Aigerim

Time to re-read the Easy Venture by @rigor9

I watched yet another interview with Nikolay Tsiskaridze, one of my favorite ballet dancers and a Bolshoi principal for two decades. His argument: if you skip mythology and fairy tales as a child, art, literature, and culture are much harder to grasp as an adult. So much of what we create and consume today is built on stories, symbols, and archetypes passed down through generations. Thanks my friend Zarina, who helped me find Tsiskaridze’s elementary school. His mother taught physics there and took education seriously. She once locked him in his room until he memorized the poems. In nearly every interview, he credits her for his foundation. This hit home. Until I was 4–5, I spoke only Kazakh. Knowing I’d go to a Russian-language school, my Dad started teaching me to read in Russian and brought piles of books. I was obsessed with H.C. Andersen and Otfried Preußler, and painted scenes from their stories on A5 sheets. On the way back from his school, we met a boy selling his paintings on the street. I appreciated the entrepreneurial spirit. Though what I thought was a portrait of Van Gogh turned out to be Neymar. The same interview had a darker side: intense rivalries, sabotage, politics, and years of conflict at the Bolshoi. He was even drawn into the fallout from the infamous acid attack scandal. One of my favorite quotes of his: “Talent is stress-resistant. If a talented person lacks mental strength, then it’s not talent.” "Талант стрессоустойчив. Если у способного человека не хватает психики, значит, перед нами не талант." A reminder that every profession has its challenges. Compared to some stories from the ballet world, most corporate problems seem fairly manageable. 😄

gates, luggage, coffee & taxi, all in under 10 min 🙌🇦🇪 fav airport i once wanted to fasten a seatbelt in a movie theater – at Dubai, United Arab Emirates

no photos of art at the 🇸🇬 le freeport, but saw - rubens’ lost painting (early 1600s), the character has a demon and an angel on each side, but the decision is made by him - wu guangzhong’s “a pair of swallows” with a lot of space and air in the painting indicating that what you don’t do sometimes is more important than what you do - tsavorite on black gold is my personal finding in gems ✨

@kbwofficial neobanks game is getting stronger, met so many people building with the same business model. There is no playbook and digital banking is the most competitive vertical in Fintech. As Masayoshi Son says, you need conviction and passion to bet on these ventures & tech.

BTS of becoming a fintech unicorn 🧵 coindesk.com/business/2026/0… 1/ Interoperability. My favorite DeFi term and the biggest challenge in Web3 - and one of the main blockers to mass crypto adoption. I learned this firsthand 5 years ago, working at a DeFi protocol trying to solve it.

1) 3x winner in volleyball in company team games 2) Saw what I thought was a new Fintech platform’s OOH ad on the court and found out I was already following them on LinkedIn 3) Dubai is not as hot 4) Astana street art captured this summer

Doing the web3 lecture for Musly Club this month. “Musly is the private members’ club for ambitious, creative, and influential people with Muslim roots, worldwide. - 22,000+ applications reviewed. - A growing base of 2000+ members across industries, fortune 100s, & positions.”

BTS for @Fasset’s Card Launch in Bali. It’s coming together…

2 am wake-up call to catch the sunset in the mountains >> chilling at the beach

Arrived in Bali for luma.com/626mft1b Ended up working the entire 9h flight even though the starlink connection is so bad in the new aircrafts

Acupuncture therapy in art by Binna Choi spoke to me the most at @artdubai

9/9 I firmly believe in utility and community. When those are genuinely there, it's a long-term game. We're just getting started. 🚀