CONCERTO FOR PIANO AND ANTI-SNORING DEVICE
Kiril Sukhotsky, LONDON INFO, 8th November 2002
I HEARD ABOUT YURI STEPANOV SOON AFTER I HAVE ARRIVED TO LONDON. I WAS TOLD THAT THIS VETERAN OF RUSSIAN LONDON HAS EARNED HIMSELF AN UNOFFICIAL TITLE OF "PEOPLE'S ARTIST OF LONDON". WHEN I TRIED TO FIND OUT HOW DID HE GET SUCH HONOUR I WAS TOLD ABOUT HIS MUSIC, HIS FILMS, HIS RUSSIAN PARITIES AND CONCERTS AND MANY MANY MORE ...
When I was arranging our meeting I was wondering if I am to meet some kind of a dancing Lord Shiva with six arms doing simaltaniously half a dosen things. But at the doors of the cafe suddenly appeared a distinguished looking gentleman with noble graying hair and lively mischivous eyes.
"You can congratulate me - it's my birthday soon. On the 7th of November, same day as comrade's Trotski and the so called October Revolution" he said.
Sipping my capuccino I am listening to his story that sounds to me no less amasing and adventurous than the history of revolution or comrade's Trotski.
Born in then Leningrad Yuri Stepanov arrived in England in the year of Moscow Olimpic Games: " I left Russia in 1980. Long time ago, they do not live that long", he laughs.
I got here by chance really. I was married to an English girl, we met in 1978, when she was visiting Leningrad. But the decisive role played ideologic considerations: I was suffocating in the current stagnant atmosphere of the Soviet Union".
"In London I had one aim - to survive. During the first tree miserable years in London I did not even dream of playing music - thinking only how to make ends meet. There was no such thing as Russian Diasporah here then, there was noone I could turn to for advice. What jobs did'n't I do! -wine seller, shop assistant, labourer, video maker, dispatch rider..." says Yuri.
And music was his real passion. " Since the age of 4 I played the piano and successfully studied classical music. I graduated from the Academy of Culture with a Choir Master Diploma. Brilliant career laid ahead of me, but after I have heard the Beatles for the first time my life went upside down .
I fell in love with rock and completely changed my direction."
His first band the Singing Lasybones Stepanov put together at school and immediately got into trouble with the school's authorities for playing loud music, wearing flared trouses and long hair. After completing military service Yuri decided to get serious; he became a member of the Myths - the top underground rock band in Leningrad - and remained one of the leading musicians of the Russian underground scene untill his departure to England.
It is obvious that Yuri is nostalgic about his days with the Myths. " Recently I found our old bootleg recording and realised that in those days there was may be four or five bands in the world that could play such music. It was really cool and innovative... Blood Sweat and Tears, Chicago, Frank Zappa... and the Myths - that's about it. Nobody else then played so interesting and powerful."
In the beginning London has sobered Yuri up. Stepanov tells about the shock he experienced when he saw a completely different picture from what he expected.
" First of all I realised that rock in England is mostly proletaritarian music where as in Russia it was music of intellectuals, at least that's how it was in the beginning. Besides that, my first six years here where very hard indeed. England is not an easy country for immigrants - it has always been a class society. On top of that if you are a foreigner then you do not fit into any class at all. Whatever you do and whatever your background is, you are still a foreigner. I still do not fit completely and not for the wont of trying. Despite the fact that I have lived here for 23 years and I am a British citizen I still feel sometimes that I do not belong."
But it would not be Yuri Stepanov if lucky stars did not shine upon him. In 1983 good fortune smiled on him as he was weaving his motor bike through London streets.
" I was passing by this ballet school and said to myself - hey, you used to play piano for ballet, didn't you? You have nothing to lose, go and ask for the job! So I walk in and say, listen I used to work for the famous Vaganova school in St Petersburg. They say - would you please leave you telephone number... next week I had a phone call from the school and I started playing for Sulamith Messerer, famous ballet teacher, she is Maya Plisetskaya's aunt.
I worked with her for a long time and thanks to her that I had a chance to play the piano again. But I could not keep still, I needed to do something else."
That "something else" came in a shape of a theatrical agent who offered Yuri a role in a Hollywood blockbuster.
" I've got a part in "Jackal". There were big names in tha film - Bruce Willis, Richard Geer, Sidney Poitier...and I (smiles). It was a small part, I played a part of the Chechen mafia boss' leutenant.
I got a bit upset when the only scene I played with Bruce and which we spent filming all day ended up on a cutting room floor".
Laughingly, Yuri remembers the words of Michael Caton-Jones, the director:" I couldn't afford that an unknown actor upstaged the main guy".
After that there was about 40 more films. Yuri's only regret is that all his roles are episodic, but he does not realy bother much about that: "I take my acting very seriously, Even the smallest part I try to play so that people would remember it and that I wouldn't be ashamed in later years to look at it myself."
In late 80s - early 90's Yuri started the first ever Russian parties. That is how the cllub Maxie's appeared.
"In 1989 me and and a friend of mine started playing Russian repertoir in a restaurant. First we invited a few friends - about 15 people. Next time there was 30 people, then 50, 100, 300. Mind you there was no advertising whatsoever - it was all word of mouth. First we did those parties once a month but soon they have become a weekly affair.
I pride myself that I managed to gather Russian speaking people together, showed them that we are here, that there are quite a lot of us, that we can socialise.
These parties have become an inspiration to others - suddenly there appeared first Russian newspaper, then another, a club, Russian supermarket, restaurant and so on. Of course it would all have happened without me but thanks to me it all happened much faster."
But Stepanov soon grew out of these trouses too. In 1994 he produces the first ever Russian rock concert in London - he invites Makarevich, Margulis and together they played an accoustic gig which Seva Novgorodtsev later called "minor hisorical event" with the emphasise on "historical".
He met Seva years ago in St Petersburg. Both were playing in the same band twice a week earning an enginere's salary of 140 roubles per month. Authorities tried to harness somehow those wild young rockers and after Seva has left Soviet Union Yuri and other members of the band had lots of problems with the KGB.
He says that they couldn't possibly imagine then that they will ever meet again: "When a person would leave the country it was like he has gone to the Moon".
After that Yuri brings to London Boris Grebenshikov, Yuri Shevchuk, "Nautilus", Michail Zhvanetski, "Mumiy Troll".
There was an amusing story connected with the latter: " I met Ilia (the band's lead singer) in mid 90's when he just arrived to London. He was doing some business and his office was in the same building with me.
We got aquainted, I was doing my music parties and suddenly it transpired that Ilia also could sing a little. He never really advertised the fact. When suddenly his old friend Lyonia Burlakov appeared with a bag full of cash (literaly) and suggested to Ilia to make an album I was very surprised that he actually writes music. So I helped him to find musicians and I played on his first album "Morskaya" on keyboards and did some backing vocals as well."
But Yuri did not forget his own music either. During those years he has written enough material for five albums. Only two were released because he did not have an opportunity to record. " If you do it independantly it may be very expensive indeed" - admits Stepanov.
In 1992 he releases his ethnic gypsy album "Gypsy Love".
" I tried to combine the raw energy and sensuality of gypsy music with intelectualism of a white man" - he explains the albums concept.
This year there is something new - on 22d Novemebr at "Mean Fiddler" there will be his solo gig to launch his new album "Blues a la Russe". Both the album and the gig is dedicated to 300 anniversary of his native St. Petersburg this year. There will be special guests at the concert - Yuri Shevchuk, Boris Grebenshikov, Maxim Leonidov, Artyom Troitski, Gennady Barikhnovski and a percussian section of Kirov Theatre.
According to Stepanov blues is not a music form but a state of soul.
Despite the title of the CD Yuri categoricaly against describing it as nostalgic. " I do not want to be called an emigrant. I consider myself being a world's citisen with roots in Russia so should I be nostalgic about the whole world then?" - he says. "My music is not for dancing, it is for listening and enjoyment. it is for those who understand humor and sorrow and passion".
The evening in Chelsea was gradualy becoming late and a neon twilight turned wine in our glasses even deeper red. And I asked Yuri wether he had never regretted leaving St. Petersburg.
Yuri says that he only did that once. " There came at one of my parties this known Russian banker and said to me: Yura what are you doing here? You could be making a lot of money in Russia now. You could be a millionaire!
And while we were talking the waiter was following us with the with a tray full of bottles of Dom Perignion. And I thought to myself then: "My Lord, may be it really was a mistake to leave the country?" But on a later reflection - and I travel to Russia on a regular basis - I said to myself "No, everything that I ran away from in Russia is still there, the changes are only skin deep and superficial"
Now he is still in London. His ustopable energy takes his to the most unexpected routes. "There are lots of projects I am working on and I pray to God to give me enough time to finish everything I plan. My problem is that I have too many interests in all things creative" he admits.
He is busy writing music - last year he has become a member of British Academy of Composers and Song writers and one of his songs has got into top 30 among songs to represent Britain in the Eurovision song contest. He is a successful actor. He still does Russian parties in one of the salons not far from Albert Hall though he says that Russian Diasporah has changed in the recent years and congregates now according to interests rather that common language. He is also an inventer. One of his inventions is an anti-snoring device - " the reason for snoring lies in the fact that the facial muscles relax during the sleep", so he invented the whole construction of plastic tubes to support the roof of the mouth to kill snoring at the embrio stage!
Stepanov says that he forgot to patent this invention and later he was told that someone in the United States made a device very similar to his and made a lot of money. But the most important thing that he is a happy man.
" I was always lucky to meet interesting men and beautiful women", says Yuri.
Yuri Stepanov who has discovered in this city Russian London still looks ahead. He lives for his visions and does not really get upset if some of his dreams do not come true. " I am always too far ahead of my time. Things that I thought of 10 year ago only begin to happen now."
*The Myths - famous Russian
rock band
*Andrei Makarevich, Evgeni Margulis - top Moscow rock musicians, founder members
of the Time Machine band
*Seva Novgorodtsev - BBC radio presenter, actor, musician
* Boris Grebenshikov - rock musician, Aquarium band
*Yuri Shevchuk - rock musician, DDT band
* Nautilus - rock band
*Ilia Lagutenko - rock musician, founder member of Mumiy Troll band
*Mikhail Zhvanetski - Russian satirist
*Leonid Burlakov - Producer
*Artemy Troitski - Russian rock critic and writer
'We don't all drink vodka'
Roman Abramovich's
millions have transformed the Premiership; a third of all London properties sold
to foreigners are now bought by his countrymen. But the sudden visibility of the
post-Soviet mega-rich conceals a thriving community of ordinary Russians who
have made the capital their home. James Meek reports
Monday April 12,
2004
The Guardian
Camilla Mabbott strokes the wall and I do the same. The texture is smooth and
cool and the look is a shiny, swirly mix of beiges. "We tend to do the walls in
Venetian plaster. The Russians like this," says Mabbott. "It takes ages to do
and it gives a lovely light at night."
Mabbott is marketing manager for the Candy brothers, designers of luxury flats for the very rich. She is showing me round a three-bedroom, two-storey flat in Mayfair, central London, on the market for a little over £5m. Mabbott won't say how many clients the Candys have, but two-thirds of them are Russians. "We have more billionaires than millionaires on our client list," she says.
The flat has a glass spiral staircase down through its centre, and lots of fittings in a dark timber called Wenge. All the doors in the apartment are covered in chocolate leather. The mega-rich Russians, says Mabbott, have high standards. "They'd freak out if they found anything was veneer. We had one of the Russian oligarchs buy a property of ours about 18 months ago, and they tend to introduce us to their friends. It's largely down to word of mouth. Now they're saying, 'We want you to do our plane, we want you to do our yacht, we want you to come to Moscow and do our flat there.'"
The appearance on London's social scene of tycoons such as Chelsea football club's new owner Roman Abramovich and oligarch Boris Berezovsky, and in Moscow of branches of London estate agents catering to the very rich, has drawn attention to the rapid rise of Russians as the market makers at the top end of the house-flogging game. According to a survey by the estate agents Knight Frank published in the Mosñow daily Izvestiya last month, every 15th property sold for more than half a million pounds last year went to a Russian buyer, and Russians bought every third property in London sold to foreign citizens.
Yet the tiny number of Russian super-rich is only one part of a sprawling, many-layered Russian-speaking diaspora which has in a strikingly short time become a significant new British minority. Just over 100,000 British visas of all kinds were issued to Russians last year, and the latest census figures suggest 41,000 people from the former Soviet Union have permanent residency rights here. Tens of thousands more are here as students, refugees, visa-overstayers or illegal migrants. Estimates of the total number are often given in six figures, but it is impossible to be certain.
In little more than a decade, a whole Russia in miniature has sprung up in London, with its own newspapers, bars, clubs, bookshops, schools, film screenings, parties and exhibitions. Russian food stores sell the stock list of classic Russian delicatessen: golden salt mackerel, kasha, kefir, waffles, frozen pelmeny, red caviar, condensed milk and, in an open cardboard box, loose, dried fish as chewy as boot leather, to gnaw with beer.
It's not just their grocery stores that announce their presence either. On a cold, windy Monday night, outside a scruffy building in west London, hundreds of Russians are queuing. This is the first time Yuri Shevchuk and his band DDT have played London, and although the Shepherd's Bush Empire isn't a sellout, the promoter, Yuri Stepanov, has managed to shift more than 1,200 tickets, overwhelmingly to Russians who are, like himself, now resident in Britain.
Before the show begins I chat to two couples in their 30s - Anya and Yura and Tanya and Oleg. The men have good jobs in the City; their wives bring up the children. In Wimbledon, where Anya lives, there is a Russian school.
"When we came here in 1997, there were very few Russians," says Anya, originally from Moscow. "Then, suddenly, the numbers shot up. I mainly socialise with other Russians, but the ties within the Russian community aren't very strong."
I ask about whether Russians suffer from British preconceptions about them. "They say we all drink vodka," says Oleg. "I don't drink vodka." Yura is from Murmansk, home of the Russian navy's northern fleet. I ask if he's from a military family. "Ah, that's the second cliche," he says. "We all drink vodka, and if you're from Murmansk, you're from a military family."
Inside the theatre, in the status-conscious way of post-Soviet Russia, there's a special bar just for people who bought £40 "VIP" tickets. I buy one, hoping to bump into an incognito oligarch, but there aren't any. However, I do meet Lena Lagutenko, wife of Russian rock star Ilya Lagutenko, the lead singer of the band Mumy Troll. The Lagutenkos are from Vladivostok, but now they live in Wood Green.
"The Russians who decided to leave Russia have an extra half-chromosome that gives them a slightly different way of thinking," says Lagutenko. "The Russians who came to Britain aren't like the Russian community in Germany or America. Those are ordinary people, people who came from the village. The ones who come here are more intellectual. They come to study or to work."
Lagutenko, who has gone into the gig-promotion business herself with veteran impresario Stuart Lyon, feels warmly towards Abramovich for raising the profile of Russians in London. She argues that Russians are more likely to assimilate than stay within their own community but there is, it turns out, plenty of association among notable British Russians. A friend who has been in the Abramovich box at Chelsea's ground Stamford Bridge describes the scene. "There's a buffet lunch with really fine smoked salmon and black caviar. The box is filled with Russians in business suits and they're just cheering away for Chelsea. They're really young, Roman's age, late 30s I guess. I get the feeling they're very happy to be in London among this wealthy set - and they're enjoying it. There's a kind of 'new crowd taking over the court' feel about it."
Yet the picture of Abramovich as the leader of a rich new Russian wedge in London, determinedly hammering its way into posh society, isn't entirely accurate. Although he has attended 44 out of 47 Chelsea games since taking over the club, his spokesman in Moscow, John Mann, insists that he doesn't live in Britain. "Sometimes he only flies for one day and back the next. The question is, is he resident in Britain full time? No." Although Mann confirms Abramovich's ownership of a flat in Lowndes Square, Knightsbridge - now on the market for £5m - and 450 acres in West Sussex, he dismisses the notion that Abramovich is taking some arriviste's road to acceptance by the British establishment. "If you knew Roman, you'd know he doesn't really care about that kind of thing."
It is clear, of course, that not every Russian in London knows Roman. Reading through the London-info small ads, a very different world of Russian London emerges. In the "work offered" section there are half a dozen ads from "export agencies" seeking "young, attractive girls" without experience or English. In the "work required" there are almost 200 ads from Russians seeking jobs as cleaners, nannies, carpenters, labourers, waiters, cooks and private tutors.
Yuri Stepanov, a 52-year-old former musical child prodigy, is one of the small group of Soviet-era Russian emigrés in London who has watched the Russian presence here broaden and deepen over the years. He first arrived in 1980, following a short-lived marriage to a British student whom he met in what was then Leningrad.
"It was like going to the moon. I had no idea what awaited me," he says. "Our idea of Britain, even among advanced people - and I counted myself as one of them - was formed from the novels of Charles Dickens and Jack London and the few films that the Soviet censors allowed us to see." Stepanov struggled to find work, then flourished, he has now found a niche playing terse, ruthless, unshaven Eurasian gangsters and terrorists on TV and in films such as the Jackal and Snatch; now he promotes Russian rock and pop.
"When I came in the 1980s, there were White Russians here, old families who came after the revolution, refugees who came after the last war, and a small number of dissidents from the Soviet era," he says. "After the fall of the Soviet Union there appeared a fourth wave. Now it was economic migration, and in 1993 and 1994, the 'new Russians' started to appear. These were people who already had it all right back home and were quite - not totally, but quite - cosmopolitan. They felt comfortable anywhere in the world."
It was these new Russians, often naive, stigmatised by intellectually snobbish old Russians as uneducated, vulgar and marvellously rich, who first caught the attention of Britons as they bought property and flashed their wads of cash around western Europe in the mid-1990s. But then, Stepanov says, in about 1996 the Russian diaspora underwent another change: a rassloyeniye, or separating out. Yuri and some friends used to have a club in Knightsbridge in the mid-90s where they played Russian music; anyone who spoke Russian in London would come along. "Now, you wouldn't get the very rich and the very poor going to the same place. At the beginning there's a cultural hunger, a desire to gather together with people who speak the same language as you do. Then the hunger is satisfied and people just want to be with people they like."
That's the way Lena feels. In her 30s, she's a respected City analyst, highly paid, if not in the millionaire league, speaking perfect English, elegantly dressed and with as many non-Russian as Russian friends. She grew up in a town in Orenburg region, on the southern Russian steppe. After her parents split up and her mother fell ill, Lena was raised partly in the local orphanage. A silver high school graduation medal was her ticket to a Moscow higher education; now she is considering whether to bid £330,000 for a two-bedroomed flat in north London.
The British media's obsession with Abramovich and Berezovsky and the rest of the Russian mega-rich irritates Lena. "I have no association with any of these people, and neither do any of my friends," she says. "You hear Russians saying 'at last we have our football club [in Chelsea].' Bullshit. I don't dress like them and I never will. Lots of Russians don't fall into any Russian stereotype. There's lots more of them in London than these rich Russians. These people, they don't speak English, they don't understand English culture, they're a completely different breed, and that's what the English press is writing about. Not us, the people who accept English culture but are still Russians."
Stepanov points out that besides the sudden influx of Russians he has witnessed since the early 1980s, Britain itself has changed. When he arrived, for instance, the British dressed "worse than Soviet factory workers", he says. More to the point, Britain, or at least London, has become more open towards foreigners and immigrants. In that sense the Russians have not found it difficult to slip in as another element in the melting pot. "When you say we're an ethnic minority, people laugh, even the English, because even they consider us to have come from such a powerful country that somehow the expression 'ethnic minority' doesn't apply," he says. "But it does."
RUSSIAN MAFIA
IN LONDON!
BUT THANK GOD ONLY
IN MOVIES
Nikita
Sitnikov for LONDON COURIER, 16 March 2001
There is a trend now in London to organise everything "first Russian" - we have first Russian newspaper, restaurant, theatre, radio, hairdressers, supermarket. There isn't yet first Russian casino, brothel, etc. In this race for being "first something" it is important not become the first and the last one - like the president of the USSR.
There was a talk about Russian mafia for a long time now and finaly it has arrived -but only in the shape of the first Russian TV series "Russian Albion" made entirely by Russian Londoners.
There is not only mafia in this film. There are also crossdressing, rape, murder and ... love.
I should not realy be imposing my opinion of the film in order not to influence it's fate - Russian London is a small town after all.
I'll just mention that there is a cast of young actors from Victor Sobchak's theatre: Julia Shishkina, Victor Raskin and Arsen Sidelnikov.
Bijan Badi plays Bijan the Accountant and Seva Novgorodtsev plays himself as a presenter on the 1st russian radio and is not involved in any of the mafia business. The director himself naturally plays the Godfather but on screen appears only the left side of the back of his head.
His "right hand" is played by People's artist of London, actor, producer and musician Yuri Stepanov.
To tell the truth his acting is brilliant.
We remember Yuri in films made by such celebrated directors as Ken Russell in "Alice in Russialand", Michael Caton-Jones "The Jackal", Guy Richie "Snatch". He has been in more than 40 TV and big screen movies in England and USA. Soon we will be able to see him in the new film by John Irwin "The Fourth Angel" playing opposite Jeremy Irons.
I pluck my courage to ask such a celebrity why does he participate in such an experimental movie as "Rissian Albion"?
Y.S.
- First of all let me put it straight - I like experimenting. Secondly -I believe one should support good things and thirdly - I like to work with young actors.
N.S.
- Like a vampire - looking for fresh blood?
Y.S.
- Not exactly - it is more of an exchange. I teach them something, they teach me something.
N.S.
- What are you busy with at the moment?
Y.S.
- Right now I am building my flat - painting, decorating, ceiling, roof. Things like that. Also started fitness program - every morning I do a contrast shower - like James Bond. All my neighbours jump up every morning when hearing screams from my bathroom.
N.S.
- Who is screaming - your girlfriend?
Y.S. (laughs)
- No stupid, mine - when I turn water cold!
After the trauma I recieved while filming in Germany when the stunt went wrong I started taking my life a bit more seriously and decided to start writing memoirs before it is too late. My girlfriend has a morbid sense of humour - she says that on my grave we should put a monument in a shape of a piano and the epitaph should be " He played himself to the grave".
N.S.
- Well if you still can laugh it means everything is OK.
This is a proposal for the concert to celebrate 40 years in music of Yuri Stepanov, composer, songwriter, performer, actor and producer, member of British Academy of Composers and Songwriters and one of the most popular and well known personalities among Russian speaking Diaspora in London.
The usefulness of such a show is clearly obvious to the organisers – not only will it give opportunity for different talented performers to participate in this concert together with Yuri and make use of their considerable skills, it will also raise confidence among Russian speaking musicians and artistes and re-establish their sense of usefulness and integration into the multinational society of today’s Great Britain.
Several rehearsals will be held in a process of which the help of many volunteers will be needed.
IMPACT
It is difficult to overestimate Yuri’s input towards developing Russian-speaking community. From the early days at the beginning of the 90s of the now legendary Russian Club at Maxi’s in Knightsbridge to his hugely successful rock and artistic shows of today, Yuri’s enthusiasm became an instrumental in giving Russian speakers, who live in England, the sense of belonging whilst maintaining their sense of pride for their culture as well as the ability to integrate into British modern society.
His enthusiasm continues to be contagious – from that sense of belonging, there sprang to life Russian newspapers, Russian cinema clubs, 1st Russian Radio, Russian restaurants, shops, etc, etc.
His shows always appealed to multicultural society that constitutes London’s population, to the cross section of different races and age groups – from students to mature citizens, not least because of his interest of all things ethnic and his collaboration with artistes of different cultural background.
"MYTH" WILL BE WORKING IN PITER#
By Natalia Chernyh, "MK in PITER" (August 2003)
We were relaxing on the grass by the Kazan Cathedral. A man was strumming his guitar quitely playing "Stairway to Heaven". A crowd of hip youngsters soon forgot their Zemfira#. Close shaven girls and longhaired boys gradualy joining in on the song and asking each other who is this "dad" and where did he come from.
Yuri Stepanov just smiled and kept playing.
One of the founders of the legendary "Myths" has descended upon us from England where he lived for the last 20 years.
Once upon a time Stepanov was the irreplacable keyboard player with the "Myths".
Nowdays he promotes Russian bands in England, records his albums and acts in Hollywood movies.
In 1973, like most of working musicians, the "Myths" where playing at a club in Pushkin on weekends. Stepanov fell in love with the band and as a send up to the oficialdom wrote a mock application to become a member of the rock band. Considering that during this era rock in Russia was strictly "underground" and musicians were treated as subversives - police kept an ever watchful eye on rock musicians - such deeds would autamatically jeopardise Yuri's career.
He did not care then and untill this day has no regrets. Untill he left Russia for England in 1980 the "magnificent five" - Yuri Stepanov, Serghei Danilov, Gennadi Barikhnovski, Yuri Ilchenko and Serghei Petrov drove bohemian Leningrad and Moscow wild.
Memories of that period are still dear to Yuri's heart. They kept him warm during the early hard times in the strange new country
Recently visiting his fellow "Myth" Barikhnovski in Germany he heard the old bootleg tape of their live performance and realised with surprise that their music still comes across as very modern.
...He decided to leave his Motherland because "it has all become very claustrophobic". At some point Yuri realised that he would not be able to do what he loved best in his native Russia. When he met an English girl he did not think long before marrying her.
He arrived in a strange new country with $300 in his pocket and without a clue what sort of life he will find in England. Despite his good knowledge of English and musical talent a Russian guy soon enough found out that nobody was hurrying to greet him with open arms in his new Motherland . His family life did not work out either. After about a year he left his English wife's house with a few coins in his pocket and nowhere to go.
There was even a period ( thankfully very short one) when Yuri slept under the Waterloo bridge among street bums .
For the first six years he has changed many professions: sold wine, caviar, made wedding videos... The only thing he did not do was what he was born for - play music. It was sheer luck that brought Yuri to a ballet school headed by a famous Russian teacher Sulamith Messerer. He started working as a ballet pianist. The long and miserable period in his life was over.
Simultaneously to his work with ballet he started playing Russian music, recorded (in Russia) an album "Gypsy Love" both in Russian and in English and started now a legendary first ever Russian club in London at Maxie's.
At about the same time he managed to get a break in the movies. Naturally the parts he was offered were either KGB agents or Russian mafiosi. He considers himself lucky to have a chance to play along with such stars as Bruce Willis and Richard Geer.
When changes have come about in Russia and it has become easier to travel abroad, all his old rock-friends have made their way to visit him in his cosy flat in Chelsea - Grebenshikov, Makarevich, Leonidov, Shevchuk and of course the "Myths".
Now ex-Myth has decided to release his new album "Blues a la Russe" in St. Petersburg after it's release in London. It is difficult to predict the reception of the album in his native St. Petersburg, but judging by the opinion of professionals it is a "solid" album and Yuri is busy flying from London to Piter and back every month in prepartion for the CD launch.
Good luck to you Yuri from all of us!!
# PITER - nickname of St.Petersburg
#ZEMFIRA - Russian rock star
