Page 5 - The Mirror of My Soul. Vol. 1

Nicolai Levashov. The Mirror of My Soul. Vol. 1. Born in the USSR

36. Parasites attack again ............................................................................................................................... 300
37. The silver thread ........................................................................................................................................ 304
38. The second visit to Archangelsk ............................................................................................................... 317
39. Moscow fuss ............................................................................................................................................... 330

40. Departure to the USA................................................................................................................................ 335

Preface
There are several reasons why I decided to write my own biography. First,
whenever I had occasion to talk about some events of my life, my stories would often
come back to me in the form of the most unimaginable “folklore.” In fact, my tales took
on such “facts” and colorations that even I listened to them with interest.

The second reason that impelled to such a “feat” was the fact that every now and

then some-one would appear and offer to write my biography—and every time
something stopped me. Once I even agreed to have an American woman author garner
my recollections onto audiocassettes and spent several days with her recording them.
But then I changed my mind and gave up the offer.

First of all, I had to expend a lot of time describing and explaining events that had
happened to me. Secondly, to my utter astonishment, writers and journalists managed to
distort everything despite their having my recorded recollections: this would include
exaggerating, distorting facts and sometimes simply telling bare-faced lies. Therefore,
when Dmitri Baida, the administrator of my web site, suggested that I write the
biography myself, I decided to do just that. And—as the process unfolded, it also became

the interpretation of my views on life.

I thought that if my life and my modus vivendi were interesting to people, then
nobody was more qualified than I to convey what and when things happened in my life,
what I thought as to one or another situation, what I felt and experienced. Certainly,
everything that I am about to describe will be highly subjective and will reflect the outer
world through my own eyes. But despite all this, I will try to reflect everything with
maximum objectivity, as much as possible. As this is my biography, nobody will do it
better than I, and if there is any distortion it will be my distortion of my own biography,
which is better than distortions made by someone else.

Nicolai Levashov

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