TELEVISION AND DYSLEXIA

I had a classmate, Sasha Khromov. His sister worked at a TV center. One day, she got me an invitation to a program recording. There weren’t any extras back then, but they handed out invitations to curious onlookers. I was deeply impressed—hypnotized, really. I thought it might be my life’s calling. I decided I needed to get into journalism at Moscow State University and dedicate myself to television.

But I’ve had dyslexia since childhood. I’ve never been good at writing correctly—my essays always got “5/2” grades (excellent ideas, terrible grammar). So I didn’t go into journalism. Still, television had already cast its spell on me. I picked up a book called Where to Go Study from a sidewalk bookstall and found the faculty of radio and television broadcasting. I got in without any trouble.

That’s how I entered the TV world not through the creative path, but through the technical backdoor. At the time, the NTV channel was renting studio space from the TV center to broadcast news. I initially worked there, receiving footage from regional offices and other countries. It was purely technical work. At the same time, I began learning how to edit stories—picked it up in about three months—and started working at Ostankino as an assistant editor.

 

TELEVISION AND PEPSI

In 2002, I ended up working at the international TV channel RTVI as a director, including live broadcasts. A live director sits in the control room behind the host and manages everything: which cameras go live, when the clips start playing, making sure the host is looking into the right lens. It's a high-pressure job.

Once, I came back from London, super relaxed. I showed up for work, smoked a cigarette before going on air, bought a bottle of Pepsi, walked into the control room, sat at the console, and placed the bottle next to me. The broadcast began. I was pushing buttons, waving my hands around—and the bottle spilled onto the control panel. It was a small, cheap panel. The contacts got stuck. The image of the anchor distorted and started jumping around. We had no backup system. The broadcast was basically ruined. Just a black screen.

I was devastated. Walked into the editor-in-chief’s office and quit. That was my contribution to the “unique team of journalists.” The host whose show I wrecked eventually became a pro-government propagandist on federal Russian TV.

 

THAT’S FUNNY

I grew truly tired of the news. When propaganda replaced information completely, it became impossible to keep doing it. I shifted to producing non-political TV shows. I really wanted to create a comedy show. And I did. It was called That’s Funny.

The plan was for it to air during prime time on Russia-1. But another show flopped, and the network got spooked. So they moved us to a daytime slot. And we crushed it. The show was a battle between KVN comedians and actors from Crooked Mirror—two very different schools of humor. The ratings were so strong that by season two, we were supposed to compete head-to-head with The Voice.

But it never happened. A new general manager took over the channel and said: “We’re canceling the show.” I already had four episodes filmed and undeniable commercial success behind me. Still—no. They shut us down. It was an emotional blow. I was deeply invested in that project. That’s when I realized: I’m done producing TV content.

 

THIS IS NOT FUNNY

Together with a partner, I launched a company that provided broadcasting services for niche channels. I wasn’t involved in content creation anymore—just scheduling and tech support. No emotions. Pure business. It had its ups and downs, but the risks were no longer creative.

But you can’t lie to yourself. I started realizing how much I missed making something of my own and connecting with a global audience. When my family moved to Israel, that yearning peaked—I needed to create content for people. I knew how. I loved it. I wanted to make production both my passion and my business.

That longing pushed me forward. I started thinking seriously about launching an app.

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OH LORD, BRICKS!

The release of ChatGPT was a revelation. My dyslexia issues disappeared overnight. This thing corrected my mistakes better than any autocorrect ever had. It worked brilliantly. I realized that generative AI could help me create and share stories, despite my learning differences.

This was everything I’d always wanted to do. The thing that drew me to the TV center back in the ’90s… AI could now help me bring that dream to life.

My wife worked in museums. She has a professional interest in art. I thought—why not combine that passion with generative AI and create a personal tour guide that lives in your phone and tells you stories about art? You could get a free tour anywhere in the world just by opening an app.

It sounds like sci-fi, but it’s actually achievable. I followed my wife’s interests—and it looks like I stumbled onto a great idea.

I’d also worked with museums before. During COVID, I organized livestreams from the Museum of Architecture. The museums were closed, and people were hungry for culture. So we made virtual tours for everyone.

We even accessed the museum's storage and discovered real treasure—bricks from different historical periods. Oh Lord, bricks! But they were fascinating. Building materials from the past carry stories worth telling. And they need to be told—urgently.

 

A ROBOT WITH A SOUL

So we started spinning ideas around these “bricks.” What happens when you marry technology with library values? What if you combine 16th-century construction techniques with 2025 AI?

I have a friend. I sent him a prototype chatbot we’d quickly cobbled together. It could recognize things from your photo album. He began photographing historical buildings and monuments, feeding them into the bot, and exploring the results. It was a fun toy—which eventually became the ArtCracker app.

We created an app that tells you cool, high-quality stories about these very bricks. A tour born from nothing. From there, I scrambled to build a team—to keep improving the app, teaching it to tell even better stories, turning the AI’s voice into something more human. We needed to figure out how to give the robot a soul.

 

STORIES AND FAIRYTALES

The most important thing our app must learn is how to tell people stories and fairytales. It already does this, but in a simple way. Our goal is to create the most compelling storyteller—one that understands narrative structure, can separate fact from fiction, can joke, and can capture the attention of hundreds of thousands.

The app should recognize when you're in the Louvre and turn your museum visit into an epic adventure—not just a box to check. Thanks to the app, you should get stuck in front of every painting.

After the Louvre, the app should recommend the next place to visit—something thematically or conceptually connected to what intrigued you most. An endless tour offered by your personal guide.

And I’ll do everything I can to make that personal guide real—and to make sure it never charges you money. I’m convinced this idea can be monetized without burdening users.

People should have barrier-free access to the culture of other cities, countries, and civilizations—free of charge. Right now, there are too many barriers, too many walls, too many moats of misunderstanding. This leads to aggression, isolation, war, and hatred.

 

But I dream of a different world. One where people understand each other.