How did you start working in advertising?
I had completed training in neuro-linguistic programming, which had turned me to communication. There they taught non-directive influence. At that time it was just starting. And then I met my friend from medical school, which we both graduated from. He had opened a medical insurance company. Impressed by the new technology, I began to tell him what I had learned and how this non-directive method works. Then he said, “Why don’t you work for us. You can work on advertising”. This is how I moved from personal communication to mass communication.
Around the same time, I was involved in the mayoral elections, or a governor as you would call it today. This was the very beginning of the whole election story. The wave of liberation after the Soviet Union fell apart. I simply went to a candidate and said, “You need to do it this way”. Imagine – I walked in off the street and he agreed. At that time you could do this.
And how did it “need to be done”?
There was pressure from the communists. They exerted some pressure using their resources. And I convinced him that there was no need to hide the image of the victim, it was better to talk about it honestly. At that time there was a general trend towards “new sincerity”. We built an effective defense strategy on this basis. And everything worked out.
How did you live back then?
Property-wise? I didn’t. After my medical practice, I returned to Saratov, where I studied, and rented some apartment there. The insurance company paid something. Maybe a little more than doctors were being paid back then. Or maybe the same. I do not remember now. When I worked as a doctor, I had a private practice, so I earned enough. There was no “making ends meet”. I had enough.
Why did you stop being a doctor?
The office became cramped. The walls were oppressive. That’s why I stopped.
Did you begin to come up with your project back in Saratov?
No, it was when I moved to Moscow after a long advertising career. I was writing scripts then, working in international network agencies, started winning tenders, filming commercials: there was one festival, for the Ford Mondeo, there was something for Chernogolovka. This is the end of the 1990s, somewhere around 1998.
I initially moved to Moscow when I started managing a pension fund. There was a very ambitious project and it involved moving. I moved, but everything quickly fell apart, and I was faced with a choice: to go back or to do something. Returning was not an option, so I had to survive here.
How did “survival” look?
Different ways. Mostly I poked around in various advertising tenders. When that wasn’t enough, when I, as they say, “bombed”, I worked as a taxi driver.
What was Moscow like at the end of the 90s through the eyes of a taxi driver?
It was very different. Moscow of that time is worthy of a separate novel. I’ve seen everything. There were guns, threats, beatings. And glamour. They could even take people hostage. But I especially remember how I drove at night past clusters of young people, well dressed, who were crowded in the center. I could not understand what this was. I would slow down and look. They were night clubs. I was so far removed from this at the time. This was probably one of my first impressions of Moscow.
The story of you being on a porno site and coming up with the band – is this a myth?
Yes, this is a myth picked up by the media. We put it out ourselves, but it was not this in the beginning. There was an offer from Sasha Voitinsky, the co-producer of the band. He was the composer and I shot videos. The problem was that no one was hiring me to shoot videos or him to write songs. Production resolved these issues. We thought up work for ourselves: we created a project so that I could shoot videos and he could write songs. We found one singer for it.
But it didn’t work on the first try.
Yes, the story with “Yugoslavia” (Lena Katina’s single based on the bombing of the former Yugoslavia) went nowhere. The solo project did not work out. We had to come up with a duet. At the same time, through Osinsky, the producer, I met Sergey Galoyan. At that time, all sorts of students sent demos to Osinsky’s studio, and he recommended Sergey to me. At the time he was a DJ, working in some program like FastTracker. I met Lena Kiper even earlier, when I was doing advertising for Chernogolovka. And I first met Valery Polienko when he was fending off some thugs near the metro. They pestered him because he was bald and wearing baggy pants.
How soon did you realize that t.A.T.u. was working out?
From the day of the first recording session to which I invited Julia Volkova. Lena Katina had already recorded 4 songs, but they had to be, in essence, re-recorded. This is when it was clear that there was something there.
t.A.T.u. is often remembered as a band that, by its very existence, seemed to draw attention to the problems of minorities, their infringed rights – kind of like “well, this kind of love exists”. But that’s very far-fetched. Not only is it classic queerbait (none of the members are lesbians), but the very concept of “teenage girls kissing each other” is clearly invented to captivate men at concerts who like to watch this kind of thing.
For me, everything you’re talking about was terra incognita at that point. I didn’t know about any of it. I was just looking for an excuse for why they were together. We weren’t planning a specific scandal like you’re describing. We were just planning “some kind of scandal.” And we were able to pull it off because it was too late to be afraid. When you don’t succeed on the first try, it doesn’t matter who tells you what about the second one. Answering the question: you could see everything there at once – underage, orientation, minority issues, and, yes, interest in this topic among “ordinary people.”
Isn’t it a bit creepy for you today to remember how P. Diddy caught Volkova’s skirt at the MTV Awards and waved it in the air?
It scared people a lot. And the reason for everything that happened in popular culture in the 2000s, I think, is the fear that we experienced. I understand my responsibility, that I participated in this. I contributed to the formation of this “fear of the new” in other people.
But you, on the contrary, were “for” the new.
That’s right, of course. But not all people are the same. Some were ready to understand and accept it, and some were not. And there were many more who were “not ready”. We have become very, very far removed from this majority, and therefore have stopped understanding each other. This gap cannot be ignored, otherwise it leads to what it leads to. On the topic of the 2000s, this gap between people is, in my opinion, the main thing that happened.
Shouldn’t popular culture be created by people who have “broke away” from the rest? Otherwise, it simply won’t develop.
Of course it should. But in the end, we have to live with those who are close to us. Whether we want it or not. We would like to live with those we like, but they are not around now. And this cannot be ignored. You can emigrate, but you can’t escape this gap.
I’ve traveled around the world, mostly in Western civilization, because Universal distributed us to places where t.A.T.u. was supposed to be understood. It feels like the model is the same everywhere: if someone “breaks away”, it leads to conflict. So there’s a principle of “orienting yourself to what is the latest thing”. It’s good and important to be first, the first are cool, they’re visible and are heroes, but by breaking away from the latest, they create a contradiction.
This is the drama of the 2000s. We broke up.
Regarding this topic. I have a feeling that t.A.T.u.’s tours around regional cities were destructive in their essence. First, fans run out to kiss each other on stage, then there was two hours of unlimited celebration, and then it’s over – and you have to live as you did before. You’ll be lucky if there aren’t guys waiting at the exit ready to “ask” you something because of the kiss on stage.
I understand what you mean. The concerts left people with a different feeling. And the key word here is “left”. I myself did not travel to regional centers, I did not travel around Russia for concerts at all, I was only at significant performances abroad: in Hong Kong, in Tokyo, in London, at various award ceremonies in Los Angeles and New York. I did not even travel to Europe, because it is too tiring and takes you away from production for a long time. But I saw what kind of influence this can have – in Hong Kong.
What happened in Hong Kong?
The kiss on stage was amid a bird flu outbreak. After the kiss, because of t.A.T.u. the bird flu in Hong Kong…
Did it get a hundred times worse?
It faded away. Because the virus seems to somehow connect with fear. Viral epidemics spread against the backdrop of fear. If you conquer fear, the epidemic soon ends. Covid has proven the same: the countries that were the least afraid showed the best statistics on (non)morbidity.
Speaking of foreign tours: did you feel a difference between how you saw (if you saw) all these countries before, and how they turned out when you started coming there with a mega-successful project?
Of course, there was a difference.
I started entering all countries via the red carpet. Before that, I entered, roughly speaking, through the general entrance. It turned out that this was a completely different reality. I was not so interested in the reaction to the next t.A.T.u. performance, as much as I was in the discovery of this world. I would even say “worlds”, because they were completely different. When you have these two points of view at once, a three-dimensional perception of the world appears – and this is very valuable.
Share what you saw.
I can share my conclusions. For example, we have the illusion that people are somehow different in developed democracies. This is not true: people are the same everywhere. It’s just that in some places they have learned to follow the rules better and have come up with better rules themselves. Let’s say we were filming in Los Angeles: there is a police cordon, everything as it should be. And then I wanted to smoke. I took out, let’s say, a cigarette, and started smoking. And then a policeman appears in front of me. He looks at me – and turns away.
Eloquent.
There was another moment, also important. In 2001, we released our first video, and there was an awards ceremony on MTV in New York. It was, I think, September 6. I walked around the city, looked at the sights, the Twin Towers. A few days later, I flew from New York to Los Angeles, where I was studying directing at the time. When I arrived in Los Angeles, the Twin Towers were gone. I remember waking up and there was a crowd watching TV. And that moment of observing a nation that was experiencing a terrible tragedy right now told me a lot about America.
But this impression is not connected with the “red carpet.”
But it is connected with the “noughties”.
Yes, for humanity, this was the entrance to the 2000s.
You met many Western artists face to face in the early 2000s. Some of these meetings were probably more important than others.
Yes, there was one. I crossed paths with many: P!nk, Enrique, Manson, Eminem, and 50 Cent. I also came across a drunk Robbie Williams. But then I was more interested in “electronic” projects, I looked at it as a producer: I have voices, and they needed a “backing”. But there is an exception: in London, at an award ceremony for a publishing company, I met Roxette.
I decided to shock then, I didn’t come out to get the award, and they liked it. We talked, I invited them to the Icebreaker project (a reality show that Shapovalov worked on in the mid-2000s). They agreed. We had a very good conversation then. I am sincerely glad to have met them, I remember them with warmth.
And what music did you listen to?
I’ve always been into pop. I was drawn to breakbeat, of course, and that was expressed in “Nas Ne Dogonyat”. After that, breakbeat also became pop (laughs).
So it wasn’t you who came up with the idea to cover “How Soon Is Now”?
Not me. I never listened to The Smiths, it was too alternative for me. It was the idea of American producer Martin Kierszenbaum. He said: “This is a hit, a very important song, we need to sing it.” I just believed him and that was it. He was my guide to Western culture, for which I am very grateful to him.
Eurovision 2003 — was it also a moment of cultural “rupture”?
It was indicative, yes: when a very large, mainly family audience encountered “the new”. It was very expressive. Then “Podnebesnaya” as an experiment revealed a lot. The project for me in general revealed many moments.
Why are you so fixated on “Podnebesnaya”? I understand that it is a unique experience to destroy your own project in a reality format, but “Podnebesnaya” ultimately took it away from you.
“Podnebesnaya” is my favorite project. It is a space where there was complete freedom, and you just had to watch how the situation develops and what it leads to. That is the first thing. The second is the conflict between “heaven” and “earth”, which was very clearly embodied in this project. And, of course, at that time no one felt China’s potential, no one took it seriously, but I already felt it.
Why?
It’s hard to say. When I was a kid, I had a book called “Chinese and Korean Tales”. It was from 1953, with a red cover, published by some Leningrad publishing house. I read that book to pieces, I was fascinated by the world it described, and ever since then I wanted to get into the “Celestial Empire”. And I got there – through the Peking Hotel (laughs). In this project, the most important thing for me was to find myself. Before “Podnebesnaya”, Jimmy Iovine, the president of Interscope Records, offered me any position with them. I wasn’t interested because I hadn’t yet answered some fundamental questions for myself. When I told Martin about my refusal, he told me that this is not how things are done. But “Podnebesnaya” gave me the answers I was looking for.
And what are they?
Different attitudes towards the project were shown by its different participants. I think that “Podnebesnaya” destroyed the illusions that I had at the time.
After some time, do you feel like you could have done more? I understand that “Podnebesnaya” was a different experience for you, but after it you never returned as a producer at a global level. Maybe some questions could have remained unanswered? To extend the “flight”.
There was nothing holding me back then. I had everything. I did what I wanted. Literally. All my plans could have been embodied, supported and implemented. And this context corrupted me. It was inevitable. I was not ready. Maybe I didn’t want a repeat, or maybe I was just lazy. Now I don’t know.
Could I have had enough for something big? Maybe. But I had enough, as much as I had. It was an unreal degree, and it was very difficult to stay in it for a long time. And then I paid a high price for getting out of all this. Therefore, the subjunctive mood is not applicable to me here. I can’t reason about it.
What do you miss from the 2000s?
The purity of perception. That feeling when something is revealed for the first time. It’s not connected to the 2000s in terms of events, it just so happened that it was then that I felt the world around me most acutely. Over time, the purity of perception changes. That’s what you miss about it, of course. And whether it’s the 2000s or the 2010s, what’s the difference?
What is happening with Russian pop culture today?
“When the guns speak, the muses are silent.” That’s how I perceive it. Today, in my opinion, the muses are silent. Of course, there are some attempts, echoes, but they are still not heard. Because the guns speak louder. It is impossible to ignore.
Are you happy today?
What is happening now prevents me from answering this question. That which has split us and scattered us around the world. Happiness is a collective feeling.