former fellow citizens. You just can't understand me if you haven’t experienced it yourself. That's my opinion and that's how I see it. IMHO.
Chapter 7: A great need for help.
Here we are at the chapter titled like the entire story. Thank you so much for going so far. I don't know if I could do it myself.
What kind of help am I asking for?
I repeat it and write what you have already read in the first lines of this story.
"I would like to ask you to leave comments on the collection I’ve created and evaluate it."
I kindly ask you to share your opinion and write what you think! It will help me understand my mistakes and become better in the future. Remember, I mentioned there is nothing better than constructive criticism for growth.
Now, to those who liked something about this whole project:
- Since all of you are very different and have different capabilities, I ask you to do something that may develop this collection.
- If you can repost and forward this post to your friends and contacts, please do so!
- If you can go to OpenSea and click “Share” on this collection, please do so!
- If you can give any more publicity to this post on Reddit, this collection on OpenSea and my website for this collection Peacefultanksclub.com, please do so!
- If you can subscribe to the social media of this collection, please do so!
- If you are a media person or you know someone in media who might be interested in sharing this project with people... you know what to do! Yeah, I have lots of dreams I want to accomplish.
- Well, I’m not forcing you to buy my NFTs. I’ve already asked a lot. Thus, if you like the project and its goals, it’s up to you to support the collection financially.
Epilogue.
This project comes to an end. Of course, I would like to tell you more. I would tell you about my wife drawing some random pictures with a pencil on a white paper. I would tell you about how I was photographing her drawings and processing them on the computer to save time by not drawing them from scratch. There were some other interesting things.
I would also love to find soulmates who have similar views, values and life principles to create some community that may be called as “Peaceful Tanks Club”. I have not met such people in my former country.
I'm finishing this text and posting it on Reddit. I wait to see what happens next. I'm very curious if I will get any feedback from someone. Will anyone read this post to the last page? Will anyone like this long post? Will anyone like my project which took me almost eight months of my life?
I will be back to my main work when you read this. This is the past for me but these lines are present for you. It’s your time right now to help me and this project start working and be useful. The future of this project is in your hands.
These are not big words. I do not have money for advertising, any support of friends too. If this post remains unknown, I think this will be an end. There's a good saying in Russia about it: “Hope for the best, but be prepared for the worst”. I think that's what I'm going to do now!
See you!!!
