Ilia writes in English and Russian. Stories are sad, characters are sub‑alive, and language is barbarously gentle. Fiction, poetry, essays, speculative theory, all melted into plasma.
Between 2013 and 2021, Ilia curated the Forestjournal.org platform of poetic and speculative research, while repeatedly contributing to the Moscow Art Magazine and Syg.ma platform.
In 2023, Ilia received Andrei Bely Literature Award in the Prose nomination. Andrei Bely Award was founded in 1978 by dissident Soviet poets and translators, and remains the oldest independent award for Russophone literature.
Throughout 2025, Ilia facilitated a series of self‑organized writing workshops for University of California Santa Cruz students, offering an exploration of writing as encounter and topology.
Currently, Ilia works in the multi‑genre project titled "Compound Selves: the Border Protocols," dedicated to migration, border‑crossing, desire, and metaphors.
Vignettes on exile, borders, and seeds.
A story of shadowbindings amidst experimental plant growing practice.
A poetic inquiry of nurturing the wretched consciousness amidst Suomi forest farms. Translated from Russian by Lisa Biletska