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Russia is an amazing country to be an entrepreneur.

I live a very different life now, with incredible privileges, but looking back I realise that growing up in Russia gave me tools that other people don't necessarily have - such as the will to push that bit further, to make things happen, to succeed.

I would be delighted if the United States could have a positive relationship with Russia, and I would be thrilled if the Russian people, who are so capable, had a normal country that they could chart a different future.

I never chose to be in Russia, and I would prefer to be in my own country, but if I can't make it home, I will continue to work very much in the same way that I have... What happens to me is not as important; I simply serve as the mechanism of disclosure.

Russia will not soon become, if it ever becomes, a second copy of the United States or England - where liberal value have deep historic roots.

The way the business things work in Russia is you have to meet people, you have to go through a certain amount of etiquette and business things are done just simply by a shake of the hand and whether they like you or not.

Russia is very big and very varied. People are different in different regions.

The great drama of Russian history has been between its state and society. Put simply, Russia has always had too much state and not enough society.

I didn't choose Russia but Russia chose me. I had been fascinated from an early age by the culture, the language, the literature and the history to the place.

I first came to Russia because of the culture, literature and music... and my interest in the 19th-century revolutionary spirit of Herzen, Bakunin and Kropotkin. Russia is a wonderful place to bring new clowns because Russians give back a wonderful response.