Everything sublime on this earth is unexpected, everything base is predictable. Just as Dostoevsky said, some seeds from other worlds have flown into our earthly ball of dung. If we’re lucky, something from the harvest of these seeds may be encountered on our path of life.

But what can we do if another person suddenly feels unusual forces, perhaps forces from the other world? Does he have the right to use them for his own benefit, or unselfishly, in the war against darkness? Will he have to pay for it? Where is the list of laws about this which we can read at our leisure?

I’m not just saying this for nothing. I’m seriously considering a certain project.

For example, I bought sunflower oil, which now costs 110 rubles instead of 40 rubles. I took a night train to Moscow, which cost me a lot more than if I had gone to Berlin (perhaps I should find a job in Berlin? The journey is cheaper at least – whether by plane or by train). I looked with horror at the real-estate listings, and realized that even for me, a solid representative of the middle class, it would never be possible to buy anything, and I can’t even imagine what young people should do. People are literally crushed by material problems…

Take one example: a friend of mine came to visit who hadn’t been in Petersburg for 20 years. We left the Astoria one morning and went out on to the Moika canal. And we saw a rubbish heap there. A pile of bottles, wrappings and cigarette butts – a surrealist nightmare. And this is the way things are everywhere in the “historical center”. My friend started shouting: What is this? How can this happen in Petersburg? I’m terribly ashamed, but there’s nothing I can do.

So you see how miserable I am? I can’t change anything. There are too many people who are in control of life in my country, who are literally mad with the profits they are making and only see a source of revenue in everything. If it’s profitable to demolish Petersburg, then Petersburg will be demolished, and no one cares about the city and its residents. The heads of the Railway Ministry need to maintain a certain living standard (royalty in Europe doesn’t live as well as they do) – and they’ll do it by raising prices on the “St. Petersburg – Moscow” route to absurd levels. It’s already cheaper to go to Paris and back than to take this night train. And nothing has changed for the better, there are only “free” magazines which the poor passengers already paid for generously when they bought the tickets. For the sake of profit, these monsters will stop at nothing, starving their unprofitable and unwanted population to death…

I walk around my poor city… It is being tortured everywhere with pneumatic drills by people who are clearly from out of town, and don’t know where they are and what crimes they are committing. Nothing is ready for the new tourist season – even the Peter and Paul Fortress is being dug up. Construction is going on at all the squares on Bolshoi Prospekt on the Petrograd Side. What can we do!

But suddenly I had an interesting thought. Yes, I don’t have anything myself. No power, no money, no influence… But I have a voice! And what if I curse them? In the good old Biblical style?

I’ll get up and shout: “You goblins, monsters, enemies of the people, you lying selfish bastards! You’re destroying Petersburg and turning Russia into a colony of oil parasites! I curse you from your head to your toes, I curse your heart, your lungs, your liver, your blood and your skin, I curse you, your children and your grandchildren, may you never have happiness, joy or health, may the hands of those who remove the sacred stones of Petersburg dry up, may the legs grow numb of those who chop down the trees of Petersburg! May their business fail! Excommunication! St. Peter – strike the guilt down, turn them to dust, and comfort us poor people crying powerlessly! Protect us, father…”

Don’t think that I pretend to have the authority of the church – “excommunication” is not used here as the well-known ritual, but as a fine-sounding word. It’s not essential to use it, that’s not the point. The point is that a curse that is made selflessly, from the heart, may reach the Supreme Court of the country and come true. In a cold, digitized, nasty world, not inhabited by God’s people, with souls and hearts, but with material carriers of their own income, burning with anger and true hatred for the Word – living by the laws of the other world – it will have real force!

Although some people think that curses are dangerous – the evil you cause will return to you. Perhaps this is true, if a person makes the curse with the aim of personal revenge or gain. But I don’t have this aim. I intend to make the curse selflessly.

So I am quite calm, now that I realize that I have a powerful tool for controlling reality. Now when I see lawlessness, lies and nastiness, I think with some relief – I’ll curse you, and be done with you all. All you have is your stolen millions – but my “project” is bigger than that.

My project is excommunication!