Questions people ask before signing up

You need a phone or a computer and an email address; nothing has to be installed. Every morning the card of the day arrives by email. You can write your three evening lines in a personal diary on the site or in a paper notebook, whichever suits you. The circle is online on Sundays from 19:00 to 20:30 Moscow time, four times a month. Camera optional. If you work shifts, open the card when you wake up and skip the circle if it falls on a shift. You can try one day without signing up at all: the first day is open in full. Once you sign up, you get all 30 cards, the diary and, if you wish, the circle. Participation from the age of 18.

No, but check it by the signs, not by our word. A sect is usually given away by the same things: money, secret knowledge, a guru, pressure not to leave and distancing from loved ones. Compare us with them. We take no money for taking part. The source is named: its name is in the “Source” block, the books are open to everyone, and the map of all 30 days is on the site. There is no guru: the leader only keeps time and makes sure everyone feels safe. You can leave on any day without explanations, and stay silent the whole month. And every deed of the course is turned towards your family, colleagues and neighbours: the course leads you to your own people, not away from them. You do not have to accept the Russian ethical tradition as a whole: you can go through the whole course without agreeing with its books.

The programme is not a religion. Nobody prays here, there are no rituals, and nobody is required to believe in anything: we look at deeds. The Russian ethical tradition it rests on has a philosophical and a spiritual side, and we take its ethics from it: how to behave with people. We do not touch your faith or argue about it. It is not a church tradition, so its books are named in advance: look if it matters to you. If you have your own morning prayer or rule, there is no need to change it.

Check it yourself rather than taking our word for it: no card is asked for when you sign up, the first day does not even need an email, and accepting money is closed completely for now, until a non-profit organisation with open accounts exists. Taking part is free at every step, and no step opens for money. Later, after a completed step, you will be offered a voluntary gift once: to the project, to the founder or to your own leader. Saying “no” will change nothing. And what is in it for me, the founder: the programme grew out of what held me together in the hardest year of my life.

Only you see your evening lines. The circle leader sees neither your entries nor your Wheel of Qualities. You can share a line in the group chat, but you do not have to. To take part you need only a name (or how to address you) and an email address. The data is stored on a server in Russia; we do not sell it or pass it to advertising networks. At your request we delete it together with all your entries. Or you can simply write in a paper notebook. The questionnaires check the method, not you: the leader sees only an overall summary without names, and only when there are at least five questionnaires. Details are on the personal data page.

A missed day is not made up: simply come back to today's card. For hard days there is a two-minute minimum. If that is all you manage, it is still practice, not failure. You can leave on any day without explanations, and you can come back too. If you were writing in the chat or coming to the circle and then disappeared, the leader will write once and will not bother you again. Those who chose silence from the start are not written to at all.

We will show you which qualities you have practised these two weeks (patience, trust, gratitude and others) and name the books of the Russian ethical tradition from which these ideas are taken. From that day the course brings in the main advice of these books: begin the morning with a thought of the one who gives you the best advice for life; whom to think of, you decide yourself. Whether to accept this advice or not is also up to you, and it does not affect your participation. Want to know all this right away? Open the “Source” block on the “About” page.

We will not promise. We grow your part: self-control, keeping your word, attention to a person, honesty with yourself. Relationships, work and your own goals all rest on these: carrying through what you started, not quitting halfway, holding out in a hard conversation. But this is a direction, not a promise: the market, chance and other people's decisions stay where they were. And one more thing: qualities grown only out of calculation do not grow. So we have one measure: has it become easier for the people around you.

Perhaps the two-minute minimum exists precisely for such days. But this is a practice of attention and behaviour, not treatment and not psychotherapy. In severe grief or anxiety it does not replace a specialist's help. If you cannot sleep, cannot eat or get out of bed, if your own thoughts frighten you, see a doctor or call a crisis line in your country. In an emergency, call your local emergency number (112 in Europe and in Russia). This is a normal, grown-up step. If you are already in therapy or have a diagnosis, the course neither replaces nor cancels your work with a specialist: take the practices in a manageable amount — the daily minimum is enough — and if something in the course gets in the way, tell your leader. And in the circle you can simply be among people and say nothing.

15–25 minutes a day, in parts: a minute in the morning, the deed itself during the day, three lines in the evening, a short text for the night. On a hard day two minutes are enough. Plus an hour and a half on Sunday evening, if you want to come to the circle. After the month, if you decide to continue, — an ordinary day or the same two minutes, and a circle once a week or once every two weeks.

It does, but expensively and slowly, and not every blow teaches anything. Everyone knows the advice “count to ten”. What is missing is not advice but daily practice on small things, before the hard day comes, and a record of what actually happened. Life is a school open to all. We only offer an order of the day and, if you wish, a circle of fellow travellers.

The circle is on Sundays from 19:00 to 20:30 Moscow time, six to eight people. It is not compulsory: you can skip it without explanations and without follow-up messages — everyone has children's practices, shifts and simply hard days. Camera optional. You do not have to speak: the right to stay silent is our safety rule, and it is real: coming and staying silent the whole month is full participation, not “non-participation”. We ask one thing: while the circle is on, be with it — listen and keep what is said. In the circle people share their day, not a confession: where it worked and whom it made things easier for, then where it was hard. No advice unless asked. You can also go through the course without the circle — that is a legitimate path.

Only what you choose yourself. For two weeks after the finale you simply notice facts; on Day 45 — the Wheel of Qualities: for each of the twelve qualities, one question — was there a deed in 14 days, and which one. No scores and no charts. Then you choose one quality — for a season of about three months. There are four hints; we call them doors: the heart (what draws you now — your own word belongs here too; we begin with this door), a quality where no deed was found, what life is asking for right now, and what someone close to you noticed. You decide. A season is not walked alone: a shared calendar, a setting-up week, a circle with a leader once a week or once every two weeks, once a month — rereading your entries; then two light weeks on the minimum. At the end of the season — the Wheel again and a new choice: another quality or the same one, if it does not yet hold everywhere. Two or three seasons a year, with breaks. You can stop after any step. The whole path →

They are not trained separately. We gathered 170 words used to name qualities and traced each to its root: it is one of the twelve or another name for it; a combination of two or three of them; an ability, a state or the practice itself; a fruit that grows out of them. Generosity, for example, is not grown separately: humaneness is grown, and generosity shows whether it has grown. There is one rule: the root is grown, the branch is used for checking. If you lack a word of your own — tolerance, modesty — write it in the thirteenth line of the Wheel together with one occasion. If your heart is drawn to it in particular, you can take it for a season: the season will go through the root, and the word itself will become a guide — does it happen in your days. How it works →

You can, but not right away and not as a growth plan: leading is a service, not the next level. After your own 30 days and at least a year of your own practice you can help a leader if the circle asks; your own circle comes after co-leading and a short school, with about three years of your own practice as a guide. Nobody is obliged, and nobody is talked into it. The leader is a keeper of rhythm and safety, not a teacher, not an intermediary and not a “senior in spirituality”. More →