FABER VISUM AG
Born: USSR, Earth, Solar System, Milky Way.
Citizen of the world. Married. Two children.
Places of residence: European Union, Montenegro.
Dividing the world into black and white, we color it with music, literature, painting, cinema, love, and compassion.
- Anatoli Gostev (Junior)
Worldview
I was fortunate to be born into a family of amazing, creative, intelligent people. At the age of four, my parents instilled in me a love for reading, classical music, and an understanding of art. Before even entering school, I realized that, in addition to imparting essential knowledge, schools naturally teach children how to live, whom to love, and how to contribute to society. A universal governmental template for life management—specific to each country's perspective. This is how new ideological tools for the state are formed. Living in the USSR, a society with closed borders, I once asked my father:
- Dad, why don’t they let us travel abroad? Is it about our homeland?
- You were born on this planet, Tolya. That is your homeland.
Thus, even as a child, I became a cosmopolitan.
Childhood and Youth Creativity
I started painting at around five years old—naive, pure art. Watching my father’s work in Studio 46A, I quickly developed an understanding of painting and grew to love this wonderful craft. At age 10, I was enrolled in an experimental school with an architectural and artistic focus, whose diploma was equivalent to a university degree. Six years of academic training, combined with practice under my father’s guidance, enabled me to master the craft of painting and drawing while adding architectural design, sculpture, and art history to my repertoire, cultivating both artistic vision and taste.
Again, I was lucky—my teachers were not proponents of socialist realism but rather advocates for proper composition, color theory, and technical methods in visual arts. Thanks to them, I created nearly a thousand academic works over six years of study. My father preserved several of my early childhood pieces, and thanks to him, I immediately departed from academic painting—simply by throwing away fine brushes.
Freedom 1.0: How to
Typically, after a brief period of youthful wandering, people find themselves on a predetermined societal path where everything is decided in advance. The state systems of Soviet and post-Soviet republics made significant efforts to enforce templates, much like any state does. The difference lies in the direct and coercive methods in the USSR versus the voluntary but skillful and natural approaches elsewhere. Perfecting tools to create a controlled illusion of freedom is akin to a grim hobby for the zombie factory. How to remain free in one’s mind? Perhaps through internal resistance, impartial reflection, and, at times, simply leaving. In 1997, the Gostev dynasty began to leave the country for Western Europe, seeking inner comfort and refuge from post-Soviet restrictions on creative freedom and expression.
Immigration: Poland
My paternal grandmother, Olga Pavlovna Pavlovskaya, was born in Poland in 1929 and carefully preserved her birth certificate. Thanks to these Polish roots, my father was granted repatriation and, later, Polish citizenship in 1997. Following him in the quest for democracy and a society that respects fundamental freedoms and human rights, I moved to Poland with my wife, where our daughter Renata was born in 2000.
In Poland, fate led to collaboration with the Catholic Archdiocese in the restoration of sacred paintings and the creation of an original piece commissioned by the Vatican. I, baptized in the Orthodox faith, received a personal blessing from Pope John Paul II, a testament to European tolerance and respect for freedoms. On this Catholic-Orthodox note, our family left Poland in search of legal status. The challenging early days of immigration are chronicled in my then-begun novel "The Last Artist."
Immigration: Czech Republic
In 2003, the Czech Republic granted us residence permits. We will remain grateful to the Ministry of the Interior of the Czech Republic and the achievements of European democracy until our last days. The Czech people’s inclination toward thoughtful reflection was a delightful surprise. During this time, I held several regional art exhibitions and collaborated productively with the Ministry of the Interior at the Poznání, Přenos, Perspektivy conference as a lecturer in multimedia information technologies. A series of graphic projects dedicated to refugee and immigration issues, combined with interactions with diverse, fascinating individuals, made us feel at home in the Czech Republic.
Immigration always brings encounters with new societies, different public, social, and political consciousness. The diversity of our planet is magnificent, with its differences, dogmas, and debates. With knowledge and observation, placing freedom of choice, love, and compassion at the pinnacle of one’s consciousness, immigration to the Czech Republic did not cause our family any inner discomfort. The practical challenges of settling in a new home became an engaging quest to overcome them.
In the early 21st century, European society was entering the era of everyday IT applications. To my surprise, after moving to Europe, I discovered a talent for quickly grasping information technologies. IT in the Czech Republic became a significant chapter in my life. A brief summary is described on the website of my international visual solutions studio FABER VISUM, which I founded and own. FABER VISUM (translated from Latin as "Creator of visions.") became my pseudonym—or rather, my synonym—merging creative thinking with linear logic, transforming ideas and visions into practical applications, or, as I say, into source code. As Steve Jobs once said, "connecting the dots."
The professional skills acquired in IT and visual marketing laid a practical foundation for the Gostev dynasty. By then, my daughter Renata was already creating her own series of paintings, confirming the dynasty's status—three generations of one family dedicated to the craft of painting.
Disgust and Death
The 2019–2023 pandemic brought significant changes. Everyone faces unpleasant things in life, such as betrayal, lies, and hypocrisy. It’s astonishingly unpleasant when these occur on a massive scale. Understanding marketing, we foresaw the events from day one and maintained social distance to avoid being infected with lies and stupidity. Disgust can be overcome, but there is one event with absolute significance on Earth—death. In 2022, my father’s passing felt like the ground was pulled from beneath me. One of his final wishes was, "Go to Montenegro; you’ll cope with your grief there when I leave this world."
Montenegro: Happiness and Freedom 2.0
This small, incredible country granted us temporary residence permits and allowed our son to continue his education. In Montenegro, our son Gabriel, born in 2008 in the Czech Republic, successfully finished school and, by age 15, acquired programming skills and a basic understanding of marketing. It was in Montenegro, in collaboration with my son, that the investment project ENTAXY was born, along with many other remarkable events and people. Volimo vas, vidimo se, hvala za sve! (We love you, see you, thank you for everything!)
Development
I am an observer and visionary. If you chart reality based on your own experiences, it’s invaluable. Gradually, you rise above the world, and its events and processes become clear from this elevated perspective. The possibilities of imaginative thinking unlock immense potential compared to which verbal formulations are like a bicycle to a Ferrari.
The heart, as Steve Jobs famously said in his Stanford speech, knows everything inexplicably and points the way. It must be kept pure; only then is the path pure. Especially, one must avoid fear and lies. Often, it’s necessary to activate willpower, reason, and intuition to take a wise step. Freedom is a unique gift, but it ends at the point where another’s freedom begins or in the moment of delegation (remember, he who bows to another becomes a slave). My consciousness has largely developed through art, music, and literature, but the primary factor has been the desire to know and cultivate the best part of myself. This was not always successful. You probably know the parable of the two wolves.
The somewhat lyrical digression above consists of banal slogans, which, like thousands of coaches, will bring you nothing but possible motivation. The fact is, these are a small part of MY puzzle, and everyone needs to assemble their own, where the order, timing, and form are unique. Don’t look for the meaning of life—it doesn’t exist. The meaning lies in how and what you DO in your "journey." Wishing you love and luck.
The copyrights for the FABER VISUM and Gostev's brands, website and social media publications, domain resources, ideas, startups, domains, and websites under TLDs FABERVISUM.ART | .COM | .PL | .SK | .RU | .DE | .CZ | .NET | GOSTEV.ORG | GOSTEVS.COM | as well as auxiliary advertising technology resources and commercial activities under TLDs RENTARNA.COM | BALKANBID.COM | ENTAXY.ART | ENTAXY.BIZ | and server resources, are fully owned by Anatoli Gostev Jr. and inherited by his family. All rights are legally or digitally protected.
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