Girls Gone Wild
They're rude, they're lewd, they have to queue for food.
But lesbian duo t.A.T.u. aren't just Russia's naughtiest export, they're the most unpleasant pop stars in the world.
My prostitute is from Kazakhstan. Her name is Irina. No matter, she looks the part: her English is impeccable and her hand is making not wholly unpleasant concentric circles in the small of my neck.
It is 3am on a Monday morning and we are two hours from closing time in the Night Flight club on Moscow's Tverskaya Street, a goose-step away from Red Square, where Lenin's masoleum competes with attention with a branch of Christian Dior. Night Flight is relaxed. Customers are not frisked for guns and both admission and drinks are reasonably priced.
Irina's not an unpredictable tale.She claims to be a fashion student. Both pretty and intelligent, she moved to Moscow from destitute Kazakhstan to better herself. She struggles to pay for her studies so she meets "handsome" men at Night Flight. we discuss Russian literature, the merits of football teams Lokomotiv and Spartak Moscow (are her eyes glazing over? Yes they are ) and the Russian pop group Tatu.
"Ach", she explains. "I do not like them. They are too young and too weird. It's true the world has heard of them? Oh, I wish that was me. If they were still students they'd be here now".
And perhaps they would. However it seems safe to assume that the two girls who comprise Tatu wil never have to frequent Night Flight. When the moment of truth arrives, I pretend I'm gay, slip her a $20 note and ample into Tverskaya Street with a strangely warm back, althought it's freezing. Anyway, she'd forgotten my name.
( do you find this interesting? should I go on? lol )
on with the rest ( the article is huuuge! )
Tatu are as dark as Moscow and their tale supposedly goes like ginger-haired Elena "Lena" Katina, daughter of a singer -songwriter, and tatooed, black-haired Julia Volkova, daughter of a Russian businessman, sang together in the kiddy group Naposedi. The classically trained Muscovites - then aged 15 and 14 respectively- were sacked for alleged lewdness in 2000 and they successfully auditioned for a project assembled by erstwhile psychiatrist Ivan Shapovalov.
Two years later, the Russian language version of their last album, 200km/h in the Wrong Lane, sold 850.000 legal copies and four million bootlegs at home. After they signed a worldwide recording deal, the startingly thrilling album was expanded and partially re-recorded in English. The wonderful All the Things She Said was a worldwide hit and tatu had broken through.
There was more. the two girls claimed lesbian tendencies - Tatu is supposed to be an acronym for "This girl loves that girl", although they were previously just Tatu until they discovered the name was already copyrighted - and to have sex with each other thrice daily. They played live(ish) in schoolgirl uniforms and climaxed most concerts with a long kiss. The child protection lobby got iteself in a terrible tizz, peadophiles the world over rejoiced and lesbians didn't know whether to laugh or cry.
There is clearly much to discuss with Tatu. The intention was to share their native environment; case their homes, loiter in their favourite places and take some beautiful photographs, but the auguries bode ill. The Man from The Record Company is terrified of them. "A nightmare, worse to work with than Eminem", he shudders as things slowly begin to unravel. For reasons never explained we cannot go to their homes, but we can take photographs for an hour and chat for a further hour. Not good, but it's manageable.
They arrive 40 minutes late to out hotel. Katina's shake is weak. She says, "Pleased to meet you" but doesn't seem remotely pleased. She is pleasantness personified in comparison to Volkova, whose greeting matches the internatoinally accepted standards for a grunt. There is much ominous mattering in Russian. Worse still, they're accompanied by an English speaking, hostile Woman From the Management, a former presenter on MTV Russia whose career has dipped so sharply that she is now a gofer for two petulanrt children who treat her with contempt.
The Woman From The Management decides that Tatu will not leave the hotel room. We are in Moscow; we might as well be in Plaistow. Frank Bauer, Q's far-from over-dramatic photographer, is on the verge of tears. The man from the Record Company disappears. The woman From the Management decides to direct the shoot. Bauer entices Tatu into the suite's bedroom to do the session. The woman From the Management leaves for a moment.
Fifteen minutes later
the threesome emerge. How was it for you Frank? "They were..."splutters this gentle, kindly man, struggling for the right word. They were c***s." Bauer hadn't smoked for several months before meeting Tatu. By the end of the evening he's cadging it from strangers.
The Man From The Record Company reappears and, with a sense of impeding doom, decides that as Volkova allegendly cannot speak English and Katina refuses to interpret. The woman From The Management will sit in on the Q interview and translate. Katina's English is excellent but her manner is such, that, were she a Night Flight regular, she would leave alone every evening. Volkova is virtually feral and takes pleasure in barking into her mobile throughout our encounter. The woman From The Management talks across the pair. She may be translating properly, she may not.
What would happen if we popped outside for a walk right now?
Katina: Some people would ask for an autograph. Some would look at us with crazy eyes and some would shout "Wow, Tatu!" Of course, we have bodyguards at the shows because there are lots of fans and it's really dangerous. In Moscow, it's easier because everybody knows us and we don't need them. It's not a big deal.
Can you remember the moment you met?
Katina: Seven or eight years ago, Julia was the first person I met in the band I'd joined. I said "Hello".
Were you very close straight away?
Katina (licking her lips ) We were pretty close.
I didn't mean sexually
Katina: I know, I understood. I already said that we were pretty close.
What did Ivan Shapovalov see in you?
Katina:Ask him
What do your fans see in you?
Katina:Ask them
[At this point Volkova begins to wall loudly ]
Lets try the cultural stuff. Tatu symbolise the new Russian.Are you proud of that?
Katina: You shouldn't even ask this question.
Why not?
Katina: I can't believe you could even ask this question. You shouldn't ask it.
(And so it goes. Fattwery, always the lowest trick of the interviewer; is next.] People think you're pretty dangerous, you know..
Katina: Look at us. Are we dangerous? People are afraid. Let them be afraid. It's their problem.
They say you're a bad example for morality
(Suddenly Volkova rouses herself and speaks at length in Russian)
The Woman From the Management: How could love be a bad example for children? We don't have to be responsible for people's fears.
The British celebrity Richard Madeley said you were sick and promoted peadophlia.
The Woman from the Management" We're not promoting underage sex. We do what we want. We're there to help young people, because so many of them have the urge to hide something from their parents. We help them to express it.
Katina: If that very famous guy in England thinks nobody before us had sex underage, he's really a fool. What's the problem? We cannot understand why everbody is nervous about us. They're afraid of themselves and their children. Everybody has their own minds, their own brains and their own head. They should personally decide what to do, whom they should love, and when they want to have sex. It's a question of being ready rather than age. Maybe some are ready at 11 to have sex, some at 20. It depends on the person.
And when were you ready?
The woman From the Management: Julia doesn't want to answer but she says before you.
Shortly before we met, the daily Express had outed Tatu as heterosexuals. The Daily Mirror and the News of the World followed, a few weeks later. Hasn't that runied the lesbian shtick? [Volkova starts shouting in Russian. Katina ignores her and ploughs on]:
We're not telling everybody we're lesbians. Nobody knows who we are. Maybe we're lesbians, maybe we're straight, maybe we're bisexual. There are different kinds of love and the most important thing is to have this feeling in your heart and soul.
Rich people are those whose soul is rich, not those with money, money is not the most important thing. For lots of people it is so, but I cannot understand that. They are without anything in their hearts. They're , what's the word?
Empty?
Katina:Yes that's it. Thank you so much for that. Empty is just the word I was looking for.
Katina breaks into the most radiant of smiles and looks like the prettiest, most likeable Russian you ever did meet. Volkova almosts joins her partner in a smile. Now we can get to the interesting stuff. Oh no we can't. The Woman From the Management has bile to spare: "Two more questions only"
And so the moment is lost. The Tatu smiles fade and we are back at square one.
Question one: As you've covered How soon Is Now, you must be big fans of the Smiths.
Katina: Who are they?
Question two: If you hadn't lucked into tatu, what would you be doing now?
Katina: We don't want to say "if", we have no such word. We are Tatu. There is no way to change it or to go another way. We wanted it, we did it, and we'll do it.
And with that their translator refuses to speak another word in English.
Tatu have a concert tomorrow and right now they're off to soundcheck. the woman From the Management will not divulge the location. Therefore, when they emerge in the hotel lobby 40 minutes later, it's time to commandeer a taxi and say, "Follow that space wagon with the blacked-out windows". Our journey takes us across moscow, a city worth weeping over.
Without the guiding paternal hand of the Communists, Russia is rudderless, a mess reflected by its capital. The magnificent Soviet-era boulevards and awe-inspiring buildings remain, but where once they were magnificent, heart-strirring statues, now there are casinos, a traffic problem in par with Bangkong, Mcdonald's and banners across the streets advertising Gloria Gaynor concerts. It's as if Blackpool Council have taken over Ancient Rome.
Eventually we arrive at the tacky basement nightclub called Stone. Today it smells of paint, for tomorrow Stone opens. What Russia's most famous duo are doing there is something only bucketloads of dollars could explain. The earpiece-using security look like moonlighting Spetsnaz and there are Dickensian, scarfaced, broken-limbed characters of such cliche it is as if we have fallen into the lair of a James bond villain. Even the chill-out room is sinister.
Having changed into everyday wear, Tatu look like 12 year-olds. They clamber onto Stone's stage only once and then do not sing. The time is spent arguing with assorted flunkies about what songs to play. Katina sits onstage on her own watching the giant video srceen. Volkova, typically, is more vocal. Gesticulating wildly, she's on the midst of the squabbles and suddenly it is clear who has the control between the two. Bored after wasting their precious time, Tatu flee after three hours. They do not say goodbye.
There is, however, another man we should meet. Those expecting 36-year-old Svegali Ivan Shapovalov to resemble someone who hovers outside school playgrounds clothed in a dirty mac might be surprised. A compact, twinkly-eyed, ferociously intelligent, cherubic man who refuses to start work until 3pm, he dresses like a slightly unkempt football hooligan circa 1982. Even so, it is clear where the overall power within Tatu resides: even Volkova unquestionably defers.
Shapovalov's English is reasonable if unhurried, but he is devilishly charming. He claims to have eraned a medical degree before branching into psychiatry and phychology. He claims, too, to have had a psychiatric practice for 10 years before, seemingly apropos of nothing. U-turning into making televison commercials for a Moscow advertising agency. Then came Tatu.
"I used all my professional and life experiences. Life is the conflict between love and fear. Tatu have no fear, so they are for those who are afraid and lonely. If you're afraid of the world, you're afraid of yourself. That is what I want to say; the girls agree with me and with what they're doing."
That almost exactly echoes what Katina said earlier, but the words are obviously his. "Aren't you exploiting these girls?"
'Ah ha! Is that a good or bad thing?"
Bad. They're young, you're so much smarter.
"Listen, I need to use young girls because nobody would take notice if they were older. I exploited them, but there was no other way. Nothing bad has happened to them."
He has two sons, aged 14 years and two months. The News of the World claimed, via an alleged former boyfriend of Volkova, that she had what Bill Clinton would call "relations" with Shapovalov. The age of consent in that sector of Russia is 14. "Are you a peadophile, Ivan?"
"Oh, what does that mean? No, no, no. You see, when others see peadophilia, its the peadophile in themselves they see. Society needs to be protected from anyone who wants to protect society from Tatu.
He claims to have been unaware Katina and Volkova were friends when they auditioned. "What initially attracted you to them?"
"They picked themselves. that's the unexplainable magic of casting. Lena had a tremendous voice and inner energy, Julia has incredible drive and sexual energy. It's a wonderful symbiosis."
"what's going to happen to Tatu?"
"I have a life plan. Tatu will be forever".
And with that he leaves to have his photograph taken in front of Stone's gyrating male dancers as they rehearse. He doesn't say goodbye either. Q
Transcription by spyretto. |
