Biography of Maxim Mikhailov

What I have done for the district

Since 2020, the first thing I look at in a supermarket is the date. In May 2024, in the Perekrestok supermarket in Kryukovo, I found two packs of pastries past their expiry date on the shelf; in June, in the Perekrestok in Staroye Kryukovo, four items from the bakery and ready-meals sections. Both times I showed them to the management and got my money back; the second time I talked to the deputy manager about expiry checks, and the shoppers in the queue asked me to keep at it. In November 2024 a few of us from the Youth Chamber checked the shelves at Pyaterochka and Verny, two other chains, and at nearby shops, and in April 2025 I rechecked the Kryukovo Perekrestok: nothing expired. I won't claim it was all my doing, but the shelves got cleaner.

The Youth Chamber of the district is a volunteer body attached to the Kryukovo municipal council; I have been a member since 2017. Together we look after the district's five war graves: in summer we clear litter and water the flowers; in winter we clear snow. In November 2024, after a snowfall, we dug out the memorial plaque to Hero of the Soviet Union Nikolai Dmitrievich Ivanov in the 14th microdistrict (Zelenograd's neighbourhoods are numbered) and the war grave in Kamenka, ahead of the anniversary of the Battle of Moscow. In April 2024 I joined a clean-up day in the park of the 14th microdistrict by the Korpus 1471 bus stop; in summer 2023 I helped run neighbourhood festivals.

Since 2018 I have been one of the public advisers to the head of the Kryukovo district administration, the uprava. Public advisers are residents through whom the administration passes information to the apartment blocks and collects questions from the courtyards, and whom it invites to meetings and inspection walks. In May 2025 I joined the head of the administration on an inspection walk around the 20th microdistrict: we looked at what had been done in the courtyard of block 2027. The administration announces its inspection walks in advance, and any resident can come and ask about their own courtyard.

I have been writing to the district administration, the prefecture (the tier above it, covering all of Zelenograd) and city departments since my school days. The first reply was a brush-off: when I asked where a teenager could be useful to the district, they sent me to the employment centre. Since then I write so that brushing me off doesn't work, and I am ready to help neighbours do the same. Where to turn in Kryukovo, and how, is set out on a separate page of my Russian-language site.

Where I come from

I was born on 6 June 2000 in the Zelenograd maternity hospital. My father is a carpenter, my mother a seamstress; I am the middle of three brothers. I grew up in Matushkino; in 2015 the family moved to Kryukovo, where from the eighth grade I studied at School No. 2045 and completed its physics and mathematics stream. For one year, 2022–2023, I lived in Severnoye Izmaylovo on the other side of Moscow and realised that Zelenograd suits me better. In summer 2025 I moved to neighbouring Staroye Kryukovo, but everything I do is in Kryukovo: the Chamber, the memorials, the shops, the walkthroughs, my school.

How I earn a living

From my own business. Since December 2021 I have been a sole proprietor: Demokrit, a small online shop selling laboratory glassware (flasks and test tubes) to schools, students and laboratories. In 2026 I built MishaAI, a website where you can ask artificial-intelligence models questions in Russian. No employees, no grants or subsidies. When I have to argue with the housing maintenance company or the district administration, that independence helps.

Elections and election observation

I have worked as a technical specialist at a polling station, responsible for the electronic voting equipment: the terminals on which Moscow voters cast their vote instead of a paper ballot. Twice the polling station was in my own school, No. 2045. In September 2024 I spent three days observing the election to the Moscow City Duma, the city's parliament, on behalf of the Moscow Public Chamber, a civic consultative body, at a polling station in Severnoye Tushino, a district in north-west Moscow, and received a certified copy of the results protocol, as an observer is entitled to. How voting in Moscow works is explained on my Russian-language site. I write my appeals in my own name, and when the district administration or the housing maintenance company is wrong, I say so plainly.

Why I care

Since childhood I have lived with chronic pain; I got a definitive diagnosis at 24, and the road to it ran through appeals to my health insurer and the Moscow Health Department. So I know what it takes to get a substantive answer.

Write to me

If you live in Zelenograd and the light in your courtyard is out, the stairwell hasn't been cleaned for a month, the clinic won't give you an appointment or a shop sold you something expired, write to me: I will tell you where to turn and which rules to cite, and help you draft the appeal. If you are a journalist, a researcher or a local activist elsewhere, I would be glad to compare notes on how the district administration and public services work in Moscow and how residents get answers from them. The form is on the Contact page, or write on VK: vk.com/mishkazel.

Where to find me

VK · Dzen · LiveJournal · Odnoklassniki · MAX

Demokrit shop · MishaAI · mishkazel.ru, in Russian