Karina Istomina: how to survive a difficult breakup and return to normal life. Generation Z
The Village continues the "" section. In it, interesting citizens talk about their favorite places - and if previously these were only bars and restaurants, now the heroes can choose any points close to them in Moscow, St. Petersburg and Yekaterinburg. In the new issue, DJ, founder of the Resonance project and participant of the latter Nikita Zabelin talks about his rented apartment on Leningradsky Prospekt, where he began his career in Moscow and where he now moves out, and remembers his childhood in the Urals.
photos
Andrey Stekachev
About moving to a new apartment
I leave the apartment on Leningradka with sadness.
On the other hand, I understand that it’s time to change something. I came here as just a playing DJ, and now I have my own program on the radio, my tour schedule around the world is scheduled for months in advance.
I really like the Belorusskaya area, because for a traveling person the most important point is the accessibility of the airport. This is the second most visited place for me after the apartment. I go there every week, sometimes twice, so I need to minimize the energy and time spent on travel.
Now I will live on Chistye Prudy. This is absolutely inconvenient from the point of view of navigation, but there is a quiet area there, there is no Leningradka. The windows here are very dirty, noisy, dusty, and I also have a north side, and this also has a bad effect on me. In two years I haven’t seen the sun here at all, and the light bulbs here are dim - you’re constantly in twilight. And for me this is important. As a child in Yekaterinburg, I had a very small room - about eight square meters, like a compartment. There was a window along which stood a table with a computer where I wrote music. And I have the brightest memories of this, because it was always sunny there. There are no clouds in Yekaterinburg, there is rarely bad weather there, there is always a clear sky and huge sun. I love it when you wake up and see motes of dust falling in the sun. I don't have curtains, I sleep without curtains. I can't write music in the dark, I need the blinding sun.
Now I plan to do more music, and moving to another apartment is due to this. I will live alone, here I have always lived with someone. Now we are filming together with Mira, she is also a musician, but we are not dating, just friends. We have known each other since Yekaterinburg.
All my friends came to my farewell party in this apartment, thinking that I was leaving the country. There were about forty people here. It was a house party, but it was supported by Jägermeister with a guest DJ, Dima Kovyazin. Everything is like at a normal party: there is a DJ playing, there is dancing, there is smoking in the kitchen, there is a lot of alcohol everywhere, and at the same time there is a live broadcast of what is happening on Facebook.
About moving to Moscow
I moved to Moscow almost four years ago, I was 26 then. A new - so to speak, conscious - life began in an apartment on Leningradka (at first I lived for a short time on Arbat). Here I came to my senses after some events in Moscow. She greeted me very aggressively. I started my journey with the Monasterio club, which no longer exists. It was carried out by dishonest people, and my provincial naivety played a cruel joke on me. But I needed to show my talents to the Moscow public; I needed some place where I could present myself.
At that time, Monasterio was the best place for me: it didn’t have its own party yet. In Solyanka everyone knew each other, there I would have been behind the first echelon, it was generally useless to communicate with Arma. It was a difficult time, but my name, of course, appeared on the map of Moscow only thanks to Monasterio. As a result, the club closed (by that time we had all completely fallen out), but when I left there, Nikita Zabelin was already known in the techno party, and I began to organize my own parties, which people began to attend.
I never force myself to write music; for me this is a fundamental point. I don’t give a damn whether they listen to my music or not, whether I have a release or not. I have developed some immunity to this. When I played at home, no one was interested in my music, in Yekaterinburg everyone said that I played poorly, in my group they said that I was a so-so musician - such a story has haunted me all my life.
When I met Nina (Nina Kravitz, DJ - Ed.), showed her my tracks and she liked it, I gained some confidence in myself. Because a person who was an important figure in the techno world for me recognized my work as something worthwhile. But my neighbor Mira earned her popularity only through music, and I understand that my success is due more to some social factors and my actions.
About Yekaterinburg
I graduated from the university in Yekaterinburg, where I studied to become a specialist in international relations, but I am a ****** (bad) specialist. I just had a conversation with my parents: you, Nikita, finish your education, and then do what you want. I started playing music at the age of twelve.
I had a band where I played bass. My mother listened to all kinds of electronic music like Prodigy, Chemical Brothers, Scooter - this has been in my ears since childhood. And dad listened to Louis Armstrong and Barry White while driving a Mercedes. I don’t know what they were doing then. These were
90s. I have young parents, they are under 50 now, and I have never been perceived as a son: there is just a couple, and another dude hangs out with them. I was never pushed around, told what to do, there was no hierarchy, and there still isn’t one.
At the age of 17, I started going to nightclubs and realized that I liked it, I wanted to write music myself, without a group. Things didn’t work out with the group back then; they told me that I couldn’t play and that I wouldn’t make a good musician. I didn’t argue with the fact that I’m a so-so player: not very confident, unstable, and my playing technique suffers. And the computer was a way out of the situation for me, because everything can be done technically correctly there.
Everything happened quickly for me, at the age of 18 I organized my own party, and by the age of 20 I was traveling around the Urals. Then I sometimes went to Moscow just like that, and in 2009 I performed for the first time at a festival in the Central House of Artists, where I played live.
Honestly, I would return home if I didn't have to maintain my level
Before moving to Moscow, I lived for several years in St. Petersburg and then again in Yekaterinburg.
I didn’t plan to live in St. Petersburg, I went there because I played in a band. After the concert they couldn’t pay me, so I didn’t have money for a ticket home. And I stayed there... for three years. In St. Petersburg, I was never able to raise my head, but there I earned good experience working in video production and the fashion industry.
Returning home was a forced step. At that time, my relationship with my girlfriend reached a dead end, and work didn’t work out either - for the simple reason that I didn’t need it. My zodiac sign is Aries, and therefore it is generally impossible to force me to do anything. I went back to Yekaterinburg and after the difficult Petersburg I decided to lead a wild lifestyle.
In general, I love hometown. What I like most about Yekaterinburg is Lenin Avenue. There is a central street where all the houses that are interesting to me from an architectural point of view are located. I love walking there. In the 20s, there was an experimental site for a socialist society: the entire central area was built up as a single ensemble in the constructivist style. And, of course, the Yeltsin Center is a very important place on a federal scale. It presents new Russia, a young country that is only 26 years old. I am offended that in place of the monument to Lenin in the central square there is no monument to Yeltsin. Some say that he drank the country away, but I think he was an important figure, and I can imagine how he suffered when the country collapsed. Yeltsin was a big man, strong, and everything we have (and what we don’t, of course) is all thanks to him.
And in Yekaterinburg there is such a club “Lynch”. It's completely recreated from Lynch's films, with a red room with a black and white floor, an all-white leather room, and even a room from Inland Empire.
About your favorite places
I like those sites that are made out of love, and not for profit. Good site “Rabitsa”, good site “Rodnya”. What is a club? This is a community of people first and foremost, it is not about music. The one who creates the place must be in the subject himself. Places like “Constructor” or Space Moscow (may he rest in heaven) are not clubs at all. When I come to such places, I feel like I'm in a cattle pen. They do not consider a person as a person, but only as a financial unit.
For 8–10 years now, the only restaurants I have been going to are Propaganda and Filial. I don’t like it when I am ******** (deceived), but there I am definitely not ****** (deceived). I always feed the artists I bring there; I know the menu and prices by heart. “Caesar” in “Propaganda” is a must-have, and lunch is sacred. When I arrived in Moscow, it cost 220–250 rubles, now, when salmon has risen in price, it costs 360 rubles. But I no longer take lunch, but a full set of dishes. American coffee has become such a habit for me that I go to other places and ask for American coffee, not Americano.
I hate expensive establishments where they have monograms and too nice waiters - it really annoys me
Of course, they look at me like I’m a hillbilly, as if I’m ordering an “expresso”. Previously, my favorite establishment was the Chaspion restaurant with Armenian and Georgian cuisine on Novoslobodskaya, but it was removed when the squatter building was demolished. That's where everything was real.
There are many such places in Yekaterinburg. Local Uzbek “Nigora” is the number one establishment where you can eat lagman, dolma, shawarma. It's not particularly clean or tidy, but they serve you pilaf, which is really tasty.
I have no predilection for clean places. I hate expensive establishments where there are monograms and too nice waiters - it really annoys me, I feel uncomfortable there.
We are launching a new section in which our heroes will talk about one day in their lives. Travelers, models, bloggers, photographers, creative people and simply interesting people will lift the veil of what lies behind beautiful pictures on Instagram profiles and will show everything that remains behind the scenes. And we start with one of our favorites - Karina Istomina.
It has always seemed important to me to tell not only what happened at some point in my life, but also to share my feelings. After all, most often it is they who lead us to some conclusions, desires, goals, and sometimes disappointments.
To be honest, I really don't like being called a model. I mean, I respect my work, but there are still activities in my life that are important to me, to which I devote maximum energy and time. I write longreads about music, play DJ sets, and have been working as a PR manager for the indie band Tesla Boy for almost a year now. I also graduate from the Higher School of Economics, Faculty of Journalism. I won’t lie, most often I’m torn between billions of things to do and I can stop in the middle of the road from the realization of how dead tired I am, but I love what I do. And this gives me endless joy.
So, I’ll tell you about how I was in Ibiza to shoot the summer collection of the Etam brand in early March.
I flew on a low-cost airline (thanks to the clients for this) with a transfer in Madrid from New York at around 20 o'clock and in the morning, having arrived on the island of entertainment, I went straight to the shoot. I have nothing against low-cost airlines, but they have incredibly little space between the seats, so by the fourth hour of the flight my knees began to ache, and after taking melatonin, I spent the entire flight in a painful sleep. In addition to the jetlag buzzing in my head, I was already tormented by the classic New York depression, so I was not particularly impressed by the rural beauties of Spain, but the smell of the sea was in the air and it calmed me down.
It was about seven in the morning, I was sitting in a villa, which was located in the mountains, far from the clubs and restaurants whose signs covered the whole city. It was about 15 degrees, but I was looking forward to freezing in the beautiful sky-colored pool that was located on the site.
The team consisted of 15 people: two photographers, one of them a famous Italian - Emmanuel Ferrari, two stylists, their assistants, a makeup artist, a client and a personal (!) chef, but I will return to him a little later.
Also working with me was a simply fantastically beautiful 18-year-old Spanish woman, Marta Agular. It seemed to me that she herself did not understand how beautiful she was, but there was something mysterious about her, like all girls who take your breath away. Or maybe this mystery was due to the fact that she spoke little, smoked hand-rolled cigarettes and was on the phone the entire time we were there.
Everyone was extremely friendly and happy to bring me a blanket or tea to keep me warm, but the only problem was that none of them could speak English clearly.
At that moment, I remembered that when I went to France with my parents, they didn’t speak English everywhere or pretended that they couldn’t. Of course, this did not cause discomfort, but I am a lover of chatting and making everyone laugh, so I had a feeling of dissatisfaction. I just had to smile sweetly.
They say that this is exactly how models should behave – be silent and smile. But most of them are silent because they either have nothing to say or simply do not know the language.
The collection will be cool, there are some things I would love to wear, and it was easy to work with and not even very cold.
After shooting some of the looks in the bedrooms and on the terrace of our villa, we went to have lunch in the garden. The cook was handsome. With his huge hands, he turned over the lettuce leaves in a large shiny plate, glancing fleetingly at Marta and me.
When I went to lunch, I expected some culinary masterpiece to happen before my eyes, because it smelled fantastically dizzying. Well, I am a master of fantasy, and more often than not, I want to stay in it. The food was terrible. I'm not whimsical, honestly. But this time I felt like I was five again and like my mom was again forcing me to eat “something” whose name I don’t know. I don’t eat couscous and spinach puree soup doesn’t inspire me either, and our cook barbarously mixed bacon into some beans, which really upset me. After picking at the plate for about 10 minutes, I quickly ran to the kitchen so that he wouldn’t notice or be offended that I hadn’t eaten anything. After all, children's attitudes control us all our lives.
We spent the second part of the day by the sea. I would like to note that in Ibiza it is a very rich azure blue. You can look at it for hours.
At the beginning we stopped at a fishing village. There the entire shore was covered with dried seaweed, so it smelled like iodine.
While Martha smoked a rolled-up cigarette, I basked in the sun and dozed on my haunches. Working as a model taught me to sleep wherever the opportunity arises. I was plagued by thoughts about how homesick I was, how wonderful it was that I was at sea and what I should do next. I would like to note that the last question never leaves my head.
I was also nervous. And this already applies to my other work. We were preparing the Tesla Boy concert at the Gogol Center, which thundered on March 20 with incredible success, which we ourselves did not expect. My job is to be in touch with everyone, control everything and write to everyone so that they, in turn, write about us. And I was sitting in a fishing village on a Spanish island without the Internet, with jetlag and 15 more bows ahead. Running from Wi-Fi to Wi-Fi, I was solving important organizational issues that needed to be addressed immediately.
In the evening we went to the beach. The sand already smelled cold, and the sea was icy, but the bay was calm and almost windless. It was a great opportunity to finally breathe a little. While we were being filmed one by one, I sat on the shore and listened to music on headphones.
We also went into the city. If you are an introvert with a predisposition to sociopathy, then Ibiza in early March is an option for you. Tourist cities are very dreary in winter. There were about 10 people in the city and they were all over 60.
Most of the restaurants were closed, even the roller shutters in the apartments were slammed shut. The city had not yet woken up, only workers were whitewashing the walls near the medieval fortress.
But that didn't stop me from drinking a pitcher of white sangria, eating an apple caesar (that's another weird thing) and walking around the port because I really love ships.
Well, it was a wonderful transition between life in New York and life in Moscow. I had time to think a little about what happened and what will happen, work and generally have a great time with myself. Here is a slightly melancholy-romantic story about my day.
Karina Istomina is a model, DJ and, recently, a popular blogger. Karina Istomina gained great popularity from filming a new project on the YouTube channel “Tender Editor.”
Childhood and youth
Karina Istomina was born on April 20, 1994 in Moscow. Since childhood, Karina stood out among her peers. At school, Karina was actively involved in various sections. She took special interest in music lessons, world music artistic culture, literature and history.
Karina Istomina's parents have always supported her creative endeavors. After finishing 11th grade, the girl entered the National research university"High School of Economics".
Since childhood, Karina dreamed of becoming a journalist. Her plans were to finish her studies in Russia, and then go to New York and enter university to major in music business.
In addition to journalism, there has always been a place for music in Karina Istomina’s life. The girl watched the clips with great interest popular artists and also wanted to indirectly connect her life with music. Which is what happened in her future.
Model business
Like many young girls, Karina thought about a modeling career, especially since the girl had every opportunity to achieve this. Karina Istomina has amazing natural data and ideal model parameters. Karina Istomina’s height is 175 centimeters, weight is 55 kilograms.
Karina's age has become no obstacle for her to build modeling career. The girl passed her first casting at the age of 16, then she began collaborating with many Russian brands. Karina also managed to work abroad.
Working as a model not only brought pleasure to the girl, but also helped pay for her university studies. Karina Istomina’s father was amazed at his daughter’s independence and self-sufficiency.
At the age of 18, the girl began to collaborate with the famous modeling agency Avant Models Management.
DJ Career
Karina Istomina's biography is directly related to music. In one of her interviews, the girl said that Anton Sevidov made a great musical contribution to her. At that time, the young people were in a relationship. As for musical preferences, the girl prefers many Western performers.
In a short period of time, DJ Karina Istomina became popular not only in Russia, but also in Europe. The girl is inspired by travel. According to many followers on Karina Istomina’s Instagram, anyone who listens to her DJ set will not remain indifferent.
Popularity on Instagram
Today, Karina Istomina’s Instagram has more than 200 thousand subscribers. The girl’s life is watched by her fans, who knew Karina even when she was working as a model.
Photos of Karina Istomina collect thousands of likes. Under latest photos Karina, subscribers write that she is similar to popular bloggers - and.
Filming on the channel “Gentle Editor”
In 2019, she opened a new format on her YouTube channel, “Gentle Editor.” Tatyana's co-hosts were Karina Istomina and. In the video, the girls openly talk about the relationship between a man and a woman.
The new format was appreciated not only by the girls’ subscribers, but also by many popular bloggers. Among them were: Yuri Dud, Valeria Dergileva, and many others.
In the comments under the video and on Instagram, viewers write that Tatyana Mingaleeva, Karina Istomina filmed the Russian analogue of the series “Sex in big city" The girls are even compared to the heroines of the film - Carrie Bradshaw, Miranda Hobbes and Charlotte York.
Each new release of girls collects at least 800 thousand views. The video format of girls is the first in Russia, where the presenters are not afraid of criticism and are not embarrassed to speak frankly. For many spectators, the girls truly became friends.
Parents
Karina Istomina does not often mention her parents in the media. However, in one of the “Gentle Editor” videos, Karina read a message from her dad, in which he described his emotions after watching the episode.
As Karina says, dad does not condemn her actions. The only thing that confuses him is that Karina demonstrates all this for everyone to see. Be it YouTube or Instagram.
About her mother, Karina Istomina said in one of her interviews that coming to visit her for home-cooked food is one of her best pleasures.
Personal life
Karina Istomina does not hide her personal life. On the contrary, the girl is frank with her subscribers and periodically on her Instagram you could see photos with her boyfriend. The girl had two high-profile affairs with Anton Sevidov and Nikita Zabelin.
Difficult parting with Anton Sevidov
One of the girl’s most discussed romances was with the popular Russian musician Anton Sevidov. The couple's relationship was long-lasting, but the consequences for Karina were unpleasant. After the breakup, the girl began to feel depressed. Against this background, Karina lost a lot of weight.
A psychologist with whom she worked for six months helped Karina survive the breakup. Having survived such a breakup, and having done so much work on herself, Karina Istomina began to help other girls who could not survive a difficult breakup.
Full name |
Karina Istomina |
Occupation | DJ, blogger |
Date of birth (how old) | April 20, 1994 |
Zodiac sign | Aries |
Height Weight | 175 cm/55 kg |
Family status | Single |
In contact with | Link |
Link | |
Wikipedia | – |
Karina Istomina is a popular blogger and DJ. More than 200 thousand people follow Karina’s Instagram, and her fame was brought not only by her beautiful photographs, but also by her dramatic love story.
Biography of Karina Istomina
Karina Istomina is a Muscovite, she was born on April 20, 1994. There is no information about Karina’s family, but from her interview we can conclude that she grew up in a complete family. As a child, the Instagram celebrity was interested in history and learned to play the electric guitar. She gained experience in modeling back in school years. As Istomina says, her friend’s parents gave her a camera and the girls began taking pictures of each other. Schoolgirls published their photos in in social networks and in 2011, photographer and fashion scout Maria Kuzmenkova contacted Karina. For some time, Karina was freelancing, trying to sell her photographs. After graduating from school, she became a model at the Avant Models agency, with which she collaborated for several years. Filming for lingerie brands and participating in shows allowed the young model to pay for her studies at Higher School Economics. In interviews, she often talks about how difficult it was to combine work and study, but the attentive attitude of teachers and her own determination did not allow her to give up.
At the end of 2013, a young dark-haired beauty starred in a video clip for Sergei Lazarev’s song “Into the Heart.” The director of the video was Konstantin Cherepkov, it was he who came up with the rebellious image in which the model appeared. In the video, which is more of a mini-movie, she punches the pop star in the ring. Karina’s blows symbolized the pain of parting and hit the target, breaking the heart of the hero Sergei Lazarev. In 2015, in an interview for the independent university online publication The Vyshka, Istomina talked about her dreams of becoming a world podium star, however, they were not destined to come true.
After graduating from university, Karina decided to leave the modeling business. Istomina does not speak directly about the reasons that pushed her to this act, but music, which for a long time occupied the place of a hobby, gradually became her main occupation. Karina published longreads on social networks, and her sets were played in clubs in the capital. The music of the young DJ was included in the obligatory playlist of every fan of electronic music, and Karina herself was inspired by the work of Kurt Cobain, whose songs she loved to listen to since childhood.
Istomin about musical preferences (interviewElleGirl , 2018): “I was at the Boulevard Depo performance and was in a pleasant shock. He's a very cool dude with an incredible vibe. Even now I listen to the group “LAUD” a lot, I highly recommend paying attention to them.”
Articles devoted to Karina’s biography mention difficult experience her first serious relationship. After breaking up with her lover, the girl could not avoid depression, the side effects of which were apathy and weight loss.
Karina Istomina at the DJ console
The model met Anton Sevidov when she was in her fourth year at the institute. She got a job as an advertising manager at Tesla Boy, and soon their relationship went beyond work. They lived together for several months, but after Anton told Karina that his feelings had passed, she was forced to move in with her parents. Cope with psychological problems and the help of psychologists helped her regain the joy of life. In 2016, Istomina decided to talk about breaking up with the musician, hoping that her experience would help other girls. After the article is published “How to get over a bad breakup and get back to normal life» in the online publication The Challenger, the girl began sharing her revelations on social networks.
Instagram Karina Istomina
![](https://i2.wp.com/popitop.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/photo_2019-08-20-16.08.46-861x1024.jpeg)
In the summer of 2016, Karina first published a note on Instagram in which she announced the painful end of her relationship. Subscribers supported her, but for some, the news about the psycho-emotional problems of this daring dark-haired girl came as a surprise. Looking at the wide smile of their favorite, followers had no idea about depression, which almost cost her a diploma from a prestigious university. Almost every person has the experience of forced separation from a loved one, and, reading Karina’s article, many subscribers again felt the pain of separation, but for some it became an incentive to fight for their lives.
Hero of our time: Karina Istomina, music influencer
Over the past few years, Karina Istomina has become a favorite media character. Therefore, it became a special task for me to tell about her in a new way, to find those facets of her personality that had not yet been illuminated (and, believe me, there are many of them). I’ve been following her on Instagram for a long time, listening to the music she recommends in Stories, reading the dramatic texts that accompany her photos. I always wanted to know a little more about this person, and now I propose to do it together.
Initially, Karina chose modeling for herself, but dreams and reality often do not correlate with each other. It was not possible to become famous right away, and it was difficult to get to a cool job in the West. As you already know, the model should be tall and thin as a reed (however, now they are actively fighting against this: strict limits provoke the development of eating disorders and other problems). Large breasts and a height of 172 (instead of the required 175+) became an obstacle to participation in shows, and the domestic gloss had not yet considered the new heroine.
Photo by Alexander Burimov
Despite the failures, Karina worked hard and talked about her profession. For example, about the fact that a model is not only Beautiful face, not only hard physical work, but also the ability to communicate. To an ordinary person it is necessary to be able to carry on a conversation, it is useful to read books and, in general, to think well. Models have to meet every day with a huge number of people who need to fit in.
We can say that Karina was one of the first to tell the truth about modeling.
At some point, she realized that the industry was unfair to models, they were treated poorly, and nothing depended on the girls. You can’t defend your opinion, you can’t complain, you should be happy with any work, and the rest of the time you should just wait. The only consolation was music.
Over time, Karina decided that her hobby needed to be transformed into a profession. And then the period of study began. Success and tours did not come immediately - after all, no one knew about the girl. She had to play for next to nothing so that at least someone would hear her and invite her to play again. True, not everything turned out to be so simple.
Stereotypes and good looks don't always play into the hands of those who want their voices to be heard. In our society, the effect of first impressions often drowns out what a person is trying to convey (and this is more true for women).
Because each of us, in an attempt to earn our place in the sun, has to prove that you are more than good looks.
So Karina had a goal to do everything to make her opinion important in the music world. And she began to take confident steps towards earning the title of music influencer.
For me, this fragile lady is a real hero, because she works three times harder than others to show us all by her example that a girl can also have a voice, that her opinion can be valuable and that beauty does not equal stupidity.
The path she has traveled once again proves that patterns are wrong and useless and that a new time has come in which women can also compete. This is how the feminist text turned out. In our interview, Karina will tell you a little more about herself, share life hacks and real secrets on how to become a DJ and survive.
EG: Tell me, have you always been so confident in yourself?
Karina: I had problems with self-esteem, like any teenager, and even now I can’t say that I don’t have questions about myself. At 15 you bother with your appearance, but at 24 - on life’s purpose. But I would never trade even such an unstable feeling of myself for incorrectly plucked eyebrows, foundation three shades darker, bans on hair coloring, acne and a curfew at 7 pm. I have never been and never aspired to be the beauty of school. I always wore boyish skater clothes, just like now. I felt beautiful after I turned 18.
EG: In the DJ field, gender discrimination is especially widespread. How do you deal with negativity?
Karina: In real life, it’s easier to deal with negativity, because even if I’m scared, over time I realized how important it is to be able to stand up for myself. I understand my colleagues who can’t stand me, especially the guys. Many of them have excellent skills, but they perform ten times less than me. Why? Because I have a huge tool in my hands - charisma, and no one can take it away from me. She gives me faith in my exclusivity, helps me stand firmly on my feet. Without technology, you won’t get far either, but many begin to focus on it, forgetting that no one has canceled communication skills.
Photo by Alexander Burimov
EG: What exactly is your job? What does a DJ do?
Karina: In addition to the fact that you absorb the energy of the audience and give them yours, you must lead the crowd... Do everything so that they cry, squeal with happiness and lie on the floor. Many people think: what’s wrong with playing music that isn’t yours? Imagine that you stand at the controls, there is a full dance floor in front of you and everyone is expecting something from you. Aren't you confused? When I play, I feel very strong because I just can't give up.
But then I have serotonin depressions and apathy for several days, because when you give a lot, it takes a long time to recover. People come for good music, which is handed to them on a silver platter with pure energy, and they drink it up like vampires. This is what my job is, in addition to the fact that I work on technology every day at home in my studio.
EG: Tell us about your future plans.
Karina: After 30, I would like to open my own music label. I think it is very important to help Russian artists develop. The new stage of my DJ career will be writing my own music, although it is difficult.
EG: Do you have a so-called role model?
Karina: I'm inspired by Korean house DJ Peggy Goo. She plays in Berghain at the largest electronic festivals and at the same time can sit at the Louis Vuitton show with Kanye West and participate in collaborations with cosmetic brands. Moreover, she is very stylish and has incredible taste in music. I want to develop in the same direction.
EG: It seems that the plane has already become your second home. Is it difficult to live in such a schedule?
Karina: I love my job, but, of course, I suffer a lot because I am so busy. Sleeping for two hours on planes, night sets, constant release of energy, studying music and searching for new tracks sometimes result in nervous breakdowns. When I say “nervous breakdown,” I mean that you don’t just cry in a hotel from fatigue, but go to a psychologist because you realize that life is not nice to you.
It’s like you’re on the edge of a ravine where you can either give up everything or gain strength again, because it’s not your style to give up. And just like that, torn into two parts, you crawl further up the mountain... Such a life has turned into melancholy, but I can still joke and go out into society. So I haven't gone completely crazy yet.
EG: For you, is our rap Russian rap or rap in Russian?
Karina: This is Russian rap, which, it seems to me, has just reached the first stage of development. So there are still a lot of new and interesting things ahead of us. Now everything is very mixed up, rap is the new rock. And it’s very cool that hip-hop is the main genre that teenagers listen to, because in all of this there is a desire to strive forward.
I was at the Boulevard Depo performance and was pleasantly shocked. He's a very cool dude with an incredible vibe. I still listen to the group “LAUD” a lot, and I highly recommend paying attention to them.
EG: What is love? Does the definition of this feeling change with age?
Karina: I don't know now, but the definition is definitely changing. I'm trying to stop the feeling of falling in love, based only on passion. I want to be understood, supported and much stronger than me. Perhaps then it would become easier for me to live in harmony with myself. And yet in this moment This is not the time for great love or for any short romances. I want to achieve a lot, I’m afraid that relationships will slow down and take away the energy that is needed in music.