Arsen Revazov

Arsen Revazov (born December 12, 1966) is an Israeli author, entrepreneur, and art-photographer.
Early life and entrepreneurship.
Arsen Revazov was born in Moscow, USSR, on December 12, 1966. He subsequently emigrated to Israel, where he lived for several years before returning to Moscow. In 1990, he graduated from the Moscow State University of Medicine and Dentistry, and since 1991 he has worked in the advertising and high-tech industries. Since 2002, he has served as president and chairman of the board of directors of online advertising agency IMHO Vi.
Literary career.
Revazov's literary career began in 1992, when he published a collection of poems in Jerusalem, Israel. Between 1992 and 1995, he published a series of Russian-language short stories in Israel. Revazov is also an occasional writer of short stories for Russian periodicals. In 2005, Revazov’s debut novel, "Loneliness-12" ("Odinochestvo-12"), was published by Moscow-based . The author dubbed it a “fusion thriller”—a blend of conspiracy thriller, mystery, adventure, travelogue, and postmodernist literary elements.
In "Loneliness-12", Joseph Mezenin, the hapless owner of a failing Moscow PR agency, teams up with his two best friends—a hot-headed go-getter, Matty Krasnov, and a mathematician turned high-tech consultant, Anton Epstein—to investigate the murder of a fourth friend, the Chemist, found decapitated in his own apartment, head missing. Not long after the murder, Joseph receives an advertising contract from an anonymous new client, FF, who pledges big money for each media placement of the words "Deir el-Bahari", "Calypsol", "loneliness", and the number "222461215" but demands absolute nondisclosure. Unable to keep this momentous secret, Joseph reveals it to his friends and to his already-married girlfriend, Maria Zephori, precipitating further deaths, mysteries, and high-stakes encounters that take the group through Israel, Italy, Japan, and throughout Russia in search of the Chemist's murderers. As the friends unravel FF's keywords, they find themselves battling an international cult of the woman-pharaoh Hatshepsut to defeat which they must brave government bureaucracies, psychedelic rituals, historical puzzles, daring escapes, existential mysteries, love triangles, and the prospect of eternal loneliness.
"Loneliness-12" became a bestseller in Russia and attracted praise and mentions from critics, journalists, bloggers, and publications—including "The Moscow Times", "Newsweek Russia", "The Russian Gazette", "Gazeta.ru", "MK Boulevard", "Vedomosti", "Novaya Gazeta", "Kommersant Business Gazette", "Cosmopolitan", "Glamour Magazine", "Afisha Magazine", and others.
The politician and journalist Valeriya Novodvorskaya described "Loneliness-12" as a "saga written in very good Russian prose masterfully laced with slang—a tale of four modern-day musketeers who venture through fire, water, and brass pipes, through perestroika, privatization, and wild capitalism, through jails and privations, through monastic cells and mystical afterworlds, through the Vatican, the Land of Israel, and the mansion of a mafia kingpin." Russian critic Lev Danilkin described it as "'Murakami plus'—plus "Foucault's Pendulum", plus "The Da Vinci Code", plus "The Club Dumas", plus "Naïve. Super.", plus "By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept". Plus "Seven Years In Tibet", plus "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas", plus "In the Mood for Love", plus "The Bourne Identity", plus "The Ninth Gate"." Between 2006 and 2013, "Loneliness-12" was translated into several languages—including Italian, Polish, Hungarian, Czech, and German—and published internationally under various titles.[⇨]
Art photography.
Revazov is an art-photographer. He began experimenting with photography as early as the third grade of elementary school. Today, he specializes in large-format analog photography and uses infrared film and platinum printing techniques. His artistic vision focuses on the exploration of an unseen, invisible world that can be visualized in four-dimensional space, on black-and-white infrared film. Exhibitions of Revazov's works have been displayed by various art galleries and other venues in a number of countries, such as in Russia, Italy, and the UK.[⇨]
Miscellaneous.
Revazov is credited with the idea of the "white ribbon," which became a symbol of dissent during the 2011–13 Russian protests, against the results of the 2011 Russian legislative election.