I first met Kuz in January 2021. Back then, he was still the owner of Heyuri (and actively administered the site), and was in the middle of his acquisition of Gurochan; KolymaNET was then on the rise, and Kuz had already made something of a name for himself on the imageboard side of the Internet, though at the time I cared little for his activities and involvements outside of Heyuri. Little did I know that this initial meeting would be followed by a highly eventful, exciting, and fun two and a half years with Kuz.

Initially we talked on IRC, where Kuz's charismatic and humorous personality managed -- even through text -- to shine through, and very quickly I considered him to be one of my friends. He was often the most lively participant and frequent chatter in whichever channels he was in, and later on in 2021, when I created my own IRC channel, Kuz was one of the first to join, immediately becoming one of its most active members. He would regularly break stretches of silence with an interesting remark, a funny joke, or (on occasion) some ASCII art; I could always depend on him to liven up the channel and thus encourage others to join in and begin talking.

Over the course of my conversations with Kuz I gradually became aware of the scale of KolymaNET and the scope of its services, as well as Kuz's inspiring vision for the company. Initially I would make use of KolymaNET's very generous free hosting to publish a small Web site for a gaming server that I ran, and later on I would migrate my entire personal site (which was much larger) to KolymaNET's hosting; in both instances I've been immensely satisfied with the service. When in February 2022 the opportunity to acquire VidLii presented itself, the matter of which hosting provider to use for the site was obvious.

The VidLii purchase was doubtless my closest collaboration with Kuz, as well as the most eventful occurrence in our friendship. During the course of that event, I became acutely aware not only of Kuz's great technical knowledge, but also of his business acumen, talent for negotiation, industriousness, and perseverance: it was Kuz who managed to catch the attention of VidLii's previous owner, who negotiated the purchase on my behalf, who oversaw the migration of the site to KolymaNET's servers, and who spent many hours and late nights troubleshooting issues which arose out of that migration -- and all this despite him never having any formal ownership of the site. Without Kuz, I never could have acquired VidLii, and I will forever remain immensely grateful to him for his assistance in that undertaking.

In time I would witness Kuz purchase Soyjak.party, as well as purchase or attempt to purchase many other Web sites, but despite his ever-growing fame and celebrity status, in private he remained the same modest, honest, and slightly goofy friend whom I've always known. Our regular conversations on IRC continued normally, ceasing only when KolymaIRC was shut down as a consequence of KolymaNET's dissolution, and now I have come greatly to miss my almost daily chats with Kuz -- not the famous celebrity (for I've never seen him in that manner), but rather my close personal friend.

Kuz has positively affected both my life as well as every one of my online sites and communities in which he's been involved: despite his prolonged absence from my IRC channel, his witty and hilarious saved messages in the channel's quotes bot nevertheless outnumber everybody else's; and both VidLii and my personal site remain still on KolymaNET servers -- or, at the very least, what were once KolymaNET servers. An Internet without a public Kuz is plainly worse off indeed, and I consider myself extremely fortunate to have become his friend and collaborated so closely with him during these past two and a half years. I wish my dear Komrade peace, good health, and happiness in his unexpectedly early, but completely well-deserved, retirement.