“I have a large collection of seashells. When I started to create my collection, I did not know yet that studying seashells was part of conchology and that there exist hundreds of thousands of shell types. In my green years the collection of shells gathered on the Black Sea (some dozen pieces) by me seemed to be the world’s largest. Then I got in the Kharkiv Natural History Museum – one of Ukraine’s largest museums – saw a true collection and again was afire with enthusiasm for shell collecting.

At present, my collection is large and I even help the museum. When I get new items, I always share them with the museum”.