ONE SIMPLE MOTION
Yulia Volkova and Lena Katina: on freedom, boyfriends, psychology and pregnancy.
ELLE Girl: Let’s talk about spirituality first, and then about life.
Lena: Ahuh. You choose the topic.
ABOUT LOVE
Lena: The most important thing in the world.
Yulia: What children can’t live without.
Lena: A lot of people tried to describe it, but I don’t think anyone succeeded. It must be felt, words can’t describe it.
Yulia: Love is everywhere. We live – that’s love. Without love we won’t exist.
ELLE Girl: Do Madonna and Guy Ritchie love each other?
Lena: It’s their business, to love – not to love. I respect Madonna not because of her husband, but because she always does something that no one expects her to do. I’m indifferent to her voice, and she looks average, but her image and show are tremendous… Let her sing.
ELLE Girl: I see what you think about Madonna.
MADONNA AND THE BABY
Lena: Mona Lisa. I know that she is without a baby on the picture, but when people say “Madonna and the Baby”, Mona Lisa comes to mind.
ABOUT COSMOS
Yulia: Something very far away… Although, if opportunity presents itself in the future, I might go see what it’s like.
ELLE Girl: If Tatu will go, then everyone will. You set examples: only Japanese were crazy about manga before, now every second T-shirt has either Hello Kitty, or Powergirls prints.
Yulia: We don’t force anyone to do anything! Every person has his own fashion. I don’t follow fashion, though. I don’t care if the pants I were are from fall 2003 or 2004. The most important thing is that I like them. But if T-shirts with manga are in, then I’ll buy a manga T-shirt. I live in a world in which fashion follows what’s happening.
ELLE Girl: So, Iraq is fashionable?
Lena: But there’s war!
Yulia: There’s darkness, gloom, explosions, children and adults are dying.
ELLE Girl: Sorry!
BEAUTIFUL YOUNG PEOPLE
ELLE Girl: Does David Beckham look better with long or short hair?
Lena: To be honest, I don’t know what he looks like.
ELLE Girl: He looks great.
Yulia: Lena, come on! He’s the husband of… what’s her name? Victoria. He’s really cute! I like him either way. He play the game… football, right?
ELLE Girl: Yep.
Yulia: … I don’t follow. I’m indifferent to football.
ELLE Girl: What aren’t you indifferent to?
Yulia and Lena: To music!
ELLE Girl: On CD, in MP3, on television?
Lena: On radio.
Yulia: On compilations. I don’t idolize any particular artist.
IDEAL MAN
Lena: I don’t have “ideal”. I love my man.… How to call him? Boyfriend? Anyway, I love him. Everyone has his merits and his faults, and questions is whether or not you’re willing to put up with them. I am. I feel good with him, that’s all. Stereotypes like “my boyfriend will look like this: blond hair, blue eyes” are not my thing. I think that every person is different, and has his own individuality. I know that I am perfect in every single way. Because there’s no other person like me in this world.
ELLE Girl: Agreed. But what happens if a person thinks he’s perfect, but his girlfriend doesn’t share his opinion?
Yulia: If I’ll see an ideal man, I’ll let you know. I know one thing: looks are not important to me –whether he is heavy or skinny – it’s what’s inside that counts. If I feel that I’m attracted to him, that I can talk to him for hours, then it’s my kind of person. So, even if he’s a blond eye-candy dressed in “Dolce & Gobbana”, I can easily tell him, “Hello, pretty boy. Go hang somewhere else. I’m not interested.”
ELLE Girl: I see.
SACRAFICING FOR LOVE
ELLE Girl: What are you prepared to do for your loved one?
Yulia: Hard to say…
ELLE Girl: OK, then what will you never do?
Lena: Can I say something?! I don’t want to be a housewife. My boyfriend likes it when I cook and do laundry. But I don’t. So I tell him, “Don’t turn me into a housewife!”
Yulia: To love and to be a housewife are two different things. I can live with a person, but I won’t cook and clean. I never did! I’m a creative person – I like to sing, perform. I can write songs, but as to the apartment.… If you love someone, why do you have to cook and clean?! Love can be expressed without a good dinner.
Lena: Some people say, “You don’t cook, you don’t love me then”. So my boyfriend and I share our chores -- we cook together, so no one’s feeling used.
Yulia: If your boyfriend is really hungry, you can always go out to eat.
Lena: But that depends on your financial situation. Not every boyfriend can afford restaurants and cafes everyday.
Yulia: I’m not talking about money, I’m talking about freedom! If you love a person, it doesn’t mean you have to be a caged bird. If this happens, it means that love is gone.
Lena: Why?
Yulia: You must have freedom of speech, freedom of action. You agreed on one thing – he’s your lover, you’re his lover. That’s it. Then you can do whatever you want. If you want you can cook, you go hangout in the club, together or separately.
ENVY
Yulia: Right now I’m not living with my boyfriend, we live separately. Not because I don’t want to live with him, but because I like that we both have freedom.
ELLE Girl: Do you live with your parents?
Yulia: With my parents, although I do have my own apartment. My mom asks, “How can you do this? He’s somewhere out there, aren’t you worried?” And I say, “Mama, why do I have to be worried? I know what I’m his only one. I trust him and I don’t want to think about him cheating on me. Why unnerve yourself?” He doesn’t have to worry either: I know what I’m worth, and I know what he means to me and that all the other young men are just my friends. So, I can hang out with them. I’m not an Arab sheik’s wife to wear shapeless clothes and sit at home.
WHAT HE LIKES
ELLE Girl: I thought that men like it when women wear shapeless clothes and sit at home. What does your experience tell you?
Yulia: Everyone’s different. Someone values beauty: beautiful breasts, beautiful clothes, beautiful legs. Someone’s more concerned with “bed-business”… But sometimes when you talk with someone and you realize that the most important thing to them is interacting with you: go to a movie, have a coffee – without hints for something more. A lot depends on the girl, the ability to show him that’s your free and is ready to become his. But if you just talk to him, acting like a friend, then he’ll assume that you don’t want anything more then friendship.
ELLE Girl: What do you have to do to make sure he DOESN’T like you?
Lena: If you don’t want it, then it’ll be written all over your face. You won’t need to say or explain anything. What do they like? I guess a little mystery, a hidden side.
Yulia: And I thought I knew you, Lena! Obviously I don’t.
Lena: We’re talking about men here, not about you and me.
SUCCESS
ELLE Girl: What do you have to do to reach success in life?
Yulia: Go for it, fight. To want success. If you’re doing it for something, for someone or if your parents told you to, then you won’t reach success. You have to burn, live it.
FRIENDSHIP
ELLE Girl: Do you believe in friendship?
Lena and Yulia: (Together.) Yes!
ELLE Girl: Can there be friendship between a girl and a boy?
Yulia: Of course, strong friendships can happen. Without all the funny business…
ELLE Girl: But it’ll still revolve around “all the funny business”! Also, how do you know what a person is your friend, and not just…?
Yulia: If you have one real friend, then you’re already lucky. Because right now this word is getting a whole new meaning. Everyone is, dammit, your friend. Colleagues, acquaintances… In my opinion, friendships can be tested with time and situations. A friend is a person who sticks by you.
ELLE Girl: Yulia, Lena, are you friends?
Lena: Friends, of course.
ELLE Girl: You said that you don’t know Lena as well as you thought you did…
Yulia: How to put this… No one can know self to the fullest. Even if you live with a person for 25-30 years, you don’t know them, because the way he/she will react to a particular situation now is not necessarily the way he/she will react to the same situation in ten years…
ELLE Girl: Do you have a person whom you can call a very close friend.
Yulia: Yes.
ELLE Girl: Who?
Yulia: Serezha Lazarev, from Smash!! He’s my brother, my friend. He’s my everything. I have known him for a while, so our relationship has been tested with time.
HOME
ELLE Girl: Where do you prefer to live, at home or in a hotel?
Yulia: At home, of course. Hotels are like… someone else’s apartment.
ELLE Girl: It can be comfortable.
Yulia: But at home I know what’s in my bathroom, and what’s in my kitchen. I like it that I’m pregnant now and can live at home guilt-free.
PASHA SIDOROV
Yulia: What can I say about him? He’s a good person, he’s kind…
ELLE Girl: He’s a sportsman?
Yulia: Yes, he’s in karate.
ELLE Girl: Is that a minus or a plus for you?
Yulia: A plus. I think that a guy should be a sportsman. I respect Pashka (nick name for Pasha – Kate) because he goes to the gym regularily, doesn’t smoke, doesn’t drink, -- a guy should be healthy and strong. The girls can let themselves go lazy, though – smoke a little, relax. We do a lot as it is – give birth, educate children, do house chores. A man should be like a wall for support, strong and healthy.
BABY AT 19
ELLE Girl: Can I ask about your pregnancy?
Yulia: Of course.
ELLE Girl: How is it?
Yulia: There’s no greater joy in life. It’s like a satisfaction, peacefulness. It’s true what they say, pregnancy changed a woman. It’s not a little kitty or doggy that you bought in a shop, it’s a live baby. A continuation of your lineage. An investment of soul, evergy.
ELLE Girl: Your parents must be on top of the world…
Yulia: My dad is sitting right here, ask him. Dad, what do you say?.. (Daddy intensively nods his head.) Mom is happy, too. They’re waiting, helping. I’m a young mother, they’ll be young grandpa and grandma.
ELLE Girl: Do people ask you why you decided to go through with this at 19?
Yulia: You know, there’s no particular age to give birth to a child. Some people give birth at 30, some at 15. The most important thing is to understand what you’re doing. The child will need attention – it’s alive! You don’t have to bring him up with all your might, but you’ll need to give him positive emotions.
MOM AND DAD
ELLE Girl: How are you building your relationship with your parents? You were small at first, listened to mom and dad, now you have a career. Are you on equal terms now?
Lena: We always had a good relationship. There’s a full understanding between mom and I, so I didn’t really have any huge changes to go through on my own. We fight, it happens, but… Mom is my friend . She’s the first to know about anything in my life. Even about “bed-business”.
ELLE Girl: Was it like that always?
Lena: Always. There was a period when she worked a lot, and came home with such tired eyes that I didn’t bother her with conversations. But even then it was fine. Mom and dad (they are divorced) always treated me like a grown-up person, dad never yelled at me. My stepfather is not a bad person either, I love him, he brought me up, although we did have a few problems along the way, but never with my parents.
ELLE Girl: Do you live with them or with your boyfriend?
Lena: With my parents. For now.
GOOD/BAD
ELLE Girl: What’s your greatest hapiness?
Lena: To love and know that you’re loved. Although I’m an optimist in reality, and I’m used to look for positive sides in all situations.
ELLE Girl: OK, what makes you mad?
Lena: I don’t know. I don’t like it when I have to ask someone to do something ten times, even though it doesn’t take them anything to do it and will make me feel a thousand times better, but he still doesn’t do it. It doesn’t make me mad, it makes me sad.
Yulia: I can’t say that I’m in a good mood all the time. It changes every five minutes. I’m always here, there, everywhere, with everyone, know everything about everything, I cry, I laugh. There’s an expression – “shaken-up”. I was “shaken-up” from the day I was born until now. Sometime I start to think, why am I upset, and reevaluate the situation. That moment is the most interesting one in your life. (Does this make any sense? – Kate)
FEAR
ELLE Girl: Is fear interesting? What are you afraid of?
Yulia: Nothing. What do you mean by “afraid”?
ELLE Girl: I’m afraid, for example, to fly in airplanes.
Yulia: Look, you’re afraid and you attract all that you think about with your fear. Why?...
Lena: I’m trying to understand what I’m afraid of, and I can’t. But I know that there’s fear within me, and that’s bad.
Yulia: If I have silly thought in my mind I try to turn them in a positive direction.
ELLE Girl: Do you have nightmares?
Yulia: Millions of them!
Lena: Oh, sorry to interrupt, but I suddenly realized what I’m afraid of. I’m terribly afraid of bees. I know that you have to be still when you see a bee, but I start to scream, jump and run. I can’t fight myself.
Yulia: For some reason I think that bees are useful. I think that if a bee bites me, then it’ll give me strength. I think they’re nice and kind. And they see the same in me.
Lena: I was never bitten by a bee, bit I’m still scared of them!
Yulia: I was bitten. I was lying, getting a tan, and it bit me right under my arm.
Lena: I had a nightmare with bees in it once. I was standing on a… chair of some sort, trying to hang some shelves, when suddenly the wall squeezes out all these bees, spiders and ants. I like spiders, and I’m ok with ants… but all together… I’m just the kind of person that gets nightmares very often.
Yulia: Oh, I remembered what makes me mad: when you want to run in a dr4eam, but you can’t! And someone’s chasing you with knives, forks…
Lena: Yeah, you want to scream, but you can’t.
ELLE Girl: What will you never do?
Yulia: I’m an extreme kind of person, that’s my problem. It’s not me – not to decide to do something.
ELLE Girl: Have you jumped with a parachute?
Yulia: Not, didn’t have a chance. But I got tattoos, was involved in car crashes, pierced every possible body part. My friends asked me to go jumping with parachutes. After I give birth, we’ll see…
ELLE Girl: Yulia, is there something that will make you think twice before you decide to do it?
Yulia: Hard to say, I rarely think about anything at all.
ELLE Girl: Yeah, right…
Yulia: No, of course I think.… But my logic is, if you want to do something, then go do it.
FASHION
ELLE Girl: Why do people need clothes?
Yulia: To avoid embarrassment. It’s like a tradition, people used to make clothes out of animal skins…
Lena: And felt good.
Yulia: Now we need it to feel different. How can we survive without clothes in this country?!
STRENGTH
ELLE Girl: When is a person stronger: at 14, 19 or 40-50?
Yulia: A person is strong at any age.
Lena: Everything depends on your inner world. There are people who are weak personally.
ELLE Girl: Do you care about what people say and think about you?
Yulia: No.
Lena: No.
Yulia: I know everything about myself, and closest family and friend know who I am. I don’t give a f*ck what newspapers say about me...
ELLE Girl: So you currently don’t care what I think about you?
Yulia: Don’t give a damn. I am the way that I am, don’t like it -- leave.
Lena: The biggest problem people have is “self-acceptation” – to accept yourself the way you are.
ELLE Girl: Did you ever have problems with it?
Lena: Yes. I can’t say I accept myself 100%. I changed myself, but not completely.
ELLE Girl: What about visage, image – are they important?
Yulia: I can wake up in the morning with a horrible hairdo, but I’ll still love myself the way I am – this is my hair, and that’s how it looks. And Lena will wake up, and her hair will look different. I can make two pony-tails if I want, and if some says I look silly, then I don’t care.
ELLE Girl: Do you remember the moment when you realized that you are OK with yourself? Was there an actual moment of realization?
Lena: No, there was no moment. It happened gradually, when I went to collage. I study psychology in the Moscow humanitarian institute. We have lectures on diagnostics – mind-blowingly interesting. I started reading about different methodics, and it helped.
ELLE Girl: Why is the world crazy about you? Did psychology reveal the secret to you?
Yulia: It’s hard for us to answer this question. Yes, there are a lot of pretty girl, very pretty girls in the world, but there are girls not as pretty. We don’t like it when people tell us, “Pose”, “Smile”, “Stand still” – our apologies to your photographer, by the way. We don’t even plan our stage performances. Once we sang without make-up. I think we help people to be more free, less complex. A lot of western artists (I won’t name names) are colored like dolls, skinny, with plastic surgeries, all super-star-like. We are different. We show that you can be super without make-up. You don’t have to put on make-up, wear D&G, stand there and tell everyone how cool you are. You can come out in ordinary sweat-pants and people will think you’re cooler then those in D&G.
Interview by Olga Zaretskaya for ELLE GIRL RUSSIA
Translated by katbeidar for TatySite.net |
