“They could have chosen the VTB Arena for the reunion,” a short-haired blonde in a white t-shirt tells a friend with dissatisfaction, surveying the concert venue.
The only truly successful international music project from Russia, t.A.T.u. broke up in 2009 at the instigation of Julia Volkova. The group officially disbanded in 2011, but the singers performed as a band several more times: on the Romanian version of The Voice in 2012, at a Moscow club party in 2013, at the opening ceremony of the Sochi Olympics in 2014, and before the Zenit-Spartak football match in St. Petersburg in 2023.
In July 2025, the band announced their reunion and performed a concert in annexed Crimea. At the end of August, t.A.T.u. announced a concert in Moscow. The band was hosted by the TAU venue, a space located in a residential area in southeastern Moscow with a capacity of 3,500.
Initially, the organizers planned just one concert, October 25th. But tickets quickly sold out, and the band decided to hold another performance. “I was upset that the extra concert was scheduled before the main one” says a blonde woman in her 30s (who didn’t like the venue). For her, t.A.T.u.’s songs are like childhood music: “Playing with toys, watching music videos on MTV.”
Near the entrance to the venue are cardboard cutouts of Julia Volkova and Lena Katina, cut out of photographs from 2003. The 20-year-olds are wearing white T-shirts and jeans, Volkova still with short hair. Next to them is a 20-year-old version: Katina in a smart white three-piece suit, Volkova in black. Fans search the concert venue’s lobby for other attractions or at least a merch counter, but find nothing.
The fan zone in front of the stage is jam-packed, the dance floor just behind it is packed, and those with VIP box tickets are taking their seats in the balconies. Some fans are wearing t-shirts with slogans like “I’ve gone mad, I need her” or “They’re not gonna get us.” A group of girls, apparently teenagers, came to the concert wearing red plaid miniskirts and ties over white shirts, in keeping with t.A.T.u. signature style of the early 2000s, when they portrayed rebellious schoolgirls.
Two fans, dressed in skirts and blouses like these, sit on the floor in the middle of the dance floor, playing cards. One was born a year before t.A.T.u. broke up, the other, during the first year of Volkova and Katina’s solo careers. The fans tell Bereg they fell in love with the duo in high school. They can’t explain what exactly they like about the band. Both came to the concert “for the experience” and hope it will be “as good as Chicherina’s.”
What is known about t.A.T.u.’s political views?
Unlike, for example, singer Yulia Chicherina, who vehemently supported the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Volkova and Katina have not publicly spoken out about the war. Moreover, in May 2014, Katina spoke out against the war in Donbas, tweeting: “What’s going on in Ukraine?! Hold on, people!!! We want peace on earth so much! ‘Fuck War’ is our slogan!!! And it will always be!!!”
However, in 2018, Katina gave concerts in Donetsk and Luhansk (which were already under Russian control).
Volkova performed in annexed Crimea, including at patriotic events such as the concert marking the opening of the Crimean Bridge. In 2021, she ran for a seat in the State Duma from United Russia and participated in the primaries in the Ivanovo region, but lost.
“I served in Kosovo, in Yugoslavia. Everyone listened to t.A.T.u. there!” a loud male voice booms. “There were troops there: Italian, Spanish, Russian, American—and everyone was listening.” In 1999, t.A.T.u. released the song “Yugoslavia,” condemning the American bombing of the country. At the time, the band had only one singer, 14-year-old Lena Katina.
Vladimir, who says he served in Kosovo, is in his 50s. He came to the concert for his 13-year-old daughter, Lesya. She has several badges with pictures of t.A.T.u. singers pinned to her hoodie, and is holding a folded poster torn from the latest issue of the Vse Zvezdy (All Stars) magazine. The family traveled from the Nizhny Novgorod region to the concert.
“They went viral on our TikTok, back in the old days*,” Lesya says. “I knew them before, but I just didn’t pay attention. Then they popped up, and it all started. I keep their photos under my pillow.”
– “What exactly popped into your heart?” a 45-year-old viewer in a colorful cardigan asks Lesya.
– “I saw Katina. I like her personality: she’s calm, well-read, and literate.”
– “No, which of the lyrics from a song?”
– “I don’t know which ones… None.”
– “Okay, given the choice between smoking weed and listening to Katina, I’d rather listen to Katina,” the viewer concludes.
There are so many people that the stage is barely visible from the third row of the dance floor; there are no screens on the stage. Lesya is worried that t.A.T.u. won’t notice her poster. Her father promises to put his daughter on his shoulders.
The concert starts late as usual, and every now and then someone in the crowd starts chanting “t.A.T.u.!” or “They’re not gonna get us!”. “Okay, we’ve waited 15 years, we’ll wait another half hour,” a tall, long-haired girl encourages those around her. The mood in the audience, however, sours. After 40 minutes, rumors begin to spread through the crowd that there will be no concert. “Katina’s drunk!” some whisper. “They had another fight last night,” others say with an air of expertise.
– “What if they don’t come out?” Lesya panics.
– “They will!” the woman in the colorful cardigan reassures. “They have fines if they don’t come out. And they don’t earn that much now.”
Volkova and Katina appear on stage almost an hour after the concert officially begins. To the intro to “Ya Soshla S Uma,” they enter from opposite sides and stand face to face in the center of the stage. Volkova is wearing a white crop top, denim jacket, short black shorts, and stiletto boots. Katina is wearing a top, leather jacket, and flared jeans, with a plaid shirt tied around her waist. They begin singing in English:
All the things she said,
All the things she said,
Running through my head,
Running through my head,
Running through my head.
The audience exchanges puzzled glances: everyone in the world, of course, knows this version of the song, but in Russia, the Russian-language original is considered a classic.
A month ago, the lead singers discussed in an interview why t.A.T.u. no longer perform the song “Ya Soshla S Uma,” which tells the story of one woman falling in love with another. “We honor traditions, respect the laws of our country, and act within reason,” Volkova stated. The artist’s English-language version was not censored: it depicts the love of queer people, who have been effectively outlawed in Russia since 2023, “in a less explicit manner.”
In 2022, State Duma deputy Tatyana Butskaya accused the performers of “spreading LGBT,” while their manager responded that they were “making music.” The duo did not comment on the new homophobic laws. In 2024, journalists tried to ask Volkova about this, but she didn’t listen, saying, “I’m not the one to talk about laws; I’m an artist.” Several years earlier, in the peaceful year of 2021, Lena Katina said in an interview that she performs at LGBTQ festivals and that she has many queer friends, including fans of the band.
The audience greets the artists with a standing ovation. t.A.T.u. tries to get the crowd going, waving their arms and moving to the edge of the stage, but most fans remain motionless, filming their performance on their smartphones.
After finishing “All the Things She Said,” t.A.T.u. moves on to “Friend or Foe.” It becomes clear that Volkova is lip-synching: too engrossed in her dancing, she moves the microphone too far from her face, leaving barely any change in the sound.
After their second song, t.A.T.u. finally greets the audience. “There are so many of you today! And how cool!” says Volkova. The singers explain that their parents, children, and friends have come to the concert, waving toward the VIP boxes. “And how many flowers we’ve already received!” Volkova approaches the fan zone, where she is handed white chrysanthemums.
“Don’t skimp on your voices, because we won’t skimp on them today,” promises Lena Katina. The audience applauds. The singers put on their hats. The intro to “220” begins.
There was no choreographed show program prepared for the concert: Volkova and Katina danced to their own rhythm. During some numbers, they did show off their rehearsed moves, but it felt more like a school performance: there was no synchronicity.
Before the song “Polchasa,” the performers took off their jackets and hats. Katina looked coquettishly at Volkova, and Volkova returned the gesture. The singers faced each other:
To burst into tears, to run away,
Or lock the door,
And remain silent, and lie down,
To study the ceiling…
Drowning out her backing track, Julia Volkova tries to sing herself, but her voice breaks and she’s out of breath. Katina’s parts are clear and smooth—it seems as if she’s singing herself. By the song’s final chorus, Volkova and Katina hold hands, gaze into each other’s eyes, smile, and sway to the music.
-“You’re holding me so tight!” Volkova says, barely finishing the song, and pulls Katina toward her.
-“Quiet, quiet. Have you forgotten? I’m broken,” Katina responds reservedly (at the beginning of autumn, she fell down the stairs and broke her leg in two places; the cast was removed only a couple of weeks ago).
Volkova admires “so many emotions, feelings, and energy” in the audience, even though there’s still almost no one dancing on the dance floor. “How happy we are to see you all today! And yet, love rules the world,” Volkova says, exchanging playful glances with Katina. The song “Love in Every Moment” begins. The lines about “no one can deprive us of the right to decide for ourselves who to love, who to choose” clearly appeared in the early 2000s to reinforce the duo’s lesbian image, as dreamed up by the producers. In 2025, they sound almost like a protest.
Over the next few numbers, Volkova alternately touches Katina tenderly and takes her hand. Katina is more reserved and doesn’t give any attention to Volkova. Both try to interact with the audience, but their attempts to stir things up are unsuccessful.
During a break between songs, Volkova recounts how, during the band’s heyday, she would call Katina at night and visit, and Katina would feed her soup. “It was just a habit: we spent time together 24/7, and when I found myself in Moscow [after a tour], something was missing… That redhead!” Volkova says, gently nudging Katina with her hip. Katina smiles calmly.
The song “I’m Not Your First” (better known to listeners as “Show Me Love”) rocks the house for the first time. The audience sings along, drowning out the singers. “Faithful-unfaithful, quiet-sad. I’m not your first, you’re my accidental,” Volkova sings, stroking Katina’s hand.
At the end of “Simple Motions,” Volkova hugs Katina around the neck, and the spotlights dim, revealing only the singers’ silhouettes. Their figures move closer to each other, almost as if they were kissing. The audience screams with delight.
The lights come on. Volkova shares another story from the past about how, while filming one of her music videos, Katina fell asleep in the car with the heater on and nearly got heatstroke.
-“Actually, according to the video’s script, Lena saves me, but in the end, it was me who saved you, Lena.”
-“Well, what can you do? Sometimes even a rescuer needs a rescuer,” Katina replies.
-“Actually, you saved me!” Volkova suddenly says, out of place.
-“Actually, you and I always save each other!”
“All About Us” begins to a standing ovation. In the video for this song, Volkova and Katina are arguing. Volkova gets into a car with a stranger, who drives her to an apartment and attempts to rape her. She fights him off, finds a gun, kills the rapist, and calls Katina. Katina arrives at the house where the murder took place.
Volkova’s next story is about her “favorite song,” “Monkey Zero”: “Pay attention to the screen [behind the stage] during this song, because we chose a monkey that contains everything: pain, love, courage, kindness, sincerity—essentially, everything that should be and is contained within us, each of us. And in general, the real thing is always very important in everything—what’s inside us. How we feel, how we give and receive, this exchange.”
“God forbid I reach such a level of insanity. What kind of nonsense did she just say?” a member of the audience asks someone on the dance floor.
An hour into the concert, Volkova announces it’s time to say goodbye. The audience is outraged: the performers came on almost an hour late, and the fans were expecting the band to linger on stage. “I know, I don’t want to either, and neither does Lena,” Volkova defends herself. Katina stands silently. “Please, just don’t cry, because some people do. Don’t! I’m going to cry myself. Guys, we love you very much, truly.”
The musicians begin to play the intro to “Not Gonna Get Us.”
“I wish it was like that right away!” a female voice shouts. The entire audience sings along with the artists. Halfway through the song, some fans pull out signs saying “Thank you.” “This should be filmed right away!” Volkova says.
Together with Katina, they thank their team, perform the chorus again, and disperse offstage. The audience calls for an encore. The intro to “All the Things She Said” plays. The audience sings along: some in Russian, some in English. By the second chorus, the entire audience switches to Russian, but Katina and Volkova continue singing in English. The audience screams:
One, two, after five,
Mom, Dad, forgive me,
I’ve gone crazy,
I’ve gone crazy, I’ve gone crazy,
I need her, I need her, I need her!!!
“We love you! See you again!” Katina waves to the crowd.
“Moscow! You’re the best!” Volkova shouts, blowing kisses.
The audience is flocking toward the coat check, lingering at the bar—the concert is over, but the bartenders are selling the remaining alcohol. The crowd at the bar is shouting “Ya Soshla S U,a.”
Outraged comments can be heard in the line at the coat check: the band’s reunion didn’t live up to expectations.
“We were in the park last summer for the Moscow Seasons**. Julia sang for an hour there for free. And here, too, for an hour—but for five thousand… I’ll have to eat for two weeks,” a girl in a dress with a turned-down collar complains.
“His concert was also an hour long because the set was short, but he performed for another hour or hour and a half as an encore!” a blonde woman of about 35, wearing a leather jacket, tells her friends about a musician. “Just because he didn’t want to leave the stage. That was really cool, what a time!”
Her friends nod understandingly.
-“Listen, Russia was generally fantastic in 2017-2018,” a girl of about 20 chimes in.
-“Oh, you haven’t been to 2012 yet!” chuckles the blonde’s friend, who looks to be about 40. “Back then, tickets to Europe cost five thousand rubles.”
-“It really upsets me that my generation can’t get a mortgage, can’t do anything. But you millennials…”
The older group bursts out laughing.
“To be honest, ours was the same, but we don’t talk about it,” the blonde in the leather jacket barely manages to say through her laughter.
A curly-haired young man of about 25—unlike the others interviewed by “Bereg”—was pleased with the concert: “I liked that they had good energy, they were lively. It was okay, fine. It’s just a shame they didn’t sing “Malchik Gay” but that’s forbidden here.”
Unlike the performers, their female fans aren’t deterred by the so-called gay propaganda law: near the concert venue, girls in white knee-high socks and red plaid skirts loudly sing:
It’s so hard to hide my suffering,
A very, very, very, very indecent desire,
Gay boy, gay boy,
Be more brazen with me!
-“Last photos! 500 [rubles] without autographs, a thousand with,” a man in a black jacket and leather cap accosts passersby.
-“Thanks, we used to take them ourselves at some point,” the fans wave him off.
One viewer, wearing a green jacket, lingers near a vendor. He selects an old photograph from 2003, in which Volkova and Katina are posing in t-shirts with the slogan “Fuck War!” He keeps glancing at the photo on his way to the subway, and once inside, he sits down on a bench and gazes thoughtfully at the image of the singers for a few minutes. A train approaches. The man sighs and puts the photo in his jacket’s inside pocket.
*In 2022, after the outbreak of the full-scale Russian-Ukrainian war, Russian users were banned from posting new content on TikTok, going live, or watching foreign videos. In fact, TikTok didn’t leave the country, like many other services, but rather went into lockdown.
**A collective name for urban street festivals.