[Current material (information) is created and distributed by a foreign agent Yury Dud] Is this you? This is us. Thank you Aigel for making me depressed. Music you're listening to is too good, young man. Why do you need this? I hate this.. I even have a medal from Edinaya Rossiya. A star in the blue sky.. Neurotatars, let's go! You're not loud enough. Aren't you Russian? We aren't. [Berlin, Germany] In case you don't know what is going on..Here's a short video. Aigel, Tatarin.
107 million views
as of 2023 fall. A challenge. Let's try to spend these few days talking about Tatarin as little as possible. It's not a challenge for us. This song and the music video don't really matter for us It's not our typical song. This isn't what we do. Is it true that seeing the whole Aigel band outside of your show is pretty rare? It is. You hardly ever meet outside of your shows. You didn't know each other before playing the first show. It's true. Ilya Baramia
50 years old, a musician
Bands: Elochnye
Igrushki, 2H Company, SBPCH, Aigel
Born in Lomonosov, Leningrad region Can you describe Aigel in a few words? It would sound pretentious. She's a great musician. There's nothing more to say. Aigel Gaisina
37 years old, poet, musician, voice actor
Born in Naberezhnye Chelny (Tatarstan) Can you describe Ilya in a couple of words? He's a great person and a great musician. He's my teacher. He taught me a lot of stuff. He's a role model. I'm trying to learn from him. He's a man of action. He's a clos
e friend of mine. Sometimes she calls me dad. 'Dad told me'.. She's more mature than me though. I still feel like a teenager. I'm always impressed by her wisdom. I don't have it. Sometimes I have to tell her what to do. I texted Ilya because I knew his band Elochnye Igrushki. I needed to write music for my one-man show. I wrote a block of poems about a very sensitive topic for me.. I knew that this band had worked with poets before. I liked this band. I found this band on VK. I was never subscri
bed to them. I saw two band members, Alexander Zaytsev and Ilya Baramia (Tsar). I decided to reach out to Tsar. I texted Ilya and told him I loved the band. I suggested to make some music together not expecting him to reply. And then he replied with yes. You first met when the music was written and the show was prepared. You met at the show. A couple hours before the show. We booked a rehearsal space at Baumanskaya. And we met before the show. We had a short practice and went to play the show. W
e never even called each other before the show. Aigel hates calling. I never heard her voice on my phone. I'm trying to think of your first show. Didn't you want to touch each other.. Two random people playing a show together.. I feel like everyone does it nowadays. I feel like everyone works online. It's true..But you never even heard each other's voices.. I love texting, too. However, sometimes I have to call a person.. Why? Why do you need this? I hate this. I hate calling.. Why do you hate i
t? I just hate people, I guess. I'm kidding. I guess, this is social anxiety. I tried to analyze this. If I lived in the past when you had to call a taxi to get somewhere.. I would never leave my home. I started going out when Yandex.Taxi became a thing. This was such a breakthrough. I guess, there's a lot of people like me. I don't know if they are as anxious.. This number is increasing dramatically. Texting is a safe space for people who are anxious. For introverts like me. [This wasn't an ad.
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from a consultant. Click at the link in the description or scan this QR-code to book a free consultation on your future job. Let's go. [Back to Berlin] You studied political science. You even had an internship in the State Duma. On our third year we had this internship. I even have a medal from Edinaya Rossiya that they gave us. All the interns got a medal. This medal is now in my kid's kindergarten among other toys. It was a toy at our home and now it's a toy in the kindergarten. My son has gro
wn up already. Maybe the medal is gone now. What did you do in the State Duma? We were assigned to different committees. This was stupid paper work. They showed us what they did in the State Duma. Lots of paper work. We would be doing this paper work if we decided to work there. I don't think we would be changing the country for the best. We would be going through these papers.. Bring it there..Bring it here..We had an opportunity to see how it worked. We took a picture with Zhirinovsky. I didn'
t want to do it. Only once in my life I asked a person for a picture. I've never asked for a picture..It wasn't comfortable for me. I took a picture with Lyudmila Petrushevskay because I loved her fairytales when I was a kid. I had these old torn books with her crazy fairytales. There was a book about a mom diving in a well.. There was a picture of a black well and a woman hanging there.. It was so creepy. My childhood memories are all kind of creepy. I loved the book even though it was scary. I
would then listen to her audio books. I loved her books and showed them to my kid. When I met Petrushevskaya at some festival, she was wearing a hat.. I couldn't resist..I decided to take a picture. I asked her for a picture..We were headlining the festival. She was performing at a literature session. We were headlining the whole festival. I asked her for a picture. She didn't know who I was. She didn't care. She didn't care about anything but her hat. She refused. She was very rude. I was so i
mpressed. I wasn't offended or upset. This memory is more dear to me than the picture. She told me to fuck off. I've been a music fan since I was a kid. Music plays a big role in my life. I was collecting records.. I didn't go to a kindergarten but my mom bought me records. I had a collection of plays. Mowgli, Karlsson.. Vysotsky starring in Alice in Wonderland.. There was a series called Koapp. Soviet plays..We didn't have video players. We had to listen to the plays. We could listen to them ov
er and over again. One day my friends gave me a synth keyboard and a drum programmer. Music you're listening to is too good, young man! They said.. They asked me to write some music. Me and Sasha Zaytsev wrote a song in one night. Then we went to a studio. This was in 1997. This is how Elochnye Igrushki band was founded. You weren't a musician.. I wasn't. I never learnt how to play instruments.. Your friends told you to write something. They gave me a synth keyboard and a drum programmer. I didn
't have to play any instruments. I couldn't become a musician because I can't sing or write lyrics. I don't play any instruments.. I could program music. Did you meet Dugin when you worked in the State Duma? It's a crazy story.. I had a friend when I was seventeen or eighteen. I loved hanging out in Kazan. I met a guy who was a guard in Vasilyev's museum. He was also a member of Eurasian community. He was the head of their headquarters in Kazan. There were only two of them in Kazan..Or three. He
was an interesting guy. He liked noire. We would drink wine and watch old movies. We were alone in an empty museum. So romantic.. There were Konstantin Vasilyev's pictures in the room. So this guy invited me to go to a Eurasian camp for five days. It was held close to Moscow..I didn't know what we would do there. I agreed to go. We were taught to fight the crowd. Dugin was performing with his lectures. He would tell us about learning languages. 'You've got to learn the structure of the language
.' Wow, really? This is obvious. There was an oath at five in the morning.. These people were all weird and marginal. Some of them had suicide attempts.. Some of them were orphans. Some of them were former addicts. Everyone had some dark past..Dugin was a father figure for them. He would give some meaning for their lives. These kids didn't know what to do. They didn't have parent figures around them. Dugin gathered them together. At the same time there was a delegation of Nashi movement who were
their allies. Despite the fact that the Eurasian movement was persecuted. I went there to hang out. I didn't know what was going on there. There was a delegation of Nashi from Karachaevo-Cherkessia or Kabardino-Balkaria. From some Caucasian region. These guys didn't care at all. The camp was held during a fast. They saved some money on feeding us. We were all fasting. There wasn't a lot of food in the camp. These Caucasian guys were hungry. They went to a nearby village and brought some food. I
fell in love with one of them. He was a handsome Caucasian guy. He would always bring me sweets from the village. We didn't care about Eurasian ideology. They had to wake me up to make me go to the oath. It was an adventure. I would listen to them with interest. They were good at presenting. Dugin is a great performer. If you don't have an opinion he can get you interested. We would be joking about this ideology and we would still enjoy the camp. I participated in these street fights practice.
We would push each other and yell into the bullhorn. We were preparing for protesting. We were preparing for fighting the police. I don't know why they did it. We would hold each other's hands..It was fun. We kept in touch with these Eurasian guys. When I came to Moscow for my internship I stayed at their home. I would make them echpochmaks and miss my work. I bought a very expensive pantsuit to go to the State Duma and it stayed in the wardrobe. We would be watching movies, hanging out.. I was
sleeping on Dugin's sofa. My friend was a weirdo, too. One day he got upset and threw his sofa out of the window.. Dugin? No, a friend of mine. Dugin gave him his sofa. When I lived there the boys gave me the sofa and slept on the floor. How did the sofa smell? I don't remember. Did it smell Eurasian ideology? Definitely. There was a strong smell of shisha in this flat. My friend would smoke it all the time. I had a fever at summer. I was lying on this sofa and my friend was smoking shisha. He w
as always sad. He was listening to this song by Zhanna Aguzarova on repeat: A star in the blue sky.. The speaker was hanging above my head. It was so loud that I felt the song inside of me. I was having a fever, sweating on this Dugin's sofa.. I love this song now. It became so personal.. When I hear this song I'm coming back to that psychedelic mood. You've played in Elochnye Igrushki, 2H Company, and SBPCH. Yes. Is it true that Aigel is your most successful project? Well, if we judge by stream
s..It is. I wouldn't say that Elochnye Igrushki was a smaller band.. It was different. We went on tour across England. It didn't feel insignificant. Elochnye Igrushki collaborated or almost collaborated with Radiohead. They reached out and asked us to do a remix of their song. The band contacted you? Their manager. Julia Colland. I remember her name. They always mention their managers on album covers. She said that they wanted us to remix a song of their record Hail to the Thief. (2003). We pick
ed a song and they sent us the stems. We asked them to send vocals, bass, and keys tracks. We only used the vocal track. The release didn't happen and this is the end of the story. Did you finish the remix? We did. The remix is quite good. We can't publish it. This project had a big impact on me. I analyzed their songs..I wasn't a Radiohead fan. When I started learning more about the band and dove deeper into their music.. I had to do it.. I was stunned by their talent. I didn't like their mood.
It was too depressing. I didn't like the vocals. They weren't uplifting..They were dark and sad. I wasn't a big fan of the band. Their music was so well-composed in terms of harmony.. They are a classic modern band. They are often covered by orchestras. Are they melodic? No..Modern Talking is melodic. Radiohead music is beautiful. It is complex. They were preparing for their records.. OK Computer was dedicated to a certain idea which was mentioned in a few songs.. They invented the sound that n
ever existed before. They kept working on their sound all the time. In 2000 they started using electronic music in a way that rock band don't use it even nowadays. They had a big influence and remained a stadium level band. They are recreating their sound live. So when they contacted me I felt like I was doing something right. Wow, Thom Yorke is one of the gods of modern music. The remix is good, too! I'm showing it to my students. Are you? I am. When I'm telling this story..This is very importa
nt for me as a composer. You never know if you're good or not. You can only tell based on people's reaction. I cared about their reaction. I'm not going to talk much about Tatarin and how you became famous.. Let's quickly explain this to our audience. Correct me if I'm wrong. You were a musician and a poet. You had a boyfriend. He had a fight with your ex-husband. He was sent to prison for three years. Your ex-husband was willing to settle the case but it was qualified as a public assault attemp
t.. When your boyfriend was in prison you were writing poems about it. You met Ilya Baramia and you released a record dedicated to your boyfriend. One of the songs, Tatarin, went viral. Right? Well, it wasn't a public assault..It is called public prosecution case. This is what I meant. He was prosecuted by a prosecutor because it was a heavy crime. This is why it couldn't be settled. It couldn't be settled peacefully. It was classified as a heavy crime. This is what I meant. We were trying to ge
t him out of prison. The crime was classified incorrectly. He wasn't supposed to go to prison initially. They could settle the conflict.. However, he was accused of a heavy crime. In fact, they both walked home after the fight. It wasn't as bad. He went to prison for assault attempt. Aigel
Two weeks You have a song called Two Weeks. It's a song about two weeks before he was released. How did you spend these two weeks? I was writing this song. Do you remember driving to meet him? I didn't meet hi
m. It was a surprise. He said he would be released in two weeks and he came back earlier. He rang at the door. Oh.. I was shocked. I was so happy.. After all this pain..I can't stand injustice. This case was so unfair..I'm about to cry.. I lost faith in justice. So when he came back I didn't know I could be so happy. I wasn't ready for it. It was great. A great feeling. Waiting for this moment.. It was really close. After he was released you broke up in a year. Yes. Why did you break up? I think
I realized it later.. I was waiting for his release for so long.. I didn't think that we were so traumatized that we wouldn't be able to be happy anymore. He came back but I was broken. After so much stress we could either get closer or leave it all behind. We had to break up to leave it behind. I wouldn't be able to forget about it while he was close to me. This is how I felt. I don't know why..We just broke up. Were you contacted by other girls waiting for their boys to come home from prison?
I was. They would come to our shows..They would bring books, postcards, cigarettes.. Some guys also brought cigarettes, not girls only. Did they bring these to you? I would send these to prison. My boyfriend didn't smoke..Cigarettes are a currency in prison. You always need cigarettes. It was very hard for me to play shows. Ilya took me on tour but I was too emotional. I couldn't understand whether I wanted to be on tour or not. This tour was a distraction from my problems. I wasn't performing
very well, though. We had a lot of technical issues. Early into the tour I wasn't sure if I wanted to be there.. I don't need any poems. I don't read poetry. And I felt like nobody would need my poems. Your poems. Yes. I didn't know why they were listening to it. Why would anyone listen to poems? This girl met us before the show..She told me that she made peace with her brother after listening to our debut record. Her brother was in prison and they would argue about it. I destigmatized his right
to be a prisoner..She could love him as a prisoner. They made peace. She told me that they made peace with her brother after so many years.. She accepted him. Such stories were a reason for me to continue. People proved me that they needed my poems. I received a lot of feedback. You have a music video called Mir Spaset Krasota (Beauty will save the world).. This video was created by AI. There's a comment saying neurotatars! Let's go! Aigel
Beaty will save the world Do you ever think about the i
mpact AI will have on your life and your job? I guess, Ilya thinks about it a lot.. I don't believe in it. I don't believe that it would affect me. I was asked to write a song for a movie.. They gave me the prompt. I uploaded it to a neural network. The result was crappy. I realized that it won't learn to write good music while I'm alive. It will become a problem after I'm gone. I'm not really good at it. Designers are worried about their jobs.. I talked to my designer friends. They are worried.
Their work can now be done in two seconds. Nobody needs them anymore. Don't you think the result was crappy because the prompt wasn't good enough? I did it with a guy who's good at it. He speaks AIish.. There is no divine spark in it. I think that AI is good for adjusting your divine spark. And getting an amazing result. It helps professionals work faster. When you're producing a lot you don't need a divine spark. Average result is enough. You can't make anything special.. There is no magic in
AI. This is my naive opinion.. This is true. From a scientific point of view it's true. What about writing music? Writing music.. Using AI..Are you scared? I'm not. Art is a mean of communication. We are sharing our emotions through art. From one person to another. If you put a neural network in between it's not going to change anything. It can help you or get in the way.. The information is transferred between the people. Will it have a personality? It's too soon to talk about it. It's not inte
resting, in fact. If you look at a beautiful picture generated by AI.. Will you look at it closely? I would scroll down. It lacks.. This human element. It lacks human element. We can't really call this information. This is junk. You don't need it. You will skip it. AI music videos are no longer relevant. People are sick of them. Of course, it will get better eventually. I think that people are annoyed by fake images. They don't want to see artificial art. Even if it's very good. It doesn't have
a soul. My friends, if you're watching this video in 2025, 2026 or 2028.. And AI is everywhere now.. If unemployment reached 50% of the population.. All content creators are now unemployed.. Please leave a comment how we look from your time. It's intriguing, isn't it? It is. I might be too naive. You mentioned the divine spark. I did. Do you think you have it? I do. It sounds cool. You have it, too. Does everyone have it? No. Everyone might have it but we don't always work on it. Lyrics first an
d then the music? Or music first and then the lyrics? It depends. There's no formula. We have a folder with some short bits. When she writes some lyrics, she tried singing to these bits of music. She tries to write a melody.. If it works.. She sends it to me..If she sends it then we have the song. And it's back and forth from there. It is. You don't really have to live in the same city. It's true. When we wrote Nevesta (Bride).. I really liked how James Blake worked with space. He's an English m
usician.. His music is pretty slow.. He works with space in different songs..Not one? Yes, in his records. His sound or his style. I wanted to write something similar. He uses this cold and dark synth sound. With great vocals. He's a great singer. Check him out. He uses a lot of overtones..He layers his vocals..He cuts it and pastes it.. His vocal dissolves in stereo.. He creates this space..It blossoms and breathes like a flower. I wanted to do the same with her voice. I listened to him and too
k his slow and cold vibe.. He creates room by putting reverb on percussion. This is a good foundation for Aigel's voice. I wrote the music and sent it to her. She wrote the song to the music. There is a record by Billie Eilish.. Finneas talked about songs that he used as references to their songs. He wanted to recreate something that he heard in another song. Everyone does it. It always works. You're not stealing songs. You are being inspired. You are. You're taking some elements.. Space, sound,
combinations of space and reverb.. You can say that you've heard it in a Cocteau Twins song. Kino sounds like the Cure. Leningrad rock club bands sound like the Cure. Tsoy did it better than Robert Smith. You can put it this way. Some songs sounded very similar.. It's clear where he got them from. Half of the bands nowadays sound like Joy Division. Molchat Doma sound like Joy Division. We're talking about indie bands.. Yes. They are recreating this formula first used by others. Punk rock always
sounds like Sex Pistols. I can be wrong.. They all sound similar. Sex Pistols invented the formula that others are using now. You can't reinvent techno music. This is what I tell my students. You can't write a song in vacuum. You can't be 100% original. You're always inspired by something. Tarantino said that he likes to reference other movies. His movies are built of these homages. He talks about it very interestingly. Some creators don't quote others. They recreate the vibe. Like Lynch, for e
xample. Lynch also learnt his tricks from someone else. This is what continuity of art is about. We are always moving forward. We are accumulating everything we hear to share our perspective. Aigel
Chetkiy I would send Ilya finished songs. I would send him the final version of my vocals. It all changed when the war started. I'm having problems with my skills now.. A couple of times I sent him the lyrics and asked his opinion. I never did that before. Wow.. I'd tell him that I'm not feeling it. S
he'd say 'I feel like it sucks' I'm not confident about my lyrics anymore. You can't assess it. I can't. I've always been one hundred per cent sure about my lyrics. Nobody could hurt my feelings. I knew that my texts were honest. I never lied in my poems. Well, I'm a human and sometimes I can pretend.. I've lost my confidence. I haven't written anything since the war began. We've written one song only. Gas? Yes. I can't assess if it's good or not. I can't assess it from both writer's and musicia
n's side. She threw away some lyrics..I didn't want to get rid of those. She said she wouldn't leave those. Sometimes you lose your divine spark when you are shaken. The spark is gone now. It is. Is it possible that you've lost the spark forever? It is. Currently some grass begins to grow in this desert.. I was in complete darkness. I felt like a missile hit my talent. I could only find the remains of some words.. I don't know what these words mean. I can't put them together. It felt so gross..a
sh and darkness..This is how it felt. It's getting better now. You can't read the news all the time. You're beginning to prevent yourself from doing that. In the last year we've written a couple of songs for some projects.. This was great. It was healing. You wrote an OST to Swamps. We wrote it before the war. We did something similar recently. We wrote songs for a video game and a book. I wrote it on behalf of the character. This is a simulation, safe space. I could do everything that I like do
ing. It wasn't traumatizing because this was not so real. I joined someone else's world. I didn't need to create my own world. They did everything for me. I needed to add some musical perspective to this world. I loved it. We spent a year on these projects. I told my friend we worked on these projects. She asked me if I wrote anything from my guts. From your guts..It means something honest? Yes. I didn't write anything from my guts. Aigel
Gas On one of your videos I found a comment 'Thank you Ai
gel for making me depressed' How do you feel about it? This is why I didn't want to perform for a long time. I was only writing when I was hurt. We have a couple of upbeat songs.. But there's always a little bit of hysteria in our songs. When I'm writing such songs I don't want to make people depressed.. When I was young people would always invite me to perform with a guitar.. I would agree and I wouldn't come. I didn't want to make people upset. Ilya made me perform. I tried to avoid it. I woul
d be worried after my shows. I didn't want to hurt people. Ilya would make me perform and receive some feedback. He explained why I needed to do it. It changed my attitude towards live shows. People would come to our shows to feel something personal.. And these feelings would find some sort of catharsis. This is more of a therapy than fun. It's true. This is therapy. Where were you when the war began? On February 23 I couldn't fall asleep until early morning. Regular insomnia? Yes. Thirty minute
s before the war began my phone died and I went to sleep. I woke up to bring my kid to school..Plugged in the phone.. I was still off..I brought my kid to school and came back to sleep. When I came back I decided to check my Telegram. I opened the app..And that was it.. It felt like I spent the next year in my bed crying.. At the bottom of my sorrow. Actually, we did quite a lot of stuff. When prison became a part of my life.. When my boyfriend was sent to prison I slid down the chair..Then I cr
ied in the stairs.. It was a Soviet building. I was crying in the stairs and his brother was crying one floor below me. I went home..I needed to pick my kid from the kindergarten two hours later. I had two hours to cry. I cried and then I went to pick my kid. I had to stay sane for the rest of the day. When the kid went to bed I could cry again. In the morning I would bring him to the kindergarten.. This was happening for a while. I would cry in my spare time. It was similar this time. My kid wa
s at school until five. I was pretty composed in the evening. And I would spend half of the day crying. I didn't have a 5/2 job. I could stay at home forever. This was such a nightmare.. On February 26 we were supposed to play a show in Novosibirsk. This show had been postponed three times because of Covid and some other stuff.. We needed to make a decision. I told everyone I couldn't fly there. I couldn't leave the bed. Ilya is different from me. I was destroyed and he was mad. He said we would
play this show. We weren't allowed to protest. So we needed to gather with our people. So they could look each other in the eyes and support each other. We would send our money to help others. We had to do something instead of lying in the bed. Ilya infected me with his energy and made me fly to Novosibirsk. The whole tour was a charity tour. I couldn't make any money from these shows. I couldn't be playing shows..I did this because we were helping others. It was called a funeral tour. These sh
ows felt like collective prayers. They helped me..I was crying backstage. I couldn't go on stage. People were already in the building.. I was crying..Ilya told me that promoter was one million in debt and his wife was pregnant. People were waiting for me to come on stage. I would let everyone down if I cancelled the show. I crawled to the stage and we played the show. Our fans sent us so many messages after this show in Novosibirsk. Even when they came to see us in other cities they would still
remember this show. They wrote 'Thank you for being with us on that day. We were there together' We were so scared when we were alone. How and why did you leave Russia? We were banned and we left. Is it true that you were banned for speaking out against the war? You published a Stop War picture on your Instagram. Is it still there? It is. On March 9 you posted a statement. 'Dear friends, our upcoming tour is not going to be fun. We've never been entertaining..' 'These will be the darkest shows o
f our lives. We feel like we need to play these' 'These would be shows of peace, prayers for those hiding from shelling losing their homes' 'We are not making money from these shows. We want to support those who are hurt and scared' 'The music must be played. It will heal and comfort you' 'We have many friends in Ukraine. Our concert director has parents in Ukraine' 'We are worried about them, we are in touch with them every day' And then you said you would stay in Russia. Why did you support Uk
raine? You can't invade a sovereign country. You can't kill people. There are no Nazis there. We've been to Ukraine. We were supposed to play a show in Ukraine on May 1. This show had been postponed due to Covid. Our fans sent me pictures of them standing in the hallway.. They were listening to our songs. They sent me pictures of the tickets..To the show that will never happen. In the hallway between two walls? Yes. We looked them in the eyes. I felt responsible for them. I saw them at my shows.
They are so great. We've been to Kyiv and Kharkiv.. We know what Ukraine is like. This is very personal for me. Since this war began I've been trying to analyze how I react to the news.. Some wars for me.. Only exist in the news. In the news, yes. I never wanted to think about these wars.. I've never been to these countries. This war is very personal. I've been to these cities and met these people. I know these people. This is how our mind works.. Suddenly I realized how bad the wars were. Peop
le were united in their desperation.. And epiphany.. Yes. We all realized something.. We played in Minsk in 2021. We knew where it was coming. We played there in December. December of 2021? Yes. Many people had left Belarus already. It reminded me of Soviet Union. I realized how close we were to that. Before going on stage we had to sign a paper.. Banned color combinations, banned words, banned signs.. A whole list of banned actions. I was hoping we would at least last until 2024. You signed thi
s parer in Minsk..Were you allowed to play Bad Boy, your song about Lukashenko? We played it. Belarus KGB agents didn't speak Tatar. Yes. Okay. What did you feel when you signed it? Didn't you think 'What the hell am I doing here?' 'Why am I playing a show here?' I didn't. I had no choice. We were back in the USSR. It is my childhood trauma. I was so happy that the world was finally open for us. I became a part of the world. Before that I felt like I was locked somewhere.. And now it's happening
again. I see all the similarities. It makes no sense to argue with President's Office. Why did you agree to play in Minsk in December of 2021? People were leaving the country, many people were repressed. And so many bans.. I didn't know about this list in advance. I'm confident about our fans. I am willing to play for our listeners anywhere in the world. Anywhere? Anywhere where we are allowed to play. You were playing shows in Russia until September. Until summer. On September 1 we got banned.
You got banned in September of 2022. Did you understand why you were banned? We never asked why. I was curious how they looked like and what they would tell us. I asked my girls to come there. Your managers? Yes. They went to this office in Saint Petersburg. There was a guy who was three years younger than me. He had a Z on the lapel of his jacket. His face was something in between business courses and Edinaya Rossiya camps.. This type of guy..I found him on the Internet. I wanted to know how b
anned my band. To see this young pal who destroyed us. Ilya is two times older than him. It's not about the generation gap. We thought that things would change after boomers retired. We were wrong. And then we were playing a show in Yerevan. We met a girl who used to work in some production.. They were asked to make an event to indigenous peoples of Russia. She was trying to book our band. This event was also supported by the President's Office. I don't remember.. She was trying to get us play a
t the event. And they told her 'next'. She said we were a popular band representing Tatarstan. And they told her 'Next'. She moved on..She didn't know that we were banned.. Her boss was mad at her. He told her that this exact woman banned our band. This was a funny coincidence. She showed me this woman's animated profile picture on What's App. There's so many features on What's App. My mom's pretty good at these. This woman was very beautiful. She looked very nice. Make-up, hairstyle.. She was w
alking around some Opera hall..Wearing a suit.. There was this mean woman in pink in Harry Potter.. She was quite young and beautiful..She was wearing this nice pink suit.. She was so cynical..It's not about the generation gap. I found out that I was wrong about it. Some of our viewers would not understand why you left. Would they send you to prison? Any other danger? It was my parental instinct. I wanted to keep my kid safe. The rest doesn't matter. To keep you kid from what? From the danger. I
didn't want my kid to face Soviet way of thinking. Not being able to say what you think. Banned topics..Lots of rules that I don't agree with. You have to stick to these rules. This is what the Soviet Union was about. Fake system pressuring you. We were about to play shows in Voronezh, Rostov, and Krasnodar. We were driving to Rostov talking about this situation..It was in early summer of 2022. Aigel raised her voice and I closed the door of our train compartment. There were no planes in Rostov
. We were coming there by train. This was my subconscious action. I noticed it. Hello again, Soviet Union. You were playing a show in Ivanovo and met Eduard Artemyev when you were having breakfast. I did. Do you think he's a great composer? I do. Eduard Artemyev worked in the Soviet Union for the majority of his life. He wasn't allowed to say what he thought. And he still became a great composer. I don't think it helped him. He had no other choice. I didn't have choice back then. Music that I li
ked was banned in my country. Artemyev was about fifty years older than me. He had no other choice. He lived in this reality. When I was a kid I would often have the same nightmare. Two nightmares. It sounds very scary now. In the first nightmare someone was trying to break into my home. I forgot to lock the door and I was home alone. At night I remembered that the door was not locked. I was scared to stand up to lock it. I would run to the door and there was someone behind it. Some creatures. T
hey would pull the door..We would be pulling it from both sides for a long time. This was a horrible nightmare. I was a small kid. A small kid against some creepy crowd. They were trying to break into my home. I was trying to hold the door. And there was another nightmare. After the war. This is how I called it in my head. A yellow desert road. Palisade. Bright blue sky. And some dust in the air. Terrible heat. And nothing is happening. This picture was so scary. I knew that it was a picture aft
er the war. I would have these nightmares when I was a kid. At some point I stopped having them. Now I realize that it became a reality. My biggest fears became a reality. I became paranoid. I didn't do anything mean in my life. And still I was afraid that some people would break into my home at five in the morning. They would be touching my things. I was scared that someone would enter my home. In Kazan there were searches in journalists' homes. They searched on of the professors of my universi
ty.. And they searched a friend of mine who was the first person to interview me. Her name is Aisylu Kadyrova. She's writing articles about theater. She loves ballet. I know what kind of person she is. I can imagine what these people felt because I know them.. They were doing searches in her home. They wouldn't find anything at my home..They would do this to frighten me. I would not let them do it. The band got banned..Before we got banned I felt like I had to take notes of what was happening. M
y goal was to take notes. I had to be in Russia to see what was happening. The longer this war goes on and the more mean things are done..People are becoming lethargic. You would never learn about it from the media. I can't learn anything from the media. If I want to write honest texts I will use my own experience. In Russia I convinced myself that I was absorbing what was happening. All this horror, all this shit our country is filled with.. I felt like I had to feel it to describe it. I didn't
write anything, though. I wasted my time. I was at loss for words. I could no longer breath. There was nothing for me to do there. I couldn't write anymore. I couldn't do my job. I was banned from work. I couldn't let them shit into my kid's head at these patriotic lessons. I will tell her about the country that I love. I will make sure she knows everything. I didn't bring her to school in September. I didn't want hear to be at these classes. Now they are being taught to run drones. They are ha
ving a lot of fun. I saw this on TikTok. You might have seen it, too. In some school in Kazan..They turned on Shaman and made kids throw their right hand in the air and sing 'I'm Russian' 'I'm lucky to be Russian!' There was a conductor..She asked them 'I can't hear you! Aren't you Russian?' And kids tell her they aren't. They are Tatars. It's a trigger for Tatars. They have no problems with Russians. My kid is half-Russian and it's fine. I love Russians and I have Russian friends. I'm not Russi
an. You can't make me say that I'm Russian. Kids told her they weren't Russian. And she said 'It means that we all live in Russia.' 'Let's sing it together!' In a school in Kazan. I didn't let my girl go to school. I've had enough. We booked a tour outside of Russia. I packed my things and left Russia. I moved to Turkey. Why are we meeting in Berlin? I finally got my talent visa that I'd been waiting for for six months in Turkey. I liked Turkey so much that I didn't want to leave. You miss Turke
y now. I do. When the war began I threw my suitcase on the floor.. It was stayed there for almost a year. I would kick it all the time.. I was thinking about leaving Russia since the first day of the war. Our European promoter Natasha told us to move to Berlin. She called me on the phone. I told my daughter to start learning German. She stood up and went to her room to learn German. She downloaded Duolingo.. She was ten years old last year. She hates English. She doesn't really like learning lan
guages. But this time she decided to learn German because she wanted to move to Germany. She'd never been here. I don't know why she wanted to go here. I was completely destroyed as a person.. I decided to stick to her plan. Your daughter made the decision for you. She wanted to move and I thought okay! I was collecting documents for my talent visa. And you live in Montenegro. I do. Why Montenegro? My wife picked this place. The city is called Bar. She really did pick a random place on the map.
You'd never been there before.. You didn't know what to do there. Zero research.. Just a random city. We had to leave. I was talking to his wife and to him..To his wife, mostly. We wanted to finally meet in one country. I was thinking about Turkey.. We're a band and we don't want to lose this asset. We could finally meet in one place.. One city, at least.. But we failed. He moved to Montenegro while I moved to Berlin. We failed. We can still work. Even from two different countries. Your eldest d
aughter has been working at NTV for a while now. Yes. Where exactly? She's working at one of their terrible evening talk shows. On the news? I don't know.. I've never watched the show. I didn't want her to work there. In fact, it's an engineering job.. What does she do? She's designing something.. I don't really know what she's doing..The talk show is called Mesto Vstrechi (Meeting Place). I don't know anything about this show. I don't really want to know. I guess, this show is hosted by Norkin.
I've heard this name from her. He used to be her boss. I don't know if this show still exists. She told me she worked there. It does. It's Norkin. Well.. I think she's creating subtitles and other stuff.. Some background pictures, too.. Americans are at the border..or..
Ukrainians are launching radioactive mosquitoes to Russia. Something like that. This is why I don't watch it. I haven't watched a single episode. I can't watch NTV. Basically she's working for propaganda that made you leave Russ
ia. You can say that, too. I never told her to work at the television. She found this job about six or seven years ago. I didn't support this choice. All of my friends from NTV told me it was a bad choice. Kirill Ivanov used to work there..Roma Super, too. Loshak, too. They all left the channel with heavy heart. This work is devastating. I don't know how they do it. Some people can do it.. Does this have an effect on your relationship with your daughter? It doesn't. She's my daughter. How can it
have an effect? I don't think that she's doing something wrong. She is unlucky. She can't leave. She won't find a better job.. I guess, all TV channels are similar. I don't want to blame anyone and teach you morals.. I just want to add 1 to 1. Don't you think that it's a vicious circle? This kind of compromise led to the tragedy. And you personally had to leave Russia because of such compromise. What compromise? You said your daughter can't find a better job. Every day she's working with cannib
als justifying killing Ukrainians. I know that she doesn't do that..She's just pressing buttons. According to you, she's not a bad person.. She's not. Just because she's willing to press buttons on these shows so many people justify the shelling of Ukraine.. People who don't support this go to prison. Or leave the country. I guess, your logic makes sense, too.. Are you a good father? It's a good question. I think that I'm a good father. I'm doing my best. Honestly..I'm doing all I can. There mig
ht be my fault that there are no other TV channels for her to work at. We are to blame. Am I? You are. You used to work on TV and you know how it works. How did you let this happen? I admit it. I am also guilty of other things.. The song Ofigenno has an interesting background.. You wrote it after texting some guy on the Internet. This is such a great story. There's a guy called Dave Sitek. He's a sound producer. I didn't know that.. I don't know any producer and I don't listen to music. Ilya is
responsible for music in our band. He's a nerd and he's listened to everything. I was making a song called Na Nashey Storone (On Our Side). It's a beautiful song. One of my methods is the following..I have certain rhythm and certain melody in my head and I send a demo to Ilya. I ask him to write some music.. I can also find backing tracks on VK. There is a lot of music on VK. You can always find what you need there. There are few chord progressions that are used by everyone. In electronic music
it's usually one or two chords. Three or four chords for pop music.. And more than four chords for some complex music that doesn't work so well. Using only one chord is perfect. This is why many pop songs can be mashed up well. I would go trough backing tracks on VK.. I would look for one that would fit the song. Ilya was a big fan of Run The Jewels. It's a rap band.. He would talk about this band in all the interviews. Before we stopped doing interviews he would talk about this band a lot. He s
ent me their backing tracks. I tried to sing along..And then I found the perfect track. It fit the song perfectly. I recorded my vocals..It was a remix that Dave Sitek did. This track was very energetic. You don't really hear backing track because the vocal part is stacked. I liked the backing track a lot. I sent it to Ilya..He would usually write something similar to what I sent him. And then I would record the vocals once again. This time when he sent me his version it didn't work for me. I ne
eded to add so much stuff..We didn't listen to the original track anymore. I started adding more elements to the backing track.. And eventually I recreated the original song. Some parts were similar to Dave Sitek's remix. We liked one part of the song and we left it in our track. It sounded great. It was perfect. I told Ilya that we needed to contact Dave Sitek. We had to add him to the credits. I started looking for him. I guess, he didn't reply to my letter. We were about to release the song..
Aigel
On Our Side When the song came out Dave Sitek came to the comments section.. I don't remember how he found us. He left a comment and I contacted him again. There is a lot of vocals in this song. His remix was stacked with rapping. While you sang. It was a miracle. His track was a part of it. I told him we could add him to the credits. It turned out that he knew who we were. We chatted on Telegram.. He let us add him to the credits. We thanked him for the inspiration. Some time later I was
getting divorced. I was lying in my bed.. You were breaking up with your boyfriend. I was. I was lying alone in my room.. I was so depressed.. Or maybe we were chatting on Instagram.. I texted him from our band's page. And then he texted me. He asked me how I was doing. I was lying in my bed in Naberezhnye Chelny.. It was dark and cold outside. My life was in ruins. The end. I was texting him late at night. He lived in Los Angeles or in Texas.. He was sitting at his ranch somewhere in the deser
t.. He would send me pictures of a huge fire. Musicians would stay at his ranch while they were recording. They would stay at his studio. We were texting..He sent me pictures of his sunny days.. My dream studio..Lots of synths, lots of cables.. This is paradise. This is what paradise looks like for me. I was in my bed at the opposite part of the globe. I was writing a song about it. I told the story of our friendship in the song. I would go to bed at night seeing the pictures of the sun.. This i
s how we chatted.. Aigel
Ofigenno I found out that he produced TV On The Radio. It's a great band.. He worked with the.. The biggest bands.. His best friend is a singer of Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Their music video Sacrilege is one of my favorites. He also produced their record. They're friends. He told me that he suggested Massive Attack to collaborate with me. I had to google what their response meant. They said why not? He told me they were up for it. While you were in Chelny. I was in Chelny. So bas
ed on this story you wrote your song Ofigenno. I did. Dave Sitek was a godfather of two of our songs. In 2020 you went viral with your You Are Born music video. Aigel
You're Born This music video came out two days after Valentina Tereshkova suggested to nullify Putin's presidential terms. You released a music video with a politician diving in cold water. He left the water young and fresh.. Is it a coincidence? It is. You didn't direct this video. No, Andzej directed it. Can you tell us about it?
We could had released it on the same day. We didn't have time to work on color or to add credits.. We were one day late. Andzey Gavriss had directed our Bushbash music video. He made a short film called 1190. He wanted to work with us one more time. He had a few ideas..He would send them to me for six months straight.. In the end he directed this music video. He suggested to shoot swimming in an ice-hole. We would have these beautiful ice crosses in the sun.. He had a picture in his head. He se
nt me some pictures of it.. Sun reflecting in ice..I said let's do it. He worked on his idea and decided to write a plot. He had this idea..It was clear that it was good. Ilya would call him and Gavriss would share his ideas. When Putin's terms were nullified we were supposed to release the video. We were a bit late. I asked everyone to hurry up. This was a great coincidence for us. This video was released a day or two later. I wasn't working on it..I respect Gavriss for his work. Did you vote f
or the amendments? I did vote. In a bus next to my home. We could vote anywhere..I voted in a bus next to my home. How did you vote? I voted against. So the director made this music video that now belongs to Aigel.. Well, this video won a prize in Cannes. Andzej Gavriss won this prize. We didn't do anything.. We helped each other. How much did the video cost? It looks very expensive. They asked us not to disclose it. I don't really care. I'm bad at hiding it.. About five million. Five million of
the band's money? No, we never had so much money. Whose money was this? Andzej found an investor. Is there..? He found the money. He told us not to ask him about it. He knows how to do it. Is there any ad in the video? There is..Vodka in the end of the video.. I tried to see the name of the brand. I couldn't see it. Really? I could only see some logo. He told me there was an ad in the video..I don't remember, really..Maybe there is no ad. Andzej took care of it. What if he took the money from R
ussian government? How would you react? I don't know how to answer to this question. I know that he didn't do it. What do you mean.. I know that he didn't take any money from the government. Why would government have this money if we can't spend it on something good? You played at a festival called Exit after the war began.. We played there recently. A Russian band in a international fest is quite rare.. This wasn't our first festival.. Since the war began? Where else did you play? Last summer w
e toured in Europe. We played at a fest in Slovakia..It was called Pohoda. We were the only Russian band there. There were three Russian bands at EXIT. Spasibo, Ploho, and Aigel. Spasibo, Ploho, and Aigel? We were the only Russian band at Pohoda fest. It was also early into the war.. Now people are kind of trying to move on.. Back then everyone was still worried.. It was less than six months after the war began. Gogol Bordello were playing Ukrainian anthem next stage.. This was in Bulgaria. We w
ere told to start our set. We were at this festival in Bulgaria.. We asked them to wait. What was the name of this fest? I don't remember.. We were playing at a smaller festival in Bulgaria.. There were two stages..Main stage was pretty close to our stage. The bands were playing one after another.. They couldn't play at the same time. Gogol Bordello were playing before us. They had a lot of Ukrainian flags on stage..Timing was strict. We were set to come on stage at 10 pm, right after Gogol Bord
ello. We were told to go on stage before they finished their set. They were playing Ukrainian anthem. This was their last song. And we were told to go on stage. Are you kidding me? A Russian band would come on stage to Ukrainian anthem? So they let us wait a little. Did you wait? Of course, we did. This was pretty challenging. I'm not good at talking with the crowd. p Almost everyone in the crowd had to experience something terrible.. There were many Ukrainians in the crowd. I didn't want to off
end anyone.. I wanted to support them. They could be triggered by any word I would say. Whatever I say, I can hurt someone. My English was pretty poor. I hadn't spoken English since school. I was trying to say something..We got a lot of support. All of our festival shows were good. They were different from our solo shows for our fans. Festivals are always harder to play. We were met very kindly everywhere we played. How do you split your money? In equal shares. 50/50 from all revenues? Yes. How
well are you prepared for emigration financially? Not well..I was waiting for my talent visa in Turkey.. I knew I would survive in Turkey. My kid went to school that I was paying for. I knew I would be okay in Turkey. Berlin is a bit harder..I don't know how much money I am making currently. I don't know if I'm in danger.. Not sure if I can survive here. This city is much more expensive. Do you know how much you would pay for rent here? 1500 Euro? Kind of. Is this a lot for you? It is. We lost h
alf of our streaming revenues when the war began. We are not playing shows in Russia now. 85% of our audience lives in Russia. We're now working at some other projects..Our focus has shifted a little bit. We don't have to play a lot of shows now. And streaming revenues are growing again. We haven't lost 85% of our streams. We've lost less than that. This drop is not very significant. Some of our listeners moved from Russia. They are listening to our songs from Europe. Our revenues have decreased
and our future is uncertain. Everything's uncertain. I don't have any other jobs. This is the first time in my life when I have to worry about money. I've always been confident about being able to make money. I can always find some work and figure it out.. I've never been so worried..Expenses are pretty high here. Unless we are playing some shows soon..I'm getting a bit.. Nervous. A little bit. Montenegro is a bit cheaper, isn't it? Prices are cheaper. We bought a flat there and we don't have t
o pay for rent. We spent our savings.. How much does a flat in Montenegro cost? We bought it for 40 thousand. 40 thousand Euro? Yes. While I was trying to decide where I was going..Lena found this flat. She was sick of me and she just bought this flat. We wanted to live in the same city.. I didn't buy a flat when I could.. How big is the flat? Forty square meters. A thousand per meter. You worked at the radio for many years. Not many..I have been a voice actress for all my life. I would work at
the radio occasionally. Then I would get bored and leave. And then I would come back.. Do you remember your first voice acting experience? I registered at freelance.ru.. I worked there as a copywriter. I was a good copywriter.. Let's clarify. Copywriters write texts.. And kind of texts. At some point..I don't remember when..I realized I could be a voice actress. There was an order to record a short welcome. I decided to give it a try. I used my computer microphone to record it. They didn't accep
t it. I can't remember how I became a voice actress. I didn't have any friends who were voice actors..I was recording on Zoom H4N.. This is a voice recorder..One of my friends told me it was good. I bought it for singing initially. I had an mp3 player from Samsung and I would record vocals on it. And then I was making music on my computer. And then my friend told me to but this Zoom recorder. I bought it and recorded on it. I loved it so much. It was a portable recorder. I would take it to Thail
and every winter. I would always carry it with me. There's a lot of memes in voice acting community on recording in harsh conditions. I have a friend with a velvety voice..We would always work for each other for free. We agreed to help each other for free. We would work this way for many years. He was also a sound engineer. He would help me edit my recordings. He would also send me his recordings when I needed a male voice. He would always send me voice acting memes. Recording in a bed under the
sheet.. Doing a voice over for some amazing ads.. My first big ads project brought me two thousand dollars. This was international level already. I recorded this on Zoom in Naberezhnye Chelny in my home studio. Me and my boyfriend made some curtains..We were close to the tram line.. This was such a weird environment. Zoom recorder isn't a pro mic.. This is when I decided to buy a mic. I needed to record live..They were managing the session. I wasn't recording on my computer. This was a Givenchy
ad. I had a short line.. In Russian? Yes, in Russian. I had to say it with a tender voice.. While being surrounded with dirt. There was a parking lot next to my window. My home studio was so bad.. They would never imagine how it looked like. New Givenchy spirit.. This was my first big project. I did it in my poor home studio. At some point a built a recording room at home. I can't work with engineers. I can only work alone. I always build a home studio when I'm moving. Does it look like a small
corner? It was a small booth. I didn't do it properly. Professional engineers told me that the walls of the booth had to be thicker.. The roof had to be further away from the ceiling.. I showed my booth to an engineer. There have to be two ceilings with some space in between. It's complicated. I would just buy acoustic panels in a construction store.. Then I bought pro acoustic panels. Later it turned out that this wasn't a best choice for absorbing sound. I finally built a decent home studio a
nd then I left Russia. In Turkey I was recording a voice over.. We found some panels and some bedsheets.. We would hang these panels on the bedsheets. We used this technology to absorb sound. I was recording this long text for a month.. I would have these bedsheets around me.. Windows closed..Pretty dark in the room. It looked horrible. I didn't have a proper studio in Turkey. I recorded bus stops names.. Did you? I did. In Naberezhnye Chelny? Naberezhnye Chelny, Nizhnekamsk, Kazan..Russian, Tat
ar, English.. All done by you. I am also a voice actress in Ak Bars bank queue. This was a long time ago. I didn't have an account in Ak Bars bank.. Ten years later I came to the bank and they replaced me with someone else. Tell them about the hairdryer. It wasn't a hairdryer.. Hair straightener. Some device..Face massage or something like that.. Or a hairdryer..I don't remember. Many years ago I received an order to record the manual and the promo. I recorded it and forgot about it. Many years
later I bought this device. Or someone gave it to me.. I didn't know how to use it..I went to YouTube and watched the manual that I recorded. I explained it to myself..I didn't remember how to use it, of course. I also had a Payoneer payments card. I recorded their welcome message. Press one to do this..Press two to do that.. I called them and listened to my voice..I was so mad. I love it. This work is relaxing and meditative. I love recording and editing. How much are you getting paid as a voic
e actor? How much what? How much can one work cost? Well, now I'm doing it as a singer. It's different now. Up to half a million. In the past I nobody knew who I was.. I would get 400 roubles for 15 seconds. This was the price. I loved recording ads because these were short. The more you work, the less you are paid. Later my wage increased. Fifteen seconds would cost a thousand. It took me years to get to this price. Some of my old customers would contact me.. I lost most of them when Aigel star
ted touring. I would let them down a lot. I would refuse to work because of my tour..Eventually I lost all of my customers. When the pandemic happened..There were no shows..I had no work. I would start over. I would find new customers from all over the world. When we recording the debut record I needed money for my boyfriend's lawyers. I was working 24 hours a day. This is when I went international. I needed to make money. Do you have your personal benchmark? What do you mean? Your most famous r
ecording. Like this: Master Dent is a dentistry clinic..Just call.. Does anyone remember? 274-1001. I don't know that. Is that a Saint Petersburg thing? This was All-Russian! I don't remember that.. There was one ad..We didn't want anyone to know this was us.. I guess, we even signed an NDA with them.. As soon as the video came out people started mentioning us on Instagram.. I got mad. They promised not to tell anyone.. They said they didn't tell anyone. Cashback on this, cashback on that..Do yo
u remember it? Raiffaizen bank. Was this you? Yes, it's me. Holy shit. In Berlin Aigel goes to local Tatar community gatherings. Today's meeting is hosted by a poet Dinara Rasuleva. Do vegans eat cream? They don't. What about vegetable oil? I don't really like oregano tea, to be honest. It's British, isn't it? It is. Tatars did it first. This Qistibi is not vegan, right? Right. I'd like to try vegan. I've never tried it. Can I tear it? It's too big.. We're not Italians. You can do whatever you w
ant. Aigel, do you want some? I would like to try vegan. Delicious. I love vegan. How did your identity change after the war began? For me it started with moving here eight years ago. I guess, I could look at my history from some distance.. When I lived in Kazan it was different. I was ashamed of speaking Tatar. At home we would both speak Russian and Tatar. My mom spoke Russian. At school and at university we would only speak Russian. I didn't go to a kindergarten. I could only speak Tatar. Whe
n I went to school I learnt Russian. I also found out that speaking Tatar was lame. It was associated with rednecks..Province was considered something bad compared to fancy Russian language. We studied Russian culture and Russian literature. When I started writing poems I would write in Russian. I never asked myself why I wasn't writing in my native language. After I moved to Berlin I asked myself why I wasn't speaking and writing in my native language. My friends from Belarus told me that befor
e 2020 almost nobody spoke Belarusian. Very few people did. Kids who spoke Belarusian were bullied at school. In 2020 and 2021 they realized that these people weren't rednecks. They kept the tradition. Do you feel the same way? My classmates who had a Tatar accent were also bullied. I got rid of accent not to be considered a redneck. I wanted to look Russian. I was getting rid of my culture not to be bullied. At school you always want to be a cool kid. You wanted to be cool. Yes. This happened t
o me in Kazan. In our villages there are Tatar-speaking schools. There were almost none of these in Kazan. Do you prefer speaking Tatar? Yes. I don't speak Russian too often. [Bulat Shaimi
Musician, blogger, linguist] 80% of the time I speak Tatar. At work I'm speaking English. When I'm talking to my friends and family I use Tatar. How long have you been here? I've been here for two years. My girlfriend is Tatar, too. I speak Tatar on my socials. Tatar is your native language. What other languag
e do you prefer speaking, English or Russian? English is easier because I use it more. So Russian is your third language now. It is. You asked us about our identity and attitude since the war began.. I think that we cared about our language before the war. We were always passionate about our language. The attitude around us is different now. Our activism is now more important for others. Imperialism and decolonization are very relevant now. Russian world is a hot topic. People are paying more at
tention to us. We feel more significant now. You released a record in Tatar. Why did you do that? After we talked to Tatar community one of them told me he listened to a podcast where I talked about this record. Now I don't know why I did it. In the podcast I said I wanted to make a record in my native language. I had a few songs in Tatar and we decided to make a record. This guy was surprised that the record wasn't a political statement. It came out so naturally. I'm a Tatar and I sing in Tatar
. He really liked this attitude. He said he liked it? Yes. He's an activist and he's used to making statements. He's interacting with other ethnicities.. They are working on decolonization. Anything he does is a political statement. He's not an artist who shares his feelings.. This was surprising for him that I didn't turn this into a statement. I released this record because I wrote some songs in Tatar. That's it. Why did they stop teaching Tatar in schools in 2017? Parents wrote a letter to Pu
tin. They didn't want their kids to learn Tatar. Putin said okay and cancelled Tatar lessons in Tatarstan. Rustam Minnihanov, the head of Tatarstan, would say that they would never cancel Tatar lessons. Eventually Putin made this decision and Minnihanov said Tatar lessons would become elective. These parents weren't 100% Russian. Some of them were Tatars. Russian-speaking Tatars. This was a small group of people, not the majority.. Some small group of people that was active enough.. If people in
Moscow need to do something, they would always find activists who would ask them to do it. This is pretty clear. Valentina Tereshkova asked for amendments to Constitution. Why do you think Putin made this decision? Did he want to prevent separatism in Tatarstan? I guess, he was scared of it. He felt like if we had a language we would live separately from Russia. People who don't speak Tatar can't learn it now. This law destroyed Tatar-speaking infrastructure. People who were born in Tatar-speak
ing families and wanted to go to a Tatar-speaking school.. They would then go to a university and find a job where they would speak Tatar. Now they can't do this. I never thought why I liked my Slavic appearance when I was a kid. People would think I was Russian. Did you like it? I was happy to look Russian. My friend Masha had black hair..People thought she was Tatar. They thought she was Dinara and I was Masha. I was so happy..I never asked myself why. There are so many layers of this problem.
. Has it ever happened to you as a kid or a teenager? I realized that I was lucky to be born in the right place at the right time. I was born in Tatarstan, Naberezhnye Chelny. I went to Tatar kindergarten and school. I have always been Tatar. There were Russians around me.. Later I went to a Russian school. I never had any trauma from being Tatar. I was never bullied for being Tatar. I never felt wrong for being Tatar. Some people moved to Moscow and picked Russian names.. It was never the case
for me. When we released Tatarin I got a lot of feedback from Tatars who didn't think we could say we were Tatar. We could sing in Tatar. Many Tatars aren't comfortable with that. I have no problems with that. It turned out that they were really glad to hear me sing in Tatar. Nobody called me a redneck. People loved the song and the dance. Suddenly they got validated as a person. They were used to feeling uncomfortable.. They had felt this way since they were kids. You go to a Russian school and
you have darker skin or some Tatar name.. Kids offend you for something you cannot change. You have to live with this. I never felt ashamed of being Tatar. I was surprised to learn all these stories. Some people from my family moved to Russia and changed their names. Do you mean they moved from Tatarstan? Yes, I call it moved to Russia. I'm sorry. I don't think that Tatarstan isn't Russia. It's more convenient for me. I had to clarify. Everything in Tatarstan is in Tatar.. In Russia everything
is in Russian. My cousin has blonde hair. Her sister has black hair. I used to have blonde hair when I was a kid. Her mom kept saying that we were lucky to be blonde. It's good to be blonde..You don't look like Tatar.. This has always been around.. I was shocked to find this out.. Last December I went to Tashkent..Lots of people are learning Tatar because of me. People from different generations.. Some of them aren't Tatars. I went to a fare and some girls texted me on Instagram. They wanted to
say hi. They came to me and started speaking Tatar. Fifteen year old girls. Tatar girls living in Tashkent. They were there with their mom. They had started learning Tatar not long ago. And then they switched to English. They didn't switch to Russian. They couldn't continue speaking Tatar.. I wanted to say hello to their mom. She replied in Russian. 'Hello, I don't speak Tatar' This was a very interesting case. Their mom can't say hello in Tatar. Her daughters didn't speak Russian to me. They sp
oke English after they got stuck with Tatar. There is a concept that Russian language is a language of colonizers of Tatarstan. These girls definitely knew Russian. Why do Russian in Georgia prefer to speak English? Russian is a traumatizing language in Georgia and in Tatarstan. English is a neutral language for them. There is no conflict between them and English-speakers. Even though English is a colonizers' language, too. It has nothing to do with Tatarstan, though. And for the same reason som
e people are now using latin alphabet to write in Tatar. Even though latin alphabet is not convenient for Tatar.. It's much easier than Arabic alphabet. People don't want to use Cyrillic letters anymore. They are trying to escape from Russian colonization. Tatar words are as short as English. It's an explosive language. It's hard to write a disco song in Russian. Russian words are too long. Long sentences, too. Tatar words are as short as English ones. Altyn by Tatarka is a famous dance hit in T
atar. It is. It sounds very rhythmic. It's true. What happened in 1552? Kazan was captured by Ioann IV. It was a violent capture. There are two ways people in Tatarstan talk about this date. You need to insert a music video by Usal.. Usal is a Tatar rapper who sings about colonization. Gravestones are trying to tell me something I don't understand anything. Our language is lost I can only read one number, one date. Only one date. He has a great song called 1552. It's great. A song about this yea
r. Not really..It's a song about how we're losing our language and our identity. We lose it as a result of colonization. Where does Usal live? In Tatarstan. Is he still in Russia? He is. Tatars are allowed to be upset about this date. They banned memorial day. Memorial march got cancelled. October 15 is the memorial day. In the nineties many people would come to this meeting. Eventually we were losing our independence and this meeting was getting smaller and smaller. This year they weren't allow
ed to do it. They were only allowed to do a prayer. This date is very important because Tatars used to have strong urban culture. Kazan was a center of this culture. When Kazan was captured all men were slaughtered. Tatars were not allowed to live in the city center. They weren't allowed to live by the rivers. They weren't allowed to become merchants which they were used to. Urban culture experienced a downfall. Tatars were trying to build mosques but they were getting destroyed. Ekaterina the G
reat allowed us to build mosques of stone. Our urban culture was coming back but still we went through a massive crisis. In the nineties we finally got our independence back. We could finally talk about it.. We could remember our ancestors at the memorial day. We would pay our respect to them. It isn't a day when we get mad at Russians. It's a day when we remember the tough times of our ancestors. I thought about conversation with the community.. I have many Russian friends from Tatarstan. I nev
er asked them about it.. I asked my friend about the nineties, when our independence was at its peak. I was too young back then. Now I can only be happy we had this period.. I've always been proud of our independence.. We can make decisions on our own. It felt really great. We were independent. I was proud of that. In the nineties there were many radical movements in Russia. Tatars around me didn't really like these people. These were marginalized radical movements..They weren't big, they were j
ust loud. My friend told me that his mother told him that he would be killed by Tatar nationalists. Russians in Tatarstan were also scared.. Pavel Chikov told me the same story. They were terrified. I thought that everything was cool. I represented a majority group in Tatarstan. I didn't notice that minorities were in trouble.. I was a kid back then..When I grew up I thought that we were safe in the nineties. We are quite safe, in fact. We are a peaceful region. Many ethnicities live together in
Tatarstan. I was privileged and I didn't notice that Russians were in danger. I only found this out yesterday. I asked him how Russian felt back then. He told me he was terrified. Shit..Tatars are a minority in Russia..While Russians were a minority in Tatarstan. When Tatars are trying to preserve their language Russians say that there is no threat. There is no threat to gay people. No threat to Tatars.. When you are privileged you don't see that. I have suddenly realized that didn't notice som
e problems even when I was paying attention. Paying attention? Yes. What do you think about Independent Tatarstan? I talked to my husband about it. He asked me under what circumstances I would come back to Russia. I told him I would like to come back to Independent Tatarstan. I feel like we can disagree on some stuff because we are all different.. However, we all agree on some aspects. We would like Tatarstan to make decisions on language policies. Tatar classes must be obligatory in schools. Ta
tar must be used as an official language in politics, economics. social life and culture. We wouldn't like to share our resources with Moscow. Tatarstan has to have a right not to start wars with other countries. I'm not a political expert. I don't know if Tatarstan has to leave Russia to reach these goals. I feel like we have to become independent to have our own foreign affairs. Many people ask me what would happen to Russians in Tatarstan if it becomes independent. They say that Russians will
be discriminated because they don't speak Tatar. Kazakhstan is a great role model. It's been independent for thirty years. Marsel speaks Russian and all of my friends from Kazakhstan speak Russian. And Kazakh, too. Russians were not discriminated in Kazakhstan. I feel like Tatarstan has already made this decision in 1992. This decision was made by Russians, too. 61 or 62%. Tatars are not a majority group even in Tatarstan. Is this about becoming independent or about getting more power from Mosc
ow? Similar to Catalonia. What are we talking about now? I feel like currently Tatarstan cares about independence because they care about the genocide of Tatars. We're an enclave inside of Russia. Russia is not willing to give Tatarstan more power. We're not talking about EU countries. Equal rights, native languages.. Russia is not there yet. Independence of Tatarstan is not a safe topic now. When people talk about independence none of them think about want a civil war. We want our language and
our culture to be respected.
We want to keep our resources. We want to keep our taxes in our republic. We want to develop our region. I'm not a political expert. I studied political science but I'm not an expert. This is a very complicated issue. I feel like currently we need to focus on true federalism. When we get another government I feel like we would be able to talk about federalism. All our goals and dreams might come to life then. You don't agree. I think that our language and our resourc
es can be protected by federalism.. I'm not sure we can avoid fighting in wars on behalf of Russia. Well, a healthy federation wouldn't start a war. Then we're fine. And the final one: what is power? This is the only question I could prepare for. I asked Ilya what he would tell you. I told him I would say empathy. He said he would say the same. We were talking about empathy. This would be a bingo moment if we hadn't talked about it. So now I wouldn't say empathy. I'd say that honesty is power. L
et me pick honesty. I don't know if he picked empathy. If he didn't - then I'm saying empathy. And the final one: what is power? Empathy is power. Shall I explain? Empathy inspires me as an artist. This is how segregate art from something else. Is there empathy? Art should always be compassionate. You are transferring your emotions to other people with your music, ideas, theater, ballet, movies.. With your art. This is what makes art different from generic shit.
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