http://coverage.su/youtube.php?url=z71uIGKIem4
(translation)

Tell me about the first group stage.

Everything was normal, I won games with each of my opponents 2:0. Maybe the matches were not featuring a big gap in scores, but it’s ok, I’m just warming up, tomorrow things will get better.

How were you preparing for the tournament?

After Dreamhack I went to Holland with av3k and practiced for a week using good European Internet there, so the practice was normal.

You were driving to Holland in a car, right?

Yes, at first I drove to Poland, that we drove to Sweden, then we drove from Sweden to Holland. We’ve driven about 2,000 kilometers.

You said that av3k was doing something weird at the road?

No, it’s not that av3k was doing anything, it’s just that Poland has such roads that if you want to drive a bit faster, then you’re taking a risk. And he took risks quite often.

Do you have anything negative to say about the PCs here?

Not really, only monitors don’t fit quake well. There were some lags, too, and some problems with Internet, but they’re trying to solve them quickly enough, so everything is ok.

The majority of CIS players have visa problems. You’re almost an exception, hopefully that won’t change, you never fail to make a visa. You live in Belarus, a country that isn’t the most comfortable one for making visas to other countries. How do you do it, what helps you?

I don’t know, I just come to the embassy, give them my documents, and when they hear that I’m going to visit an esports championship they don’t mind letting me go there. Only visiting the US is difficult, I have to go to Moscow for that and to hang around there for a week, getting the visa. But I just come and give them my documents and get a visa. I’ve already got a new passport, and soon I’ll probably get a new one again.

Is esports your hobby or is it your job that you think of as a job and not a hobby?

I don’t work, I study. I have no job, so I could call quake a job. Maybe I don’t play each day like a professional player, but I get money for it. So yes, we could kind of call it a job.

Did it ever happen that your met your fans, not at the tournament, but out of the tournament. "Hello, Cypher", etc.?

Yes, it happened once. Well not once, maybe a couple of times. There’s one guy living nearby my house, he’s really into quake, and for a long time he couldn’t believe that I live right next to him, and that I live in Minsk. He asked me at vkontakte (a popular site) to come out so that he’d take a pic with me. So we met and he took a pic.

Quake community is small, right? You don’t have 200 milliards and 120 or so people, especially not at events, and I think that the atmosphere is rather friendly. Is that true? Whom do you most often hang out with and why? About av3k it’s obvious, but who else?

Well rapha is a good guy, he has a good attitude to life, he’s kind and nice, religious and doesn’t let himself go out of limits. Sometimes it’s difficult to talk to cooller, but he’s a good guy, too. But I like everybody, I’m never angry at anybody if anything is wrong.

Wait, why is it difficult to talk to cooller? Give me some details?

Well I think it’s because although we speak one language in CIS, we speak differently. In Moscow they talk one way, think one way, but in Minsk they think another way and talk another way. So sometimes there is a misunderstanding. I don’t say that it’s something really troublesome, I don’t even know why I mentioned it in the first place... Everything'ok, sometimes there’s misunderstanding because Moscow is there, and here is Minsk, and Kiev, Estonia, Latvia… All that is a little different, but united by one language, it’s cool.

Imagine that you have kids, they ask “Daddy, what did you do at 20?” Describe in 1-2 sentences.

I would say that I played PC games.

So you wouldn’t say that you defended the honour of your country in virtual battles?

No, I would just show my prizes and pix, and the performance itself, there are videos and such. I’d show all that, and he’d understand everything on his own, I wouldn’t really have to explain anything.

When you get acquainted with chicks in the club or somewhere else, when do you say that you play PC games professionally and earn money this way?

Never.

Ok, then what do you do, how do you describe it?

I don’t do anything. I study, that’s what I do. If it was really something big, like sports, and if everybody would acknowledge it, then I could say that I’m a pro player. But if I say that I play PC games, it’s not a very good way to flirt up somebody.

Quake Live or Quake 4?

Quake Live.

If toxjq came back, would it change anything? Or if ZeRo4 came back?

Well, ZeRo4 comes back sometimes, for a couple of online events. Toxjq, I don’t know… We played a couple of times, well, he doesn’t really know anything about this game at the moment. Anyway, he wasn’t really good in Quake 3, and in Quake 4 he was first to practice a lot, more than others, and he knew all secrets and what he needed to do, and of course he had high speed thanx to crouch-sliding. Maybe that helped him be quicker. But he isn’t really a quick player, there are quicker ones, like strenx, he could be the second toxjq, but no matter how rude it sounds, I think he doesn’t have enough brain for that. He says things like: "I lost that game because I couldn’t shaft 40%". How can you say such things? And he always says them, and he says that if he stopped rushing to shaft-kill his opponent each time after he (strenx) was killed, it means that he started to play smart. But that’s untrue. He lacks logic for his game, and I think he’ll be the second toxjq if he gets it.

Thanx for the interview, good luck for tomorrow.

Thanx for the interview, too. Thanx everybody.