A Russian bogatyr at a crossroads: How I became part of the reviewer community

I am a Russian academic who spent 17 years working, teaching English as a foreign language at the university level. Over the years, I had regular local publications along with several international ones and until recently that was quite enough for a smooth career path. However, a shifting higher education context and rising university requirements brought a drastic change: A-journal publications were included in the list of target academic results. It was a bolt out of the blue.