Published on: 2026-10-14
Source: Novosibirsk State University –
An important disclaimer is at the bottom of this article.
Maksim Kozlov — graduate Faculty of Natural Sciences (FNS) NSU 1984. During his student years, he was the leader of the FEN Club, the oldest humor club at the university, which celebrated its 60th anniversary on October 3. He came to the celebration and agreed to meet within the university walls.
Molecular biologist, Olympiad participant, athlete, songwriter, poet, father of four daughters. He has three albums of songs: about Akademgorodok and Kamchatka, humorous and serious, and a large cycle of songs based on the poetry of Nikolai Rubtsov. He currently works in Moscow at the V. A. Engelhardt Institute of Molecular Biology of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
In his life, science and creativity did not oppose each other but flowed from one into the other, like stages of a single great creation. We talked about talents and their change, about America and returning, about KVN and the FEN club, about Pushkin and Brodsky, about medicinal chemistry and about why some leave, and others stay.
Chapter 1. Creativity as a life process
— Maksim Viktorovich, I have many questions, but I would like to start with creativity.
— Is it possible to deviate from this? Of course not. God gives a person several talents at once, and they are arranged in a sequence. In childhood, it’s easy to think: the best of all, a winner, an Olympiad contestant, then a physics-mathematics school, university.
Then it gradually fades away. At the same time, another talent unfolds — sports. You become an athlete, you enjoy playing football. The faculty and university team, please. Then suddenly you realize that what you love most in the world is composing songs. And throughout life, this is the deepest talent — composing and performing songs and poetry.
But everything has an end and a beginning. This ends, and it turns out you still haven’t lost your talent for science. You take on a topic that no one has tackled before you and start bringing it out. You achieve something here. But it turns out that this isn’t the main thing; the main talent is to create something familiar around yourself, life, family. It turns out you also have a talent for family life. And you have four daughters. The youngest is now seven years old. And this is a kind of flow. You can’t say it ended; it doesn’t end, and that’s normal.
— As if it were all the same.
— Different stages of your development as a person are simply being created. And in general, it’s funny to write poetry at sixty; it seems to me they would only be philosophical. But I haven’t written poems or songs for about twenty years now. I’ll tell you a secret, I don’t even play the guitar anymore. We have a joke in the family: my wife didn’t like poetry, so the husband started writing prose.
I am currently writing memoirs about the scientific emigration of the nineties from Russia to America. Since I myself was directly involved in it and am a returnee in the good sense of the word. It seems to me that era was very interesting. Many outstanding people — both scientists and just personalities — left for there. Understanding why it happened and telling about it is interesting — this is currently the newest stage of my creativity. You see, again going into space. Again a completely different environment. And the mission is heavy, difficult, and I want to fulfill it.
— So, life itself is like creativity?
— Well, it’s boring without it, isn’t it? It may be unnoticed, routine, but every day you must take at least a small step toward what brings you relief. Because if you create nothing, something starts to torment you. As Pushkin says: “And the monotonous noise of life torments me with melancholy.” To prevent this “life noise” from tormenting you, you have to somehow change this life.
Chapter 2. Scientific emigration and return
— How long did you live in America?
— I not only lived there, I also worked there. It lasted with breaks for about four to five years. Enough time to understand a lot.
The term “brain drain” does not convey the essence of that time — it was an industrial-scale intellectual extraction. Why did they leave? Working here in the nineties was difficult — not because they didn’t want to, but because there was nothing to work with — no reagents, no instruments. People who had become professionals after university couldn’t just stop everything. Suddenly stopping and going into trading? Impossible. They started to leave. And there they made it. They live in communities. They interact, baptize their children, celebrate all holidays together. This collision — “Russian” and “non-Russian,” American and Russian — continues across generations and is resolved in different ways. It’s not that they renounced it. You cannot renounce it: it is given by upbringing, by genetics. They have a very difficult path. All this has to be settled, and that is very hard. Some go through it with dignity.
— Have you broken it in?
— No, I said right away that I would return to Russia — for myself and everyone else. When, after three or four years, it was time to put down roots, open accounts, get insurance, take out loans, I realized: if I did that, I would stay here. I couldn’t. I felt like an outsider. I felt like someone who came to everything ready-made. Everything had an alien feel, you are not one of your own. I left and went back.
In just a month, the City thoroughly overwhelmed him with its strangeness. The smells of the streets and the taste of the food, the hard-to-translate signs and incomprehensible speech, and most of all, the crowds of people everywhere — all of this continuously stressed, deceived, and disappointed him. Fortunately, getting lost in the City, laid out like graph paper with streets and avenues, was impossible. Once, on the way to work, standing at a traffic light waiting for the red don’t walk to change to the yellow walk, Bard came up with a sad pun — “He looks like a wolf, but says welcome.” From the book by M. Kozlov
— When you returned to Russia, did you come back to the same self you were when you left? Or was it already a different one?
— Oh, no, it was completely different. And it took me almost ten years to return to my normal state. Thanks to the university: the scientific foundation I had helped me.
In general, the university and Akademgorodok gave me a lot. Who was I when I arrived as a boy to study at the physics and math school? Just a winner of regional Olympiads. A boy who was a bit more advanced intellectually than his peers and understood things better at that time. The arrogance faded in Akademgorodok when I saw truly brilliant guys around me. My aspirations, lifestyle, and way of thinking were firmly formed over seven years. After university, I went to Kamchatka and worked outside of science for three years, but I still couldn’t imagine staying away from science. I had to return. And I did.
Mikhail Alexandrovich Grachev (academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences, director of the Limnological Institute in Irkutsk from 1987 to 2015), may he rest in peace, was reorganizing the Limnological Institute in Irkutsk at that time. I went there. We formed the core of a new laboratory. Viktor Prokopievich Kumarev was the first person to learn how to “synthesize” DNA using a microsynthesizer. In Russia, and not only here. There were few such people worldwide. By the way, he later went to France and then returned to Russia, can you imagine? We were engaged in very interesting work. Then Arkady Abdullaevich Mustaev (molecular biologist, graduate of NSU, professor at Rutgers University) invited me to join him. He was also from Grachev’s laboratory — later he went to America, to New York. There we engaged in science, I completed my dissertation there, and then for about ten years mainly focused on songs. That was the path. And when it ended, science began again. Thank you, all of that remained. Thank God, none of it has gone anywhere.
Chapter 3. University, physics and mathematics school, Akademgorodok
— Can it be said that NSU has instilled a love for science?
— Of course.
— How does it happen?
— It is primarily about the environment. The very presence of this aura, of the institutions. How can a schoolboy from Kamchatka come to the Institute of Nuclear Physics and not be filled with reverence for it? Of course, he cannot.
Wednesday is classmates, very clever, interesting, smart boys. Lyceum, lyceum friendship, brotherhood. We still meet — with the guys we studied with. There are few of us left, just like Pushkin said: “Alas, our circle grows smaller hour by hour.”
And thirdly, of course, the teachers. Voitishok, Bichenkov — lecturers of the physics and mathematics school. They made an impression on us as demigods. Later, at the university, each teacher was evaluated by us based on their example. We took a lot from the best. These three components: Academgorodok itself, the teachers, and the students, friends.
— You are originally from Kamchatka. Why did you come to Novosibirsk specifically?
— Fizmat School, a typical olympiad. The regional winner — then interviews, an invitation to the summer school. There was the final stage — the zonal, I believe, Siberian olympiad. We wrote and solved physics and math problems in classrooms. Based on the results, almost everyone was retained, thus forming the student body for the university. That was the school’s role — training personnel…
— Nowadays, many graduates of FSMH move to the capitals, literally half or even more.
— Well, by the way, many people left in our days too. When the question arose whether to go there or back, we talked to former Muscovites who worked here. I remember now, Budker, the son of the director of IYAF. He was a molecular biologist and said, “Guys, what difference does it make where you study? The main thing is how you work. And you can work here just the same as in Moscow. Stay.” And we stayed.
Chapter 4. KVN, Kapatniks, and the FEN Club
— How did KVN come into your life?
— I didn’t play in KVN. Not KVN, but the FEN club. We had cabarets. KVN grew out of cabarets. All KVN stars are alumni of faculty cabarets: “Kvant,” “The Divan Brothers’ Office.” As far as I remember, there was no one from the Faculty of Natural Sciences on the team. In the eighties, we still managed to get third place.
The FEN club was like the youngest child in the family: always sick, always frail. Sometimes they did something, then disappeared. They hovered around their older brothers — “Kvant” and “Divanovye.” The main ones were “Kvant”: the physics faculty’s cabarets in those years were splendid. As for us — well, with occasional successful ventures into space. Sometimes it worked out.
— Was there rivalry?
— Internal, of course. It didn’t go public, but it was felt: by the ticket prices and how they sold out. The Hall of the House of Scientists was given to us entirely. I participated in all this for three years, kind of like the main music person. I composed songs for the amateur performances, and we sang them. The finales were especially interesting.
I am publishing a book of poems called “Unforgotten.” It will include excerpts from our song programs, scans of tickets from those years, and invitations. The first chapter — “Alma Mater” — is about the university, with illustrations by Boris Kasyanov (an artist working in Akademgorodok since 1986; author of more than 30 solo exhibitions, known for paintings featuring cats and cityscapes of Akademgorodok). I was even sent the autograph of one song, written in my own hand more than forty years ago.
— So, they prepared programs once a year.
— Yes, once a year, during the May holidays. In the best year, we put on a New Year’s performance — the play “Christmas at Francis Klab’s.” Based on the quasi-political life around the FEN club. Sometimes there were difficulties: I remember censorship coming from the dean’s office. Before the amateur show, we were gathered by the deputy dean, Lyudmila Anatolyevna Belchenko, who brought along knowledgeable people with good taste. They listened and said, “Well, you know, this…” As they would say now, it was embarrassing. “No, this is too much. This is unprofessional. This is childish.” All means were used to prevent unnecessary things from coming out. And rightly so. Bringing dormitory everyday life onto the stage of the House of Scientists is unnecessary.
Well, KVN players came up with a nomenclature for jokes. According to this nomenclature, it is called DR — home joy. That is, when it’s interesting only to those who joke, and the audience is not interested at all.
— What other categories are there in this nomenclature?
— There are jokes that live for just one second, precisely in the atmosphere. And there are killer jokes, high-quality ones, that will be understood, that will immediately enter the ears and the souls.
— Was it difficult to study at FEN?
— There is a brilliant joke from the Kvant cabaret. “Is it hard to study at the physics department? — If you study, it is hard.”
— Did being a KVN player help you in your studies?
— No, it didn’t help. On the contrary, the teachers could say with irony: “Didn’t learn it? Oh, well, we do play KVN.” We didn’t perform on television; we weren’t famous across Russia like Duda later (Vladimir Duda — a graduate of the Mechanics and Mathematics Faculty of NSU, captain of the NSU KVN team, three-time champion of the KVN Major League).
— What has KVN taught you?
— KVN — in many ways it was showmanship. We wanted to showcase ourselves, tried to make an impression, but it was all wrapped in a theatrical, musical form. The most valuable thing that remains is friendship and the ability to work as a team: to listen to each other, to make collegial decisions. This is difficult in creative work because every author, every genius is involved.
— And when did you start writing songs?
– In the first year, at the end. Altai, Cherga, a village. Practice, we lived in tents. The moon, the mountains, the sound of a stream. All young, all beautiful. No studies at all. God Himself just commanded it.
I am self-taught in music. One higher music education shared between my sister and me: she studied, I listened. Then she enrolled at the Novosibirsk Conservatory, in vocal studies, with Myasnikova. She sang, I listened again. All my musical education went through my ears. Well, there is also something natural: my father loved to sing very much. So it wasn’t difficult for me. I also gradually taught myself to play the guitar. By the fifth year, I became quite good. I played until about the age of forty.
Chapter 5. “Science begins with faith.” Science, literature, and creativity
— In America, you worked with different people who studied in different places. Is it true that Russian education is very good?
— Yes. The best people worked there. There were many people from MSU and MIPT and from Novosibirsk University. From other universities, much fewer.
— And the graduates of NSU — is there something that distinguishes them?
“At NSU, we had a sincere atmosphere, with little formality. And good education, yes. Another important trait. NSU graduates were focused on science. On the interest and pleasure from science, from work, from the results. It’s no secret, people in science are divided into actual scientists and administrators. In Novosibirsk, there are more of the former, the passionate ones. There are brilliant people whose both qualities coincide: full of ideas and able to organize the process around themselves. Among my close friends, Slava Emelyanov was such a person (Vyacheslav Alekseevich Emelyanov — Doctor of Chemical Sciences, associate professor, deputy dean of the Faculty of Natural Sciences at NSU (supervisor for the Chemistry program) and leading researcher at the A. V. Nikolaev Institute of Inorganic Chemistry of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences). He was smart, hardworking, and able to think broadly. He led the Olympiad movement and even composed chemistry problems himself.”
People focused on science are not focused on PR, not at all. This is not a plus, especially now when we declare a grant system. And what is a grant system? It’s points, publications, grants, involuntary self-promotion. When you write anticipated results… What are you doing? You are praising yourself.
— It’s not easy for everyone.
— Well, we are scientists. Let them recall the literature, how does Pushkin say it? “Oh, Pushkin, oh, you son of a bitch!”
— What is your favorite literary work? You constantly quote Pushkin.
— Pushkin, yes, definitely. I have seventeen stanzas about Zhenya Onegin — a student of NSU — in my book.
The parents’ hopes came true –
Evgeny scored the required number of points,
And so from the former ignoramus
Suddenly became a student in Siberia.
Novosibirsk is Russia’s glory,
Where the crowd of bright geniuses is
Science moves forwardd,
For already thirty years, year after year.
Where the first stake was driven in,
Where there was only a dotted linen,
There are institutions on both sides
Standing in the honor guard,
And from bottom to top into the coming century
Lavrentiev Avenue flows.
From the book “Unforgotten”
I love Lermontov too. In general, I love everything that moves me. I have my own list of geniuses.
Two geniuses in Russian prose in the twentieth century, in my opinion. Sholokhov and Bulgakov — in terms of freedom, depth, and power. The others are all very talented. And the war veterans, who went through the war especially, but they have specific material. They are hard to compare. They took on themes about which it is impossible to read calmly. And among poets, these are Rubtsov and Brodsky. By the way, I was in New York at Brodsky’s performances. He lived there at that time. And I was at his funeral. Imagine if he had died in St. Petersburg, what it would have been like? Saying goodbye to Brodsky. What kind of lines would have formed. And what was it like in New York? Empty. Little Italy. His magnificent coffin stands among white chrysanthemums. In the front row sit friends who came from America, from Russia. A few people, and that’s it, the hall is empty. Even though he was a Nobel laureate, he was still not needed. At a concert, they even asked him, “Do you write poems on demand?” He said, “I don’t know. No one has ever ordered.”
— How closely is science connected to creativity?
— Science and creativity. Yes, they are connected. The most important thing in creativity for me is immersion. When you start writing something, something begins to resonate inside you. You look for the right word, the right line, a good rhyme, some unexpected turn. And there is an internal work going on inside you. You can’t fall out of it. It is a painful process. And then comes a relief when you find what satisfies you. Maybe it’s more about immersion. You are immersed, and you need to close some loops spinning in your head.
It’s the same in science. Science begins with faith. You believe in some idea of yours, that it might work. And this immersion captivates you for a while. Then you have to publish, verify, respond to reviewers, and say: “See, I told you, it’s true.”
— What is the coolest thing in science — the process or the result?
— Everything is great. A person must love both the process and the result. Be able to use it. “Inspiration is not for sale, but a manuscript can be sold.” Both must be present. When you open a website and see: they cited you there, there are a thousand views. Not in vain. As you get older, this becomes even more necessary. Because when you’re young, you don’t think about what lies ahead — there’s a lot. But with age, you want visible proof that it was worth doing.
— So, science never lets go all the time?
— Science has remained the main thing. I can do some things in poetry, some things come out in prose, but I am only a professional in science.
— What are you doing right now?
— Medical chemistry. We create inhibitors of human enzymes, specifically histone deacetylases. These are enzymes that regulate the level of acetylation of histones and other essential proteins. They are epigenetic regulators: they either silence genes or activate them. Virtually blindly, by a selection method, we search for molecules that silence harmful genes and activate beneficial ones. They activate therapeutically valuable processes or silence harmful processes that occur in viral infections or cancer diseases.
This is such a subtle mechanism that predicting the outcome is practically impossible. Thousands of people around the world work on this. They rely on quantity, big data. There are only five drugs from this class of anti-cancer compounds, and maybe a couple more for other diseases. Currently, another direction is combining two different drugs into one molecule. Hybrid inhibitors. This facilitates the selection of treatment strategies. Chemistry aimed at medicine. We synthesize them, test them, collaborate with people who perform docking: they input the molecule and protein into a computer, examine contacts, and rank the likelihood of good binding.
— But the creativity doesn’t end either?
— Yes. Back in the 2000s, I performed on Vologda radio, and there was a host. We talked about Nikolai Rubtsov, listened to almost an entire album of my songs based on his poems. I saw how the person’s face simply changed, awakening happened. She asked, “Do you really believe everything will be fine?” And she was about twenty or twenty-five years old. I said, “Yes, of course, Russia has stood for a thousand years and will stand for another thousand.” And she believed me, and I believe, and so far it is happening that way.
Please note; This information is raw content obtained directly from the source of information. It is an accurate report of what the source claims and does not necessarily reflect the position of MIL-OSI or its clients.