Before turning to photojournalism and documentary photography, I worked for 8 years as a marketer in St Petersburg branch of a big Russian company. When I landed here in 2008, it was a small representative office with a team of just ten and a director who every now and then travelled to Moscow.

I can't say I settled very quickly into office work; but the genuinely friendly atmosphere in a team of young people helped me adapt to my new environment and stay there for quite a long time. All sorts of people end up as office workers: among our sales persons and client managers were singers, DJs, athletes, artists and photographers. Obviously, office work wasn't the dream of their life.

I wasn't really stoked on what I was doing there. I didn't care much about career growth and all the success and self-fulfillment attitudes. I was just doing my work and had plenty of good time with my coworkers. It was just a phase in my life when I was looking for my place in the world and had some important experience with the people I really bonded with.

These photographs were taken from 2008 to 2015. I was shooting my workmates all the time, in the office and  at company parties, in cafes and at their places. These are actually amateur photographs, most of them taken with a film camera and sloppily scanned. I didn't know back then what a decent photo project should look like.