Who is Luna: Vogue named the most stylish singer of the Ukrainian musical revolution (video). “There is no demand from women”

Attractive appearance, pleasant voice and nostalgic performance style, characteristic of pop music of the post-Soviet space of the 90s in modern processing, allowed the performer to gain wide popularity among an interested audience.

Childhood and education

The period of life in Germany had practically no effect on Christina, who was still little at that time, although she recalled in an interview her mother’s stories about joint walks through the Dresden Art Gallery or her birth in a boat sailing along the Elbe.

From early childhood, Christina strove for music and art, which was greatly encouraged by the girl’s parents. Their considerable merit was that Kristina Gerasimova studied vocals and piano at a music school.

By the singer’s own admission, the event that determined her desire for a musical career was a trip to Cuba in 2002. Finding herself far from her parents, Christina did not study, but only composed songs, enjoying the special Cuban atmosphere of freedom and joy.

In 2007, the future singer Luna successfully graduated from Kyiv school No. 53 with in-depth study of the German language. The next stage was studying at one of the Kyiv universities at the Faculty of Journalism. Although directing and music attracted the girl much more than the profession of a journalist.

The beginning of a musical career

Interview with Kristina Gerasimova

Relations with Yuri have never been easy. According to the singer herself, first her pregnancy, then postpartum depression ruined the relationship between the spouses, and in 2014 they decided to temporarily separate. It was during this period that Christina experienced a creative surge, wrote more than 30 songs and, having previously set music to the text, published compositions called “Moon” and “Vigray” on her YouTube and Soundcloud accounts. The new performer quickly attracted the attention of the audience.

According to Christina’s memoirs, in her childhood she was already interested in music of a certain genre and direction. Her circle of interests firmly included Zemfira, Mumiy-Troll, Linda and Guests from the Future. This greatly influenced Luna's own musical style in the future. Christina's songs belong to pop music, while the performer herself and her fans associate the specifics of her compositions with the nostalgic aesthetics of the musical culture of the 90s of the last century.

Quick take off

Moon - Autumn

Christina’s first public performance took place as part of the autumn fashion show “Mercedes-Benz Kiev Fashion Days”, where she managed to captivate the audience with her simple love songs. It is noteworthy that in the following years the singer took part in this event more than once, leaving her mark even in one of the fashion collections, items from which were decorated with lines from Luna’s texts.

The period from the end of 2015 to May 2016 was entirely devoted to preparations for the release of Kristina Gerasimova’s first studio album, entitled “Mag-ni-you.” It was for its release that the singer took the pseudonym Luna. It was presented in full at the singer’s debut solo concert in Kyiv. A number of lyrical and memorable compositions (“Moon”, “Autumn”, “Magnets”, “Bottle”, “Distances” and “Boy, you’re snow...”) immediately captivated major Ukrainian and Russian radio stations. The album was produced by Luna herself.

Until the end of 2016, the main occupation of Luna and her partners was touring the CIS countries and Israel, and on November 3, the singer’s debut Moscow concert was a success. In parallel with this, on October 28, 2016, Luna released the mini-album “Sad Dance”.

Constant touring and separation from her son served as inspiration for Luna to create songs on the theme of love at a distance, which were included in her second studio album, “Freedom Island.” The release was scheduled for November 18, 2017, and the main single of the disc was the song “Free Love”, the video clip for which collected a record number of views for the singer on YouTube - 4.8 million. Soon after its release, the album reached 3rd place in downloads in the Russian-language section of iTunes.

Video making

The video that Christina Bardash shot for Yulia Nelson

The successfully completed work gave the girl self-confidence; later, the list of Luna’s works included videos for compositions by the singer Inaya and the group “Nervy”. By the way, all projects, except for Yulia Nelson, belong to the Ukrainian company “Kruzheva Music”, the founder and owner of which is Yuri Bardash.

Luna's personal life

Moon - Light

All the latest news from Luna’s life can be found on the vocalist’s pages on Instagram and VKontakte, and you can get acquainted with her compositions and videos on the singer’s profile on YouTube.

It is known that on April 12, 2019, Cosmonautics Day, Luna will present a new, very personal album “Enchanted Dreams” in one of the clubs in Minsk.

Biography

Christina's father was a military man, so he always kept the girl strict. Christina also has a younger sister. Mom devoted herself entirely to raising children.

As a child, the girl was very interested in music, so her parents decided to send her to a music school to study vocals and play the piano. After graduating from school, she entered the university to study journalism. She liked to study, but she never worked a day in her profession. While still studying at the university, the girl became interested in directing and began working as a camera operator.

As her musical career developed, the girl starred in videos for the famous songs “Beat” and “Let’s Forget Everything,” produced by the Quest Pistols group. I became interested in video making. She shot video clips for Yulia Nelson and the group Nerva.
At the end of spring 2016, the singer’s first solo album, entitled “Mag-ni-you,” was released. It was during this period that she took the pseudonym Luna. On October 27 of the same year, the girl released the album “Sad Dance,” which in one day took first place in the top songs of Ukraine.

After the stunning popularity of the released album, the girl conducted the “Eclipse” tour. On November 3, 2016, Luna held big concerts in Moscow, St. Petersburg, and Riga.

At the beginning of April 2017, the single “Bullets” premiered. In mid-July of the same year, the second song from the album “Ogonyok” was released, Christina immediately presented her video clip for it. Luna calls her music soulful, as it reminds her of the 90s.

Personal life of Christina Bardash

The singer is the wife of producer Yuri Bardash. In 2012, the couple moved to Los Angeles. At first they lived in the Hollywood Hills, and later moved to the Venice area. In the same year they had a red-haired son, George. In America, she devoted herself entirely to her child, leaving creative activity for a while.

In one of her interviews, the singer admitted that all the time she lived in Los Angeles, she learned to be free and independent from anyone.

The couple lived in America for two and a half years, after which they returned to their homeland to continue developing the creative potential of Luna in the vastness of Ukraine and Russia.

Regarding the fact that her husband is promoting the Mushrooms group, Luna says that she sees nothing wrong with it. She says that singer Luna's audience is growing gradually, so she will never have problems with having listeners.

In one of the interviews, Luna admitted that the song “Boy, you are snow” was addressed to her lover, with whom she had an argument, and she felt insulted. She was referring to her current husband and musician of the group “Mushrooms” Yuri Bardash.
Christina Bardash loves to cook for her husband and son, she dreams of opening a bar-restaurant. She explains her craving for cooking by the fact that she is a vegetarian and finds shortcomings in all vegetarian restaurants, so she dreams of opening a place that will meet the needs of all people who refuse to eat meat.

Now the singer’s entire family leads a healthy lifestyle, and she does yoga and meditates every day.

The singer notes that her main goal is the happiness of family members and only in second place is creative activity. Although it is quite difficult to imagine this girl not involved in musical activities.

A post shared by MOON(@kri_luna) on Feb 25, 2018 at 5:33am PST

Adultery is an unpleasant matter, but a purely personal one. However, the founder of the group “Mushrooms” and part-time husband of the singer Luna, Yuri Bardash, decided to take the family squabble public and published a large open letter to the culprit of the discord - the singer’s sound producer Alexander Voloshchuk. The post became a real sensation; many users of the social network Facebook left comments to sympathize with the musician’s grief. Others accused Bardash of inadequacy and sexism. Read more in the “360” material.

The breakup launched a career

Luna said in many interviews that it was the discord with her husband that made her a singer. When Christina, which is the name of the star, met Yuri, he had already created the group Quest Pistols and successfully toured the country and abroad. The girl was 19 years old at the time, and he was 27.

After the birth of her child, Christina Bardash plunged into postpartum depression. Frequent quarrels began with my husband. Then the couple decided to take a break from their relationship and separated for six months. During that period, Luna said, she wrote more than 30 songs. She filmed her debut video for the song “Autumn” on her phone in her yard, edited it in a couple of hours and posted it on YouTube. The video had the effect of a bomb exploding: more than a million people watched it. They started discussing the moon.

Soon Christina and Yuri were able to restore their relationship. Luna claimed that Bardash was her support and support not only as a husband, but also as a producer: it was he who negotiated concerts and helped film videos.

“The fact that I cheated on my wife is our problem.”

On May 25, a video with an ambiguous caption appeared on Luna’s Instagram. In the publication, the singer said that a new stage had begun in her life, and called the name of the series “Islands of Freedom” symbolic.

On Thursday, June 7, a post appeared on Yuri Bardash’s Facebook account with a large number of obscene words and grammatical errors. It’s quite difficult to read, so let’s freely retell it briefly: Bardash turned to Luna’s sound producer Alexander Voloshchuk with the accusation that he forced Christina will cheat on him. Also in the text, the producer admitted that he himself cheated on his wife more than once, but he considers all this to be purely family matters. At the same time, Bardash does not throw accusations towards Luna, because he believes that “there is no demand from the woman.”

The publication instantly spread across the Internet. Luna herself also commented.

The post did not hang for even six hours: Yuri Bardash deleted the publication. After some time, he published another post, the meaning of which remained unknown to fans.

At this time, a photograph appeared on Luna’s Instagram confirming that the singer had left her husband for Voloshchuk.

The singer's fans supported her decision:

“For some reason it seemed to me that you seemed like two different people living under a roof. At first I couldn’t believe that you were married...”

“Christina, I want to sincerely wish you happiness and true love, and for the rest of your life. You are worthy, you deserve it, let all the bad things be quickly forgotten, and let the good things happen every day, wake up with your beloved and fall asleep with your beloved. And so on endlessly...”

“Love is free and pure! Even at the concert in St. Petersburg I noticed a spark between you and had long suspected your love!!! I'm happy for you! This is the best couple! I am only for you!

“He screams about a destroyed family, reproaching a child who should not be involved in these squabbles at all. However, when he jumped on some women, he was not stopped by the fact that there was a “beautiful wife with a golden child.” This is a boomerang for him for his disregard and treacherous attitude towards his family, which he did not value when he went to the left. All these whims on social networks are so stupid that you feel nothing more than pity. Christina, I am incredibly glad that you are now happy, loved and enjoying life. I wish you prosperity and lots of love, which you definitely deserve.”

“Everyone is urgently Googling who Bardash is”

A special spice of the scandal that erupted were the comments under the post of the offended husband on Facebook. During the short “life” of the post, a serious battle broke out in them. Fans of the union of Christina and Yuri were divided into two camps. Some saw sexism and inadequacy in Bardash’s words:

Others suspected that in this way Bardash decided to fuel his popularity, and at the same time practiced humor:

- You have so many publications in the Russian press. Is this management's job?

No one knocks on journalists’ doors and asks them to write about me. Esquire itself invited me to do the shoot. Interview magazine heard the album and wanted to do the material. I remember how I wrote to you when I shot the “Autumn” video. I doubted - maybe no one needs these songs at all? I worried all day. Then my video was posted and it all started. There were positive comments for me, people noticed exactly what was really important to me. Although you admitted in the description of the video that this was such an insidious production move.

And Ivan Dorn asked me the same question when we spoke with him for Interview magazine. He also believed that all this had been invented by someone. And I have an internal rebellion every day. People in production tell me: “You’ve already seen that people like everything, now go and shoot yourself a commercial video. You’ll see, there will be a lot of views, you’ll go on tour.” And I say: “No, I want to do it my way.” And I constantly conflict

- Were you worried when Dorn interviewed you?

It felt like before an exam. Although I know him - I photographed him a couple of years ago, we were friends. One day I met Ivan on the street. He says: “Oh, little one, will you take a photo of me?” I say: “Listen, Vanya, I’m already doing something else. And in general, I really want to become so cool that you and I can do a fit.” And when he reminded me of this at the end of the interview, I ran home happy and wrote a new track in a second.

The fact is that after the album “Mag-ni-you” I couldn’t write anything for two months. This glory has fallen. And like any normal person, I was a little overwhelmed. I had star fever, only it was expressed not in the fact that I was arrogant, but in some kind of fear. And I was so inspired by Dorn's words that he felt vitality and honesty in me that I wrote a new track. The song is called “Sad Dance”, which is what I decided to call it.

Following the premiere of the “Sad Dance” EP, a video of the same name was released

- Do you understand where the talk comes from that the Moon is a fabricated project?

Of course not. Although I had questions about why I didn’t have so many views. But “Luna” is not a mass project, I’ve come to terms with that. And I continue to stick to my line. They send me house remixes of “He Doesn’t Walk With You” and assure me that it will tear everyone apart, but I don’t want to. That’s what Yura says to me: “Mushrooms” are a big deal right now.” And Luna... Her audience is gradually growing, but it seems to me that this will last for a long time. And in fifteen years this sound will be appreciated in the same way, because it is not in trend. I understand how to reformat it into a more pop project. But what publications are now contacting me matters to me.

- The interest of journalists is a fleeting thing. Today you are in fashion, tomorrow you need someone new.

I understand. But it doesn’t seem to me that I caught the hype of the new product and it’s empty back there. I live by this, I have plans, deep roots, a connection with the cosmos. And well, I don’t care at all. My soul is calm.

- You haven’t had many concerts. Are you afraid that something won’t work out in Moscow?

I was afraid in Kyiv, it was the first concert in my life, every day I woke up at 5 am, and in my head: “Concert, concert.” And I spent my energy before the concert and at the concert I was in the last stages - what can I give? And what can I even do? I really expected that after the Kyiv concert there would be more performances, this did not happen, but I was not upset. Because if you start waiting for something, you can quickly grow old. I am on a relaxed wave, and my team, the creative team of Luna, makes me happy. These are my musicians, this is Alina, with whom we develop ideas and grow together. I’ve already relaxed on stage, even if I’m the only one singing under minus, I’ll absolutely hold people’s attention. I have something to give, I want to tour.

My husband has a big production company, I see how everything works there. I see how you need to shoot clips, how important it is to launch them on time and why you don’t need to shoot ten clips a month, as I want. But I need to walk this path myself, make these mistakes. Every day I gain experience, I grow up, I am only 26 years old, and until recently I did not understand much. And I wouldn’t have understood if I hadn’t stepped on all this rake myself. If a person does not eat and drink, he will die in four days. I feel the same way that I will die if I don’t go and shoot my videos the way I want, and write my songs the way I want, with my musician, whom I chose for myself and who suits me.

It seems that journalists, and behind them the audience, do not quite understand how my project works. They probably think that they invested money in me, filmed videos and hired sound producers who created my musical image. In fact, this is a DIY project that arose as a result of a somewhat spontaneous collective work - mine, Sasha, and the rest of the musicians who together make up Luna prod. This is life that begins in the morning after family matters. Directly across the street from the house at the base of Luna Prod. is our musical world. I have long been no longer alone in this vision; behind the Moon there is its own lunar team, consisting of creative people who have found each other.

“Autumn” is not Luna’s first video, but it so happened that after its premiere on “Afisha” people paid attention to her - and this is what it led to

There are several new Russian indie-pop projects that I would like to list with you, separated by commas. This is Yana Kedrina (“Cedar of Lebanon”), and this is the group “None of Your Business.” Do you know anything about them?

I was at the “Cedar of Lebanon” live in Kyiv, I have her favorite song, I like it. Alina, who makes all my videos, did the visualization for her performance. I came with her and danced great. Alina even told me: “By the way, many people compare you to her, they say that you repeat after her.” We do touch base somewhere, but she's more electronic and underground, I'm more pop. At my concert they stand and sing along, at hers they grab the wheel and dance, roughly speaking. I just saw the cover of “None of Your Business” - there is a girl and a bunch of men standing there. I saw it, but didn't listen. . The cover is cool.

They have an album a week after yours, and they were also asked questions: Luna's album appeared with references to 90s pop music, now yours - what does it all mean?

Did they react normally?

- They laughed it off. I think any creative person doesn’t really like being compared to someone else.

And it seems to me that this is normal. As for the trend for the 90s, I didn’t calculate anything. People ask me if I’m afraid of staying in the 90s when the trend changes, but I’m not in the 90s anyway. It just happened that way. Apparently, I have an instinct for what will be fashionable. That’s what happened with the “Superstar” sneakers - I saw them at a vintage market in LA - no one was wearing them then - and I thought: “Damn, these will be fashionable soon.” And a year later everyone put them on.

-Have you ever cried because of music?

And more than once. I am an emotional person, I take everything very close to my heart - not even criticism, but my internal processes. I wake up in the morning and it seems that Sasha doesn’t understand me. But not because he didn’t write me a song, but because at the rehearsal he somehow looked at me wrong. But now it’s easier for me - I’m interested in astrology and learning new energy sciences. This allows me to switch gears, because when I’m idle, I start to get annoyed. Now I have the release of an EP and videos, four shootings in Moscow, I’m so cool. And when I’ve done everything, I need to keep myself busy with something. Otherwise, I start thinking about things that are better not to think about. So I'm crying. This is reflected in the songs, there through the line “tears”, “my tears”. But again, if I cry, it means I like it. And there is no escape from this.

On November 3, Luna, a Kiev singer, performed in Moscow, about whom only the lazy have not spoken for the last six months. The Village met with Christina Bardash before and after her first Moscow solo album to understand her phenomenon.

“Boy, you are the snow that will not happen, I will prove that you are blind, like other people,” - on a chilly November evening, a thousand people in a club near Tverskaya sing in chorus the song of a girl who a year ago was known only in narrow circles. In August 2015, Kiev resident Christina Bardash posted a hypnotic clip on YouTube “ Moon", and a couple of months later - a video " Autumn", filmed by the singer herself, posing with her three-year-old son. Just a year later, I’m standing in a crowd of steamy Muscovites who have learned simple texts from these clips from the first to the last line.

Journalists undoubtedly helped to learn them: in the last few months alone, Christina was interviewed by Ivan Dorn and the editors of all important Internet sites, glossy photographers and progressive English-language magazines fell in love with her - on the day of the concert, i-D called Luna the star of the Ukrainian musical revolution. I meet Christina in the dressing room of the Izvestia Hall club and immediately feel that she is tired of the persistent attention - strict and restrained, the singer sits in front of the mirror and immediately seems to establish an invisible distance, although she easily becomes familiar. “I decided not to give interviews for the next six months or a year,” she echoes my thoughts. “I would like communication with journalists to remain a mutual exchange.” Ethnic music is playing in the dressing room, there are flowers and a large dish of nuts on the table, there are a couple of hours left before the concert.

Kristina Bardash is 26 years old, and she lived most of them in Kiev, except for her early childhood in Dresden, where her father served, and two and a half years in Los Angeles, where in the early tens she lived with her husband, producer and founder the most important Ukrainian pop label Kruzheva by Yuri Bardash. In the USA, Bardash gave birth to and raised her son Zhorik, the hero of the future video for the song “Autumn.” “Two and a half years did not tie me to the States,” Luna recalls. - Nothing inspired me there, I went a little crazy. But a year later it dawned on me what I had learned there. Taste has changed, style has appeared. You haven’t worked for two years, you just go to museums, exhibitions, vintage fairs, and look at the latest collections. In short, you are educated culturally. Of course, traveling is very important. But in Kyiv it’s somehow better to be creative.” In Ukraine, Christina was engaged in photography and music production, filming videos for Noggano and the singer Iya, who was promising at the time of her collaboration with Lace. One way or another, in recent years Bardash has been closely associated with her husband’s label, but it seems that now that the camera lens is pointed at her, she is much more comfortable. I express this thought to Christina, and she nods confidently.

Bardash claims that the name of the project “Moon” was fixed after he and the poetess Lisa Gottfrik composed a song of the same name from the debut album “Mag-ni-you.” After meeting Christina, it seems that there could not be another name: she talks about her passion for meditation and astrology, about the four elements, the imbalance of which, shortly after the first big solo concert in Kiev, for some time deprived Bardash of the strength to create music. “I struggled with this for a long time in personal ways that I don’t want to talk about,” she says. In the middle of the conversation, Bardash’s Kyiv friends burst into the dressing room with a squeal, with one of whom, the energetic mulatto Annette, we talk outside the door. Annette says that she lives in Kyiv, works as a cook, and became friends with Luna about six years ago on the set of a video for the main project “Lace” by Quest Pistols, in which Yuri Bardash filmed Christina. “She hasn't changed at all since then. If you describe it in one word, it’s “space,” says Annette without hesitation.

The trail around the rapidly debuting singer Luna, woven from space and esotericism, low-budget VHS videos mounted on the knee, light eroticism and muted minimalist sound, could not help but puzzle critics - just think, the wife of the producer who successfully transformed the group Quest Pistols into the Quest Pistols Show , begins sending homemade clips to the right editors, persistently calling itself a DIY project and talking about the primacy of sincerity in its music. Luna says that she produces herself, but she doesn’t deny the team’s help either. Thus, her sound producer Alexander Voloshchuk is responsible not only for the sound on Luna’s recordings, but also for the songs of the 17-year-old R’n’B star “Lace” Andro, whom journalists without hesitation dubbed the gypsy The Weeknd. Voloshchuk plays bass at Luna's concerts. The rest of the musicians were gathered before the first solo concert in Kyiv in May of this year. There are two of them - keyboardist Andrey Latik and guitarist Alexander Karev. “Latik is the Kiev version of Johnny Jewel, who plays in The Chromatics and Glass Candy. He collects old synths, he has about 12 of them, and all of them are tailored to this sound,” says Voloshchuk. “This is a Kiev crowd, everyone here knows each other. Guitarist Shurik is Sasha Voloshchuk’s best friend,” continues Bardash. - When we had a meeting about the first concert, Sasha told him: “You understand that this is a serious group?” This is not just a chick." His wife Christina denies participation in the project, although in her community on VKontakte Yuri Bardash is sometimes the producer of Luna.

Kristina writes simple lyrics that stay in her head for a long time, both herself and in the company of co-authors: for example, the ballad that ends the first album “Boy, you are snow” and the cold “Planes” were written to her by a long-familiar author who works with “Lace”, whose name is Kristina asks not to advertise. “He suffers from a mental disorder and is generally a rather difficult person, but he easily found a common language with me. Sometimes he comes and says: “Kristin, give me some money for medicine, and I’ll write you a song?” I agree, and so we get “Airplanes.” Well, you’ve heard “Planes,” right? There is very strong text there. It could have been written either by me or by him.”

Behind the scenes, Christina Bardash has a team of managers, PR agents, photographers and cameramen. They all bustle and move at an accelerated pace - in contrast to the spectators who accumulate in the hall, lazily walking past the bar with pina coladas. I say hello to every third person - journalists, photo editors, producers, creative students and just pleasant faces from my Facebook feed are everywhere. “I often play the Moon in my sets,” says a friend of the editor-in-chief and organizer of fun gay parties. - It's going great. The last time I played the song “Boy, you’re snow,” my friend burst into tears, walked around and couldn’t calm down.” A few minutes later, Christina Bardash, in a black bodysuit and a white lace dress that compliments her elven appearance, rises onto the stage, the audience roars deafeningly - and then they do not stop, singing along to the songs in chorus with the same passion that reveals what was playing in each of them in headphones on repeat this summer.

Luna has only three large solo performances behind her: in Kyiv - in May of this year, in Riga and Yekaterinburg - as part of the current Eclipse tour. Knowing this, you are impressed by what you see: the musicians are comfortable together, behind Christina each other is picturesquely replaced by video installations in the spirit of songs: astrological symbolism, a night highway, scenes from anime. At the end of the track “In the City of Mods,” Christina picks up a smartphone and films herself and fans with the front camera - the image is projected onto a large screen. Looking intently with his big eyes into the lens, Bardash speaks to the audience: “I know that today real fashionistas have gathered here: all the designers, all the most beautiful girls and their husbands.” The Moscow public looks at each other, not recognizing themselves in the listed segments of the population. Deliberately naive phrases either come out accidentally, or echo an infantile image: “A knife hurts, just like love,” “Often the outside world prevents your dream from coming true, so you must listen to your heart” - Bardash’s true spontaneity ultimately reveals itself not in the videos and interviews, but in random words thrown from the stage.

Towards the end of the concert, when the center of the hall sings a new song with Luna, and couples inspired by the romantic lyrics are swaying around the edges, I go to look at the singer’s merch - sweatshirts, T-shirts and iPhone cases. It, like any product produced by Luna’s team, looks super relevant: Cyrillic font in dark shades and simple styles; This is what a collaboration between Gosha Rubchinsky and H&M, who took the cover of “A Star Called the Sun” as a reference, would look like this, with some discounts. “Even her merch is cool,” sighs a girl nearby.

After the concert, as if after successfully passing an exam, Christina jumps on stage in euphoria and then leaves, but not for long - a few minutes later an enthusiastic guy rushes past me shouting: “She allows you to take pictures with her!” Success, luck, a new victory for Ukrainian music in a country of youth raised on soulful pop songs about the complexities of love.

I’m stopping by the afterparty of Luna’s concert at a popular club on Taganka. It is full, there are many people around who appeared in Izvestia a few hours ago. At the door I encounter a well-known promoter and co-owner of the establishment. Having started talking about the heroine of the evening, he snorts: “A completely commercial project. Now these will begin to appear every six months. It's a shame that singers who try much harder don't get as much attention. By the way, today for the first time in my life I was asked to assign a security guard to the artist. Well, I added it, of course - I have three of them, all beautiful.”

Indeed, Luna is often talked about using expressions like “commerce” and “production project.” She is compared to Lana Del Rey, the bomb of 2012, a diva with an exquisite legend that was carried around the world by journalists, but if Lana appealed to the aesthetic spirit of the American 60s, then Luna is described today by resorting to highlights from the post-Soviet 90s and chaotic 2000s : Sveta and the projects of Max Fadeev, Linda and the Total group, Irina Saltykova and Angelika Varum. Kristina Bardash herself readily lists these and related names when she talks about her parents’ favorite music, and thinks deeply after a question about music from today that is important to her - most likely, it’s a matter of excitement before the concert. But in fact, after the solo concert in Moscow, it becomes clear that all the talk about sincerity or its imitation, about Luna’s independence or involvement in her husband’s production center is actually meaningless: when a full audience starts chorusing the chorus of a song called “Sad Dance,” and the men in the hall they start writing to their ex-girlfriends, what difference does it make how many people were behind the production of the dance? The success of Luna, which was ensured by the spectacular arrangements of the people of Kiev, who listen better than many to the Western trend, the animal charisma of Christina Bardash and infantile lyrics, taking the main thing from songs about playboys by Natasha Vetlitskaya and the well-aimed pearls of Ilya Lagutenko, is a consequence and continuation of the process of legitimizing music, which is somewhat years ago it was considered shameful. “The breadth of all fields, the depth of all seas, the height of the clouds, the beauty of your shores does not allow me to drown” - such ideally simple and accessible sensuality was nurtured by Eva Polna and Yuri Usachev; in 2016, it just needed to be given a form that would be appropriate not only for house parties, but also for the Science and Art club. Luna did it.

“It seems to me that this is a good example of myth-making,” I talk about Christina Bardash with a music critic I know, former editor-in-chief of a well-known music publication. “It took us so long to create a myth around the artist that everyone would believe in, and now it finally happened.” On November 3, the day of the Moscow concert, Luna releases a video for the song “Knife”, which well illustrates her gradual transition beyond this DIY myth - it was shot by the Moscow production group Great Fruit, also partial to nostalgic aesthetics, and who shot the video for the store “KM20”, the fashionably revived brand of sneakers “Two Balls”, the festival “Swallow” and producer Lay-Far. Regardless of whose hands Christina Bardash created herself, someone else’s or her own, her rapid ascent to the status of the most fashionable Russian-speaking singer is intriguing - and it may well continue as long as teenagers who grew up after the collapse of the USSR will be touched by simple songs about breakups, sung to the sound of vintage synthesizers. That is quite a long time.

“What difference does it make whether we are a commercial project or a non-profit? - a few days later I call Bardash and Voloshchuk in Kyiv, and we discuss the results of the tour and plans for the future. - Well, commercial. For me, a non-profit project is the group “Lyudska Podoba”. Musicians often say that they don't care about money. I love money, it's a blessing for smart people. If you invest them in development, it only helps to achieve wonderful goals. And about
90s - I don’t like that we are being pulled into the past. We are not from the 90s, not from the past. I understand that there is a trend, and I have nothing against it, but our music is much broader.” “This is the exploitation of a trend,” interrupts Kristina Voloshchuk. - No matter what you do, they say: “Ah, the nineties!” A revolution in fashion, everywhere. Nowadays everything is tied to the 90s.” “Well, yes, revolution. - Bardash concludes his thought thoughtfully. - They don’t play on the radio, they don’t show on TV, but the full audience sings all the songs by heart. How so? This is a revolution for me personally. And I will further develop in this direction.”