What led you into science and your chosen area of research?

Curiosity: how Nature works? And reading several popular books. The strongest impact had a book by Grigoriev and Myakishev “Forces in Nature”. This was the book on particle physics, I was fascinated. Finally, my abilities as a researcher were formed at High School 57 in Moscow, which at that time had special physics class lead by a great teacher, V.V. Bronfman. If one would count physicists staying in research whom he taught, I bet he would make it to Guinness Record book.

Can you describe the results in your paper and their importance for your field?

Not in 60 seconds.

What research projects are you working on at the moment?

Trying to understand self-consistency of hypothetical exotic forms of dark energy filling the Universe.

What do you think will be the next big breakthrough in your field?

Experimental discoveries at Large Hadron Collider.

What book are you reading right now?

Pelevin, “Zheltaja strela” (“Yellow arrow”). (This is not science.) As to scientific books, I consult a lot of them, but do not read any particular one.

If you could have dinner with any 3 people, past or present, who would they be and why?

Shakespeare, Pushkin, Dostoevsky. Why? These influence me the most.

What has been the most exciting moment in your career so far?

The moment when my paper on what became known as “monopole catalysis of proton decay” was accepted to Pis'ma v ZhETF. This was in 1981, I was young, my first paper on the subject (and simply the first paper on the subject) was rejected by Physics Letters B. My feeling was like that: “If Pis'ma ZhETF reject also, I quit doing physics”. The paper was correct, and became pretty famous quite soon.

What would you like to say in connection with the 90th anniversary of “Uspekhi Fizicheskikh Nauk” journal?

It is a great journal, I learned a lot of things from UFN reviews. A particularly strong impact on my education and research had the review by Ogievetsky and Mezinchesku on supersymmetry.
I was dreaming for many years to publish a review in UFN. I am very proud to have done so, and even more proud of being Deputy of Editor-in-Chief. This is great honour.