Arsen Revazov

Early life and entrepreneurship

Arsen Revazov was born in Moscow, USSR, on December 12, 1966. He subsequently emigrated to Israel, where he lived for several years before returning to Moscow. In 1990, he graduated from the Moscow State University of Medicine and Dentistry, and since 1991 he has worked in the advertising and technology industries. Since 2002, he has served as president and chairman of the board of directors of online advertising agency IMHO Vi.

Literary career

Revazov's literary career began in 1992, when he published a collection of poems in Jerusalem, Israel. Between 1992 and 1995, he published a series of Russian-language short stories in Israel. Revazov is also an occasional writer of short stories for Russian periodicals. In 2005, Revazov’s debut novel, Odinochestvo-12 (Loneliness-12), was published by Moscow-based Ad Marginem Press. The author dubbed it a “fusion novel”—a fiction subgenre that combines various elements of postmodernism, conspiracy thriller, humor, and travelogue.

Loneliness-12 recounts the adventures of three old friends—Joseph, Matvey, and Anton—all Moscow yuppies in their thirties. The trio meet by the corpse of their fourth mate, the Chemist, who has been mysteriously and viciously decapitated. Not long after the murder, Joseph, the hapless owner of a failing PR firm, gets locked into a dubious contract with a new client. The terms are tempting: a generous reward awaits him for every media mention of the words Deir el-Bahari, Calypsol, loneliness, and the number 222461215. The caveat? Any breach of secrecy will be severely punished. Never one to take rules too seriously, Joseph gabs about it to his friends, precipitating a chain of mysteries and exotic encounters: a Coptic priest in Jerusalem, the head of the Vatican secret police, a mafia kingpin in the Russian Far East, and a Buddhist monk in Japan. Who is behind the Chemist’s vicious murder and what punishment awaits Joseph and his friends?

Loneliness-12 became a bestseller in Russia and received praise from critics, journalists, and bloggers. The politician and journalist Valeriya Novodvorskaya described it as a "saga written in very good Russian prose masterfully laced with slang—a tale of four modern-day musketeers who venture through fire, water, and brass pipes, through perestroika, privatization, and wild capitalism, through jails and privations, through monastic cells and mystical afterworlds, through the Vatican, the Land of Israel, and the mansion of a mafia kingpin." Russian critic Lev Danilkin described it as "'Murakami plus'—plus Foucault's Pendulum, plus The Da Vinci Code, plus The Club Dumas, plus Naïve. Super., plus By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept. Plus Seven Years In Tibet, plus Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, plus In the Mood for Love, plus The Bourne Identity, plus The Ninth Gate." Between 2006 and 2013, the novel was translated into several languages—including Italian, Polish, Hungarian, Czech, and German—and published internationally under various titles.^[⇨] An English-language translation of Loneliness-12 is currently in the works and is set for a 2017 debut in the United States.

Art photography

Revazov is an art-photographer. He began experimenting with photography as early as the third grade of elementary school. Today, he specializes in large-format analog photography and uses infrared film and platinum printing techniques. His artistic vision focuses on the exploration of an unseen, invisible world that can be visualized in four-dimensional space, on black-and-white infrared film. Exhibitions of Revazov's works have been displayed by various art galleries and other venues in a number of countries, such as in Russia, Italy, and the UK.^[⇨]

Miscellaneous

Revazov is credited with the idea of the "white ribbon," which became a symbol of dissent during the 2011–13 Russian protests, against the results of the 2011 Russian legislative election.

Photography exhibitions