Kila zamana

OFFSHORE SAILOR | CREATIVE DIRECTOR | FILMMAKER | EXPLORER |MUSHER |PARAGLIDER | DIVER WRITER | WILDLIFE ACTIVIST | AMBASSADOR TO HEAR BETTER

all started when…

One might say that over the course of 34 years, I have lived many lives. The trauma of partially losing the sense of hearing almost instantly, which I experienced as a teenager, threw me off from the original track of becoming a pilot for years. Unlike most peers aspiring to head for college to forge their career, I had to go through surgery for a Cochlear Implant and years of rehabilitation. As rough the water was, I got back on my feet and discovered that I could turn what I understood as a weakness into the power to take up challenges. My life is a never-ending journey of improvement. And many of the trails that I am taking off the beaten path – often facing against the wind – have never been hiked by a person with a hearing impairment.

⍋ the land voyager

By profession, I was a concept artist, illustrator, and filmmaker. After shattered dreams of becoming pilot, instinctively found a gateway to escape into imaginary world which offered the world without boundaries. At some point my art was recognized for its distinctive style depicting the environment of the imaginary worlds seen by over a 1.000.000 online visitors which helped to set up my first solitary trips around the globe at the age of eighteen. Combining creating wildlife art and exploring vast dramatic landscapes, volunteering in wildlife in search of something turned out to be the magical compass that magnetically pulled me to a new passion: dogsledding across the rough arctic environment.

…and so, was the discovering the myth of Greenland.

❊ The NORTH EXPLORER

I spent 10 years evolving in the dogsledding environment, participating in skijøring and bikejøring races with my companion Arnaq, a Greenland dog that I brought from Norway with her ancestors from West Greenland’s world champion - Ville Siegstad. Arnaq inspired me to import fine working dogs for other mushers whilst mastering knowledge about Greenlandic Sled Dogs - that is a prism that reflects unique insight into Greenlandic culture in the past, present, and future. Participated in 330km Fjällräven Polar expedition. On my solo expedition in far Svalbard, I met Sirius Sled Patrol team that inspired me to give an ultimate goal of fulfilling my own sledge expedition crossing Greenland from East to West.

During polar exploration, whilst working with ancient dog breeds in an arctic environment has helped to recognize the empowerment of human potential, striving to understand common misconceptions and challenging one’s limitations in order to turn into allies in achieving one’s goals.

The primordial dogs were reflections of our behavior patterns… a simple language to understand ourselves.

Thus, after Arnaq’s death, my inner compass has changed from darkening North towards the Sun…

≋ THE SEA FARER

…to the day of my first sailing trip on 50’ft S/V “Malaika” across 1200 miles during late autumn’s violent weather, I challenged myself to face the fear of water. The fear has turned into falling in love with navigating through the sea. Then I made a quick decision to get trained in RYA. Within the last five years, I have sailed over 25,000 NM offshore, part of it double-handed, and took part in building and leading sailing expeditions on “Malaika”. That experience was more than just sailing the Atlantic Ocean’s islands, but…

“… discovering the crew’s fascinating stories about their strength, fortitude, and teamworking that the protagonists who have sailed the bumpy seas and faced the forces of nature, thus observing overcoming their personal challenges. This was quite special coming from living as a lonely wolf!”

Some of these enchanting stories of exploring the islands were published in several Yachting World issues in alliance with other wonderful sailing boats.

Now the question is… what is next?

My journey is to find a missing piece of fullfilling the last element - The Sky!

The Book

My ultimate goal is to publish a book that conveys all explorative stories and the whole transformation of my life through many extreme challenges through illiustrative travel adventures, concluding to build the ability to live with our limitations and turning them into strengths. There is a misconception to think of "overcoming barriers" as our aim to remove them as an obstacles and focusing on achieving the ideal state - sir and ma, that won’t happen.

The art is to live with the physical and mental limitations we have, constantly improving, perfecting processes, and turning them into advantageous strengths that help us to illuminate clear pathway to find our own superpowers.

The goal of the book is to inspire and enlighten reader’s souls.

The book will be beautifully illustrated by art, photojournalism and drawn diagrams to explain metaphysics occurrences - and a well known artist Anna Podedworna “Akreon” took the task to design book cover!