Day 31

Name: Alecksey Zaitsev

Profession: Web developer, bakery co-owner

Location: Fenway Center, Concert 2 of 4 of NU Music Tech’s Spring Concert Series

Question: Why are you here?

Answer: Because I believe in the abstract

The man and woman in front of us got my attention immediately after they had taken their seats for several reasons: firstly, I knew the woman, but couldn’t place where I knew her from (I later discovered she was a familiar Italian teacher and a friend of my own Italian professor); secondly, they were both wearing red, and the seats where of exactly the same hue; the man had bright blue eyes, disheveled grey hair, and an overall striking appearance; and lastly, I overhead a sentence from the man ending in “when I was in Russia.”

Of course, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to catch the man after the lights came on and he was suddenly sitting alone. It turns out that the forty-something wasn’t a bad pick. A Russian native with absolutely no discernable accent, he works almost entirely in the abstract. Even in defining his profession, his explanations were hard to grasp, and I’ve therefore decided to include the entire interview below in fear of getting something wrong. Maybe you’ll understand a man who works in the “idea” market better than I.

Q: Why are you here?

A: A friend of mine—the wife of one of the organizers—invited me.

Q: Had you attended the other?

A: No, no. This is my first one of these.

Q: How did you like it?

A: I really liked it. It’s not the sort of thing that I go to often, and it’s quite revealing of a lot of things. Both of what’s going on without and within.

Q: Could you elaborate on that?

A: It opens something up to what’s going on around me and also my own thoughts.

Q: What is it you do for a living?

A: I do web projects. Websites.

Q: Are you a designer?

A: I’m more of a coordinator and an organizer.

Q: What is it exactly you do organizing a website?

A: When there’s a web project—one kind or another—that needs to be put together, whether it’s my own idea or someone else’s, then a number of people need to be brought together, from designers to web programmers to computer network people, in order for it to happen. So that’s what I try and conceive of, these ideas, and then find people. I already have a group of people that I rely on to make things happen. And then others come in, sort of like an orchestra, in order to take care of the project. And I’m at the center of that, because usually I’m the organizer, the instigator. That’s what I do.

Q: What would be a website that you’ve done?

A: Well, these are not particularly well-known websites or websites of any particular interest to the public at large, but they’re mostly for the bakery that I co-own, or from my sister, who’s an artist. It’s for commercial or non-commercial projects. I’m really into the publishing of ideas these days. I think that I’m using the vehicle of these web-based projects to extract ideas out of others and myself and publish them to the web. Where else would you publish things nowadays? I find that it helps give a life of its own to these ideas that often go for years unexpressed. So this gives expression to these ideas and gives some material form to them, either commercial or not. So that’s what I’m into: The publishing of ideas, more broadly.

Q: Did you say you co-owned a bakery? How did that come about?

A: That, again, was a cooperation of a number of people. Some of whom have the guts to come together financially, others with their skills, and others with their time, and so on. Lo and behold, it came to be and we’ve brought another bakery and then another one, and so little by little, it grew to where now there’s over a hundred different varieties of bread that we bake. Not every day, but generally. Many different pastries and so on, and so it’s quite unusual.

Q : Did you get involved with that because of the business aspect or because you’re a food connoisseur?

A: I think it was more because all the right ingredients, in a manner of speaking, all the right ingredients seemed to be there, and so it made a lot of sense to stir up that kind of store more than anything. All the right people, all the right things were in place, so it seemed like a good idea at the time. Although we didn’t know what we were in for, small business-wise, running our own thing. It was some five years ago or so.

Q: And how is it doing?

A: It’s doing. It’s cooking. It’s happening. But times are tough, and we’re still here. We made it through the two-year, or two- to three-year time period where a lot of businesses fail if they are going to fail. So we’re still there, and we’re not about to give up.

Q: Do you have any other little business ventures that you’re involved in?

A: Well, like I said, right now, simultaneously, I’m trying to roll out in the form of websites some fifty three different ideas, some of which are similar. They would be, for instance, six or seven different websites for my sister alone. Sculpture or portraits or paintings or fashion drawings, things like that. So they would obviously be about the same person, although aspects of her life as an artist, her vision of things is different. Other things are very unrelated. It’s usually someone who I admire for what they do and therefore in one way or another am struck by it for what wonderful things they do, and therefore I feel like I want to lend a hand. Again, doing everything I can in assisting them in what I do. And that begins for me, more than anything, publishing what they do so that it’s searchable, so that it’s findable, so that it’s viewable by others. And so that their artworks or artifacts or other creations, from musical to art to commercial, again, business ideas, can have a life of their own and can assist, even if it so happens that they assist one person or the life in some positive way of the someone somewhere, I already feel that it’s worth it.

Q: You said that you have a couple of websites, or a couple of ideas, lined up for your sister alone. What would be the advantage of splitting it up like that instead of having it all in one place?

A: For some reason, when I presented her as an artist to someone, leafing through the pre-Internet portfolios, the printed portfolios, pictures of her art to someone, and they would be now of a sculpture, now of a painting, now of an etching or drawing or print or picture that she had taken, people would tend to think, this artist hadn’t found herself. Therefore, they tended to have a not-so-good opinion of her right away, which was strange to me because we all have different phases. We all learn in different stages and we have phases. We all have a sculpture phase or something-else phase, in whatever it is that we do. She, too, was exploring and trying herself out in different things, and as a result, there came to be a variety of different artworks, all of whom to me are interesting and note-worthy. When you talk about someone, it’s hard to put that across to someone. If I’m going to be talking to somebody about more the sculptural side of things, I would tend to show more sculptures so as to not confuse them. That’s the only thing. We might even have a one- or two-page site that has a link to someone in order that they just see that. If it’s an artwork of some import that I’m trying to sell, I’m trying to have them focus just on that. So sometimes it’s just for convenience. Other times it’s just to separate things out so they’re not too confusing.

Q: It’s so interesting. Do you know anyone else who does what you do?

A: Yes, but not that many sites. Not that many ideas. Usually it’s a lot fewer, or usually it’s just one main idea.

Q: Are any of these websites published or are they still in the planning phases?

A: Some fifteen or so are going to be published within days, I hope. It always takes a little longer than you anticipated, as I’m finding out, because they’ve been on my wish list for a couple years now. This list is ever-growing but I’ve stopped at this number now in order to just push these out and complete these. So a couple dozen to fifteen are coming online in days, I hope, and the rest are in the weeks to follow. So a very short-term kind of outlook. For me, at least.

Q: Do you make money doing this?

A: Sure!

Q: How?

A: By selling artwork, or selling the projects or services. For instance, we do television repair. Actually, he just repaired a TV for one of my friends. There’s a website for him. TV-Repair-Boston.com. So a lot of people are finding that service and a lot of people are finding it good and green, because to keep the TV out of the landfill for a couple of years, and that’s good. That’s the best use it can be, to recycle it back into operational functional life. So a lot of people are very appreciative of that. For all of these commercial projects that I’ve done, that I’ve assisted in this way, I rely on that as well.

Q: Did you study at college or university?

A: Back in Russia, I did. But it was a language-learning department. I went to the university in St. Petersburg. But all this web programming and all of this web stuff I picked up on my own. I’m self-taught.

Q: Why were you in Russia?

A: I was born there.

Q: You have a very strong American accent. How long did you live there for?

A: Well I did the entire Soviet experience, including the Russian Army, in fact. Ever since I was born until I was about twenty three.

Q: Why did you move here?

A: It was for linguistic reasons. I really felt like I needed to be in an English-speaking environment. I really felt it in my body. It’s almost like being surrounded by the sounds of today’s performance. For me, like it was for the composer himself, who is obviously surrounded by these sounds on a daily basis, a lot of which he creates and most of which he appreciates, I also craved, really required that in my system, to be surrounded by the sounds of the English language. I followed that. There were a lot of people along the way who helped make that happen, and I’m very grateful to them. So I feel very happy that I’m here.

Q: Is there anything else you’d like to add?

A: Well, I’d like to thank you for picking me for today’s interview!