The provided article text does not contain any actual story content — only the website's navigation menu (site name and section links such as Music, Film, Travel, Art, News, Shop and Mailing List) was supplied. There is no substantive information available about Jon Bernthal's reported 1999 trip to study acting in Russia to summarise.

Without the full article body, no further detail can be given on the circumstances of the trip, what Bernthal said about it, or why he described it as having "saved his life". A proper summary would require the actual text of the piece from Far Out Magazine.