Iceberg on Cheshir and DKLana: “Nikita and Rusia helped me remember what IRL is all about.”

By the way, here’s a funny fact: they kicked me out, but Nikita [Cheshir] let me stay at bootcamp, and I played with Team Spirit’s bootcamp for over a month after that. That’s how well we got along.

I always really enjoyed playing with Ayrat because he was calm, pragmatic, and cool-headed. I was the opposite, and he would slow me down a bit, cool me off. I’d say he’s the second person after Nikita who taught me so, so much in Dota 2.

Spirit is like a family. For me, Ruslan [DKLana], just like Nikita, is like an older brother or older sister. They instilled so many qualities in me outside of Dota.

Ruslana once recommended—I still remember it—Dawkins’ book *The Selfish Gene*, which I even reread from time to time to see how my worldview is changing. Ruslana also helped me a great deal and instilled a lot in me. When we flew to Lima, we went to Peru, and after that we went to Machu Picchu—one of the wonders of the world. I remember it fondly because we were there and on Isla de Muerte. There were so many moments like that. It’s hard to recall specific conversations, but I remember the vibe, and it was really, really cool.

It’s only thanks to them that I’ve been able to look at everything I do—and everything happening around me—from a different perspective. They’ve helped me a lot, of course, in that regard.

Most likely, this was a sign that Dota was becoming less interesting to me. IRL [Real life. — Ed.] is, after all, much more interesting to me right now than living inside a computer. Basically, as a kid, I played sports and wasn’t very interested in computers. The only game that really caught my interest was Dota. For the next five years after I discovered Dota, I didn’t stop playing it. I had already forgotten what the outside world was like. Nikita and Rusia helped me remember what IRL is. After that, I gradually started getting back into IRL.