Q: You've won your first bronze medal at senior Russian Nationals.
A: I am so happy! To be honest, I didn't believe it until the end. I've seen my marks and Sasha Uspenski's marks and somehow it seemed to me that he was ahead of me. As they've told me, I simply didn't believe it. As I went to bed that evening, so much went through my head, I couldn't sleep, I was buffeting (?) for a long time, then I got up and laid down again. I couldn't believe it. I wanted to wake up as soon as possible, because I was suffering badly! It was pretty tough!

Q: Didn't you reckon with it?
A: I didn't expect anything, honestly. I reckoned with a good accomplishment but not with getting such a place. But I'm very happy that it is how it is.

Q: How did you go into the free skate? You had to wait a long time and to skate right after Plushenko.
A: When I skated in St. Petersburg (at Cup of Russia), the audience probably was 3 times louder than here (in Kazan). But I'm already accustomed to it, I also skated at Worlds (in Moscow). For me it was something incredible how the audience supported me there. Well, here, they gave him (Plushenko) his marks pretty quickly and put him in 1st place, I haven't had to wait long. So I just went out there and knew that everything will be alright.

Q: I meant that you were the 5th skater to go and had to wait so long. Especially with the break caused by Misha Magerovski's opened bootlace.
A: I think it was more a problem for Zhenya (Plushenko), personally I don't care if I have to skate 5th or 6th, there's no difference.

Q: How did you prepare after the Grand Prix? It went not too good for you there...
A: Yes, I know, that's absolutely right. I was ready, I prepared very seriously, gave my best at practice. When I went to France, I showed an overall mediocre accomplishment, and when I went to St. Petersburg for the Cup of Russia...in France I had a good skate in my free program and I thought that I would be skating well in Piter, I came from the Trophee Bombard and thought I had new energy, but it was completely different, I was tired, I had never expected this. I already had such situations (of directly consecuitve competitions), at Junior Worlds and Senior Worlds, and I remembered it and it was OK, but now everything was different. When I came home from Cup of Russia, I calmly kept on practicing. To be honest, I had an injury, periostitis, and for two weeks I couldn't practice with my full energy and my coach (Zhanna Gromova) and I thought about skipping Nationals. It wasn't sure 100 %. And I had an event of death in my family, my grandfather died and I was in my hometown Lipetsk for 3 days. And these 3 days changed everything. My injury vanished. I was able to practice the last week (before Nationals) with full energy. I had clean run-throughs of my program and got in shape during this week.

Q: How will you prepare for Europeans?
A: I don't know yet how I'll prepare. I have to discuss with my coach if I have to practice roughly or if I'm going to take it easy. It will be like my coach says. But I think I know that it'll be a calm preparation because everytime I practice really seriously, it gets worse. When I went to the Grand Prix I was confident and sure that I'm 100 % in shape. I was sure that everything would be great, but it wasn't. And now I just simply came here.

Q: What's with the quadruple Salchow, you didn't try it here.
A: Yes, when I came from the Grand Prix I tried all jumps, Salchow too, but then there was this injury and I stopped. During this one week (before Nationals) I wanted to restart work on it, I had to get into shape actually. We even left out the second (triple) Axel because my coach said that if I skate a program with two triple Axels - which I actually couldn't complete - it could be that I wouldn't do the Lutz at the end of the program. She said, if I skate clean I would be 3rd. I thought, probably she is right. Probably! I agreed with a heavy heart to do only one Axel.

Q: Like at Junior Worlds. But there you insisted on doing 2 triple Axels.
A: Yes, I did. But here I fully trusted in my coach and her professional position and it was the best for me. She left yesterday evening, dircetly after my marks appeared, she didn't know my placement. I called her when she was already on her train and told her I was 3rd.

Q: You could still skate in the Junior level. Do you think of going again to Junior Worlds?
A: It kept going through my head and the federation spoke of it and I came here and thought, well, likely I will go to Junior Russian Nationals this season. I thought of getting to Junior Russian Nationals to qualify for Junior Worlds if I wouldn't be able to go to Senior Nationals because of a hurting leg. It means, I had such toughts. But I thought, hopefully everything will be alright, so that I won't go there. I didn't want that to happen. At the beginning of the season there were such discussions in the federation, it was about the Olympic Games, I had never something like that before, to fill in these accreditations...And then I skate badly in the Grand Prix and I think, Damn, that was it. I hope that everything goes well for me in the Senior level.