Oleg & Lena
Oil on canvas
25x30cm
"...there was Tony Blair sitting there, drinking his tea. When I told him that I bring British DJs over to Russia he said he also DJs."
Oleg & Lena
"Me and a young boy that I know are going to open a new record shop together next month.
He is a nice guy – very young, 23, but the conditions for our partnership are very good. His father is giving him the money to invest into his “hobby'. At least it will mean that we wont worry too much about when and how are we going to pay our debt. He is just a boy but his dad got him a nice new Ford, and really spends good money on him. Oh well, I guess it's a good sign, better then him spending cash on a drug habit as so many young people do.
I'm going to buy some more records from London - I have few labels that we get on with really well and they will organise some great stuff for me. I regularly bring DJs from London - they are pretty good. Recently we had a bunch of Finnish DJs this autumn, it was some adventure! It was a mad time! They are great though.
We might have common friends in Berlin, do you know this couple in Berlin? He is also a DJ from Finland - his Girlfriend is from Germany. In fact there are two couples like that in Berlin that I know, all of them are great artists.
'Delay' is a guy I would definitely like to invite to DJ in my club. But there are so many difficulties involved when you are trying to bring high-quality music over to Russia. It is getting better though.
It's really difficult to run a good club in St Petersburg. I think Moscow is easier - there are more culturally diverse people, in St Petersburg the public is slow in responding to good quality sound and new things…..
I was born and grew up in Leningrad. I would say I had a pretty ordinary childhood: school, pioneer camps in the summer, all very similar to most Soviet children. I went to a specialised English-orientated school where I was introduced to English culture at a very early age.
Our class and school had Manchester as our “twin city'. We had photos of class-struggle in the UK: workers and coal-miner strikes on the walls of our classroom. From an early age we would read the “Morning Star' newspaper. I can say that my whole childhood was accompanied with that newspaper. It came out three times a week - we would by it once a week. We also studied Dickens and other classical English literature.
After school I entered the Eastern Studies faculty in the State University in Leningrad. I studied African philology - in particular Ethiopian. Here again my knowledge of English culture helped me a great deal, as Ethiopia and England had a very strong historical connections. Haile Selassie was in Britain during his exile and later, with the help of British army, he took over Adisabeba.
While at university I studied Abharsky, German, Italian and other languages. At school I had visited a 'Public Friendship Club'. After the University I started to travel to Moscow to The Party High School to work as a translator, and help students to deal with practical side of living in Russia. I worked maily with Ethiopian students who were seeking political refuge (in great numbers).
There were many other nationalities studying there and I had many opportunities to engage with people from different cultures. I started to work in a Komsomol School as a translator. It was very difficult job to begin with, as the language skills that were taught at school and university were not very good for practical use.
I lived in the Komsomol School's hall of residence at the time, where I met a girl from Sweden. Soon after, I left Russia to go and live with her in Sweden. That was it. It was meant to be only a short stay but I got involved in different projects of social studies, received grants to work on them and got into a school of sociological studies to study 'Subculture'. That's how I got in to music culture, met the first DJ in Russia and started to import records. I ended up staying in Sweden for eight years.
We set up our first shop in Russia selling records. My interest in Techno, Ambient and all Contemporary directions of music brought me to Germany and then I had an opportunity to go to London and build my contacts there. I work now as a promoter - organise seminars on Contemporary Music, clubs, and dance nights.
I bring DJs to St. Petersburg from all over the world. It reminds me of the first time when Tony Blair came to St. Petersburg for the first time in 1999 when Putin was elected. Tony Blair requested a meeting with the 'Russian Youth' - the British council phoned me. The meeting was due to take place in Hotel Astoria - one of the most expensive hotels in St Petersburg. I only had about two days to organise people to attend the meeting with him, but everyone I phoned bailed out - I guess they were too nervous to go, so I went on my own.
The guards in the hotel had a look at the way I was dressed and refused to let me in under any circumstances but eventually I got through. There also was a groop of teenagers and their tutor who were building some yacht who came to meet him.
So, as I got through the security I walked in to the room and yes, there was Tony Blair sitting there, drinking his tea. When I told him that I bring British DJs over to Russia he said he also DJs. However he couldn't answer what style he plays - Jungle or Ambient so the organisers hurried up to switch to another topic. I did tell him though that if he will brush up on his styles he is welcome to come and play a gig in St Petersburg. So please, do pass on a message to him in London that the invitation is still valid.
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Lena
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I was born in Gelendjik, a resort by the Black Sea. I lived there until I was nine then my mother took me to Vologda. After school I came to Saint Petersburg to study at a fashion design school.
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