You are missing a fundamental point in all good literature, art and film... does your interpretation of Stalker, for example speak for all Ukrainians?... Or for yourself alone?

I should avoid 'your' literature because you are "inside the bottle", and I am "outside"? What is the "bottle"... Russia/Ukraine?... Or being mortally human?

If the two of us sitting together in El Prado, view Goya's masterpiece "Dog Drowning"... will we each see the same thing? Same thoughts? Same feelings?

Will "Dog Drowning" be less valuable to us... what we each can learn and gain from it... simply because neither of us are Spanish??

Does the Sistine Chapel lose some of her beauty, because neither of us are Italian??

Will James Joyces' "Ulysses" affect you, as it affects me?

And can you ever believe that you will understand the American soul by reading Faulkner's "The Sound and The Fury"... or Pynchon's, "Gravity's Rainbow"?

No, I can never truly understand the Russian soul and heart, because I'm not Russian. But with your thoughts then do you mean I should avoid Russian writings?

You will never truly understand, from an American view, Mark Twain's "Huckleberry Finn"... or Helprin's "Winter's Tale"... but they are valuable treasures in American literature, and can give you or anyone insight into yourself and into other people, even though you're not American. And I will never try to discourage you from reading them.

Please don't try to discourage me (because as you say I'm only a "dumb American who will never understand"), from reading Russian authors, seeing Russian films, looking at Russian art.

I understand better than you think I do. I've traveled many paths.

Good art, good literature, films, music, poetry... all speak to each of us differently.

This was one of Tarkovsky's main ideas in his films... each of us must discover for ourselves our own thoughts and conclusions.

I appreciate your thoughts on Tarkovsky.

<pours 3 more shots... passes one to BabaYaga>