Olympia little big. Little Big: “If you want to change the country, you have to show it this way

#SkibidiChallenge blew up social networks. The dance from LittleBig's viral video was repeated by thousands of Instagram users. And not only Russian ones: in the CIS countries, Europe and America, they also fell in love with the movements to the “skibidi pa-pa-pa.” The “Evening Urgant” team and the “Khleb” group have already joined the flash mob.

So that you can get to know each other better Little Big, we provide a selection interesting facts about them.

1 fact: Little Big is a rave band originally from St. Petersburg. The group's style is to make fun of various stereotypes about Russians in their tracks. Initially, LB consisted of Ilya Prusikin (Ilyich), Sergey Makarov (Gokk) and two vocalists Anna Kast and Olympia Ivleva. The name of the group was born due to the difference in height within the group (Anna and Olympia are no higher than 130 cm).

Fact 2: On April 1, 2013, the first Little Big video appeared online. This day is considered the date of birth of the group. The video for “EveryDay I’m Drinking” took off, and the guys were invited to open for Die Antwoord. LB, of course, had no songs - no one expected such quick success. So we had to quickly get together and write tracks. In one month, Little Big gave birth to six of them. They were performed at the Die Antwoord concert in July 2013.

Fact 3: The leader of the Little Big group is a psychologist by education. But Ilya Prusikin did not go to all classes at the institute. And after practical training, I decided not to get involved with psychology at all. He liked creativity more. Before LB, Ilyich had many projects, the most famous of which are related to the YouTube community “Thank you, Eva!”

Fact 4: Not a single Little Big video costs more than a million. Production is in the hands of the band's musicians and other members of KlikKlak ( creative association YouTube, which includes LB). All by yourself! In general, the band members are really very involved in creative process and are ready to do anything for the sake of the product. For example, in the video “Life in da trash” Ilya Prusikin ate real maggots. He did this as many as five times, because the take was not immediately successful.

Fact 5: Little Big didn't invest a penny in their promotion. They became popular due to their content. And not only in Russia. The group is very popular in Europe. Ilyich and the other members of LB have a goal of becoming world stars - and they are on the way to it. The musicians already have listeners from France, Germany, Holland, Canada and Australia.

Fact 6: Ilyich's wife is Ira Smelaya. She is better known as Tatarka. Ilya and Ira have a son, Dobrynya. You can learn about the life of this family by looking at Smelaya’s blog “Tatar Everyday Life”.

Alexandra Shepelyuk

LITTLE BIG – Everyday I’m drinking

The video “Everyday I’m drinking” by the St. Petersburg rave group Little Big blew up the Internet. To energetic music, two “Thumbelina” in kokoshniks and a tall guy in tracksuit they drink vodka, play the balalaika and imitate sex with a bear. “There is no future here” is the key idea of ​​the track performed on English language. The result is two and a half million views in a few months.

For the first time in Russia, little people are performing outside of the circus arena. “They’re listening to us!” – Anna Kast, one of the vocalists of the Little Big group, admires. On stage she is a “little devil in a snuff box.” Olympia Ivleva has a different image - more gentle. The miniature size of the girls is emphasized by two brutal macho men - musicians Ilya Prusikin and Sergey Gokk.

ANNA CAST. WE WERE TABOOED

Little people – that’s what we should be called, not “disabled people.” Or, for example, that terrible k-word. It is unacceptable in Europe!

I have long been accustomed to being in public. Television, tattoo shows, Fort Bo-yard, theatrical performances... My artistic life began in the erotic theater Never Porn. It was scandalous project: “Never porn, always art.” Then - “Sado-opera”. And now Little Big is, of course, the most sincere. Here I can not only “work with my face”, but also express myself. This is first and foremost my cry to society: “Hello! There are little people in the world. And they can even be pleasant, kind, and talented.” There are many opponents. "What? How? Where did they come from? There are categories of people who are negatively disposed towards us.

The social theme in Little Big is emphasized by the obvious texture of little people, which makes our cry even louder. If in America you meet little people at every step, then in Russian culture we are taboo. We are not here. Our “ceiling” is a circus arena.

PERSONAL

I hope little people in other cities are inspired when they see Little Big. Their destiny is mainly to sit within four walls. The overwhelming majority of them have forgotten how to communicate, they grew up in boarding schools, their route is as follows: work - home. And they develop the belief that they should not communicate with outside world which may offend. All these are complexes from childhood. I was lucky - my mother raised me differently. When I was born, they frightened my mother and tried to persuade her to give up on me. But she held on and was very proud of me, my every success, every step. I went to the yard kindergarten and delighted her with my exhibitions - I drew. Then I went to regular school. I kicked the ball with the boys, fought - I have to get through this. My mother sternly told me: “If you don’t learn the poems for tomorrow’s lesson, I won’t buy you a German doll at DLT and I’ll give you a belt.” Of course, in the end I learned poetry and was one of the best! When they said bad things about me, I smiled. Today he will point his finger at me, and tomorrow he will come and ask for a toy himself... But I’m used to gaining respect thanks to my intellect.

I experienced complexes only once - during my first love, when I was 15 years old. How can this be? He is at a slow dance He didn’t invite me, but my friend! But I liked him! Very disappointing…

Relationships with men are excellent. I don't have female friends, but I have male friends. I enjoy the spiritual communication that I receive from them. Now I don’t have someone to cook pasta for every day. But there is a family in the plans, I take this very seriously.

THE HARDEST THING TO GET A JOB IS

I am a librarian by training. In 2007, I came to work at the school through an acquaintance – I had once taught there German. I found out that there is a vacancy for a teacher. She smiled and told the children: “Hello, I will work for you.” At first, someone was whispering behind my back. But years have passed, I already meet them in bars, they have grown into serious people and now they apologize to me for saying badly: “Anya, I’m sorry.” And I didn’t even know about it!

Main problem little man- employment. Let you be a criminal, cool, with five higher education, but without acquaintances it is very difficult to get a job. Everything else is nonsense.

There are no problems with clothes now; you can buy anything you want. Second hand is a wonderful thing. IN Soviet time it was much more difficult. My mother even thought about opening her own atelier... And now she bought it, folded it and wear it. Dressed correctly, you already create the image of a confident person.

OLYMPIA IVLEVA. HARMONIOUS PERSONALITY

My participation in Little Big is pure creativity. I sing, dance, perform rave. We all discuss video scripts, song lyrics, speak out, offer our ideas. Before Little Big, I was a presenter - I opened a company that organizes holidays. When I went on stage for the first time, I felt just like any other person. For example, if you invite a miner to the microphone, he will feel uncomfortable and awkward. So do I. The stage image is developed over the years - Here with you I am a Turgenev girl and I wear a classic manicure. And tomorrow on stage I’m tearing out my hair and clothes. But these are two sides of one personality, they complement each other. Now I'm not interested in classics, opera, pop music. I want to experiment, do a rave.

When the Everyday I’m drinking video came out, I thought that my strict, intelligent mother, a true Petersburger, would say: “Uh-oh, how could you?” And my mother surprised me: “Well done, but they went a little too far with the bear.” But if we didn't go overboard, it would be pointless.

MY CREDO IS TO SEEK THE ADVANTAGES

You ask what is the main problem of the little man in St. Petersburg. You are asking the wrong question. Everywhere there is a problem of people who are somehow different from the rest: height, weight, race... And there is a rejection of small people all over the world, I see this very well. Yes, I'm short, I understand that. But for myself, I never focused on this. Each person has his own complexes, and tall people too.

I had no problems finding employment. My life credo is to look not for difficulties in life, but for the positives. Personally, this helps me a lot.

But there are things that don’t fit in my head. I still live with this. I walk down the street and feel that for some reason people around me are paying attention to me. And I don't understand why. Maybe my clothes are dirty?

One of the brightest and most provocative Russian rave groups, “Little big,” performs songs in English, motivated by their desire to become an international group and glorify the country far beyond its borders. They can do it.

“I have a super idea, I want the Russian group to become global,” says the band’s frontman Ilya Prusikin.

History of creation and composition

The history of the creation of the Little Big group begins in 2013. St. Petersburg video blogger, known on YouTube as Ilyich, decided to make a joke on April 1. The musician, together with his friends, came up with, recorded and posted a video for the song “Every Day I’m Drinking” online.

The video took off, immediately creating two opposing camps of listeners. Some condemned the musicians as discrediting their homeland, others saw in everything only a satire on the surrounding reality. There were no indifferent people. The group members position themselves as broadcasters, reflecting what is happening in Russian society.

A story about the group would not be complete without describing several moments from the biography of its frontman Ilya Prusikin. The future musician was born in Transbaikalia in 1985, but later the family moved to the city Pinery near St. Petersburg. As a child, he played in KVN, and also graduated music school in piano class. Music career began in 2003 with participation in the emo rock group Tenkor, then in Like A Virgin, St. Bastards" and "Construktorr".

Having gone through different musical styles and having decided by 2013 with own passions in creativity, Prusikin creates “Little big” and records the first video. However, despite his popularity, the group might not have worked out. Its appearance can be considered a matter of chance and coincidence.

After the first resounding success On the Internet, the band was invited to perform as an opening act for the South African hip-hop group “Die Antwoord”, whose concert took place in July 2013.

At that time, the musicians had 1 song ready. In the month remaining before the event, 6 new compositions were born, which were performed in the capital's A2 club. The public received the group with a bang, forcing the guys to finally believe in themselves and move on.

The team includes: frontman Ilya Ilyich Prusikin, sound producer, DJ Sergey Gokk Makarov, soloists, and vocalist Anton Lissov (Mr. Clown).

At the beginning of its existence, she performed in the group, but she left the group, and Sofya Tayurskaya was taken in her place. At the beginning of the year, Olympia also left the team, deciding to pursue her own business projects. The permanent music video director of the group is Alina Pyazok.

Music

The debut album “With Russia From Love” was presented to listeners on March 17, 2014. The disc contains 12 tracks, including “Every Day I"m Drinking”, “Russian Hooligans”, “What A Fucking Day”, “Freedom”, “Stoned Monkey”.

New clips appeared on the Internet and rapidly gained views and likes. The team began to be invited to European countries. The musicians attended concerts in France, Belgium, and Germany. Their performances appealed to sophisticated Western audiences.

In September 2015, the guys released a video for “Give Me Your Money”, and at the same time, the pilot episode of the mini-series in English “American Russians”. In 2016, the video took 3rd place at the Berlin Music Video Awards festival in the “Best Performer” category. And at the end of 2015, “Funeral Rave” appeared with 9 tracks in the composition.

In 2015, he confidently took 8th place in the Russian “iTunes” chart and 5th in “ Google Play" There are a limited number of rave groups in Russia and abroad, but the demand for such music is obvious.

“We didn’t invest a single penny in our promotion, but we became famous in Russia and Europe. They wrote music and made videos. That’s it,” Ilya Prusikin said in an interview about the promotion of “Little Big” and the reasons for its popularity.

The 2nd album included the song “Big Dick” with one of the group’s most provocative videos. It not only became the winner of the Berlin Music Video Awards festival in the “Most Trashy” category, but in a short time it turned into a real virus, spreading across all social networks.

Ilyich, in an interview with Yuri Dudu, explained why they decided to play on the theme of sex. The musician explains that in the videos of modern Russian and foreign pop performers, as well as in videos designed for sales, this topic is present to increase public interest. The group just exaggerated it and brought it to the forefront, ridiculing this way of attracting attention.

The patriotic song “Polyushko Polye” found its place in the same album. The video contains beauty and recognizable landmarks from many parts of Russia. The footage included in the video was filmed by enthusiasts and sent to the team. More than 20 cities are shown in 4 minutes.

In March 2017, the group released the single "Rave On" and its video. And at the end of the year, fans saw new clip LollyBomb. In it, an actor who closely resembles the North Korean leader tends to his bomb. According to Ilya Prusikin, they took a topical topic and laughed at Kim Jong-un’s threats.

"The song plays on the words lollypop and lollybomb to refer to beautiful woman. Her beauty is as explosive as a bomb,” explains Ilyich.

In the first 2 weeks after being posted on YouTube, the clip was watched by 10 million users. At the end of the year, “LollyBomb” became the best at the Los Angeles Film Festival “Global Film Festival Awards” in the “Best Music Video” category. “Little big” sometimes work in collaboration with other groups. So, in 2017, they teamed up with the German electroniccore band “Eskimo Callboy”, and the song “Nightlife” appeared.

The group has its own label, which unites “Little big” itself, as well as the Russian folk-punk-hardcore group “The Hatters”, trap performer Tatarka (wife of Ilya Prusikin), the team, and the Israeli rave group “Orgonite” and rapper.

"Little big" now

Now the group is at the peak of its popularity. They have hundreds of concerts, albums, and brilliant videos behind them. In 2018, the album “Antipositive” appeared in the “Littie big” discography: in March - the 1st part, and in October - the 2nd. The band's music has noticeably become heavier, with a mixture of punk, rave and rap coming to the fore. Some tracks feature electric guitar.

Throughout the fall, the team was on a Russian tour in support of new records. Spectators different cities We heard the band’s favorite compositions performed live: “AK 47”, “Real People”, “Mon ami”, “Punks Not Dead” and others.

The 2nd disc contains a new dance hit, blowing up the Internet and forcing fans to copy the trendy movement from the “Skibidi” video. IN official group“Little big” wrote on VKontakte that in 2 weeks the video for this composition received more than 33 million views on the YouTube channel. On Facebook - more than 59 million, and on official page Mixmag magazine collected more than 642 thousand reposts.

On April 1, 2018, Olympia Ivleva left the group. The girl wrote about the decision under the photo on her personal page on Instagram. The official comment from the group states:

“Over the course of 5 years, Olympia and I have come a long way - we shot 14 million-dollar videos, played about 300 concerts, traveled to a huge number of cities in a bunch of countries around the world and managed to turn from a small YouTube project into one respected throughout Russia and Europe music group».

In an interview, the vocalist explained her departure with the popular theory of the need to change profession every 5 years. She said she spent a lot of time thinking about it before making the move. When I realized that I couldn’t give anything more to the project, I made my final decision and left.

Now the group is on a wave of popularity. In September, the musicians performed the song “Faradenza” on Channel One in the program “Evening Urgant”.

Discography

• 2014 - "With Russia From Love"
• 2015 - "Funeral Rave"
• 2018 - "Antipositive", Pt. 1
• 2018 - "Antipositive", Pt. 2

Clips

• 2013 - “Everyday I’m Drinking”
• 2013 - “We Will Push A Button”
• 2014 - “With Russia From Love”
• 2014 - “Dead Unicorn”
• 2015 - “Kind Inside, Hard Outside”
• 2016 - “Big Dick”
• 2016 - “Hateful Love”
• 2016 - “Polyushko Polye”
• 2017 - "Rave On"
• 2017 - “LollyBomb”
• 2018 - “Punks Not Dead”
• 2018 - “Faradenza”
• 2018 - “Ak-47”
• 2018 - “Skibidi”

• 11. 07. 2016

Her height is 130 centimeters. But the diagnosis of “achondroplasia” was not a death sentence for Anna Kast, but a way to assert her uniqueness

“Your child has died,” the doctors told Anna’s mother. The girl was actually born dead. But after 12 minutes I started breathing. And now, when they ask her how she achieved everything, the girl answers: “I began to survive from birth.”

She played in the films “Cop Wars”, “Pen and Sword”, “In Your Eyes”, “Once Upon a Time There Was a Fox”, “Treasure”, became the queen of the international tattoo convention; performed in productions of the theatrical and erotic project Neverporn; opened the premiere of the cartoon “Despicable Me” at the Kinotavr festival. She also participated in the Mercedes-Benz fashion show, founded popular group Little Big and recently opened her own tattoo parlor, KastHome. With all her actions she is trying to prove to little people that people with achondroplasia can live normal life, and not hide in your corners. But she has to fight not only with their prejudices, but also with the condemnation of the majority of society, not accustomed to others, unusual, not like everyone else. But Anya is stronger, because from childhood her mother explained to her that she is the best and she will succeed.

In Soviet times, Anna's future father came to Leningrad from Cuba to defend his diploma in chemistry. Mom then worked at the secret Bolshevik plant, which produced spare parts for tanks. When everything started to spiral, KGB officers methodically began to call her, interrogated her and wanted to fire her, because the party forbade having a relationship with a foreigner. But the plant management intervened. The parents lived together until their daughter was one year old. Then dad left and didn’t return: maybe he was afraid of the girl’s diagnosis or the pressure of the party, or maybe he found another love.

Anna is not offended: “I am grateful to dad for giving me life. For your hair, skin, immunity. If it weren’t for him, I wouldn’t be so beautiful, so individual and wouldn’t smile at life. He is Spanish and lives in Cuba. They are starving there, but they are dancing.” The nickname Cast is an abbreviation for Spanish surname Castellanos.

Anna Kast

The girl was born small, but she didn’t notice it until she was 15 years old. From the very beginning, the mother convinced her daughter: “You are the best, you can do anything.” Already in kindergarten she began to receive her first awards at competitions. As a child, I felt like an ordinary child: I played volleyball with the boys, ran from dogs, ate crumpets with my cousin in a store on Staronevsky Prospekt, which my grandmother, a cleaner, saved for them.

Fortunately, Anya’s mother had enough love and courage not to try to change nature. “Now many mothers of children like me are discussing growth hormones on the Internet, which they give to their children without a doctor’s prescription, without being interested in the consequences,” Anya says with horror. - So they try to correct their “grief”, as they call it, and they think that the children will immediately become normal. It happens that hormones have a strange effect: arms or legs grow, but the rest does not. Children are now given the Ilizarov apparatus at the age of three, although previously it was required by law at twelve. Yesterday we went on a boat ride with a friend to whom we installed it. She herself cannot enter the ship - her legs do not bend, the tendons are all strained. The bones stretch from the apparatus, but the tendons do not. How can you break healthy bones? Children spend five years in the hospital with the device. And after that, there is no question of a normal childhood: swimming, cycling.

Children need support from birth, not cosmetic enhancements

Moreover, they lengthen it for the sake of a difference of 10 centimeters. All this is instead of instilling in the child that he is the best, that he can do anything. Children need support from birth, not cosmetic enhancements.”

And then Anya started transitional age and first disappointments. “In 2001, when there were no social networks, the fashionable feature was telephone pranks. That’s how I met a young man, his name was Kim. We talked for a week and he made an appointment with me. And I understand that I can’t go because I didn’t explain what I look like. I just said that I vertically challenged, and he replied: “Nothing, it’s so interesting with you!” I shared it with my mother, and she supported me: she took me to the store and bought me high-heeled boots for 700 rubles. I put them on under a floor-length checkered blue dress and went. We were supposed to meet in the subway. I waited for Kim on the platform for 45 minutes. I saw him from afar, behind a pillar, and recognized him from the description of his clothes. When I came home, he called me and said that he could no longer see me. And I cried - I was ashamed in front of my mother that she bought me boots,” Anna tells this story and cries again. Because mom is no longer there.

She was not hired to work in her specialty, as a librarian. At the district reading room they asked: “How will you reach the shelves?” Then my mother said that the elite school, where the children of actors and politicians study, needed a teacher on duty.

“I come to school and line up all the children in the corridor, 300 people, and say: “Hello. From today I am working with you. My name is Anya,” the girl recalls. Now grown-up students invite her to weddings, come to the salon to get tattoos, or see her in clubs.

During the day she watched children at school, and at night she worked as an animator and acted in films. After a while, the school administration began to force Anna out of work: “I smiled a lot. I came to school as if it were a holiday, like a red carpet - they didn’t like it.”

Anna Kast

Anna Kast

In 2009, Anna got her first tattoo with her then-boyfriend Pasha. A few days later, she received a call from the salon and was invited to film the theatrical and erotic project Neverporn based on Andersen’s fairy tale “The Naked King”: “I was interested in filming for them - this is art. You need to be careful with eroticism, especially in our situation, you can’t overdo it. There must be a talented photographer so that it is not messy. So that the trolls don’t say: “Finally, we’ve filmed the dwarfs!”

A week later, she was chosen as the queen of the international tattoo festival, although she had practically no tattoos. She made a second one on it: an image of a black and white cassette with recordings of Toto Cutugno, Michael Jackson and Paul McCartney, which her father once gave to her mother. On the third day of the competition, she released a stream of fire from her mouth from the stage - she learned this backstage, five minutes before the performance. And so she won. Then everything started to happen very quickly: touring with theatrical performances Neverporn teams in Germany, Holland.

In her eighth year of work at school, friends suggested that Anna work as an administrator in a tattoo parlor. “Thanks to them, my fear of leaving school disappeared. Even though I was earning seven thousand there, I was still scared to quit.” The girl took a vacation and worked in the studio for a month. I was disappointed and three days later I decided to open my own tattoo salon, KastHome. It took another week to make repairs and recruit clients.

In 2013, Anna, together with another little girl Olympia, created the rave group Little Big. They became famous for their provocative and satirical videos about life in Russia. Anna says that she came up with the group in order to draw public attention to the existence of little people in Russia, and to inspire the little ones themselves. “I take every opportunity of an interview or appearance on TV to declare that we exist, that we are not some kind of fairy-tale invention out of the woods. Little Big for me is a social activity, a reminder of myself.” The group gathered stadiums of thousands in Russia and Europe: France, Hungary, Spain, Switzerland and Italy.

Anna often compares the living conditions of little people in Europe and Russia and posts real-life examples on her page. She wants to prove to society that there is nothing wrong with being unusual: “In Russia there are very few pairs of little and little. Because they are afraid to draw attention to their unusualness, they want to blend into the crowd with someone “normal.”

But abroad this is normal: a couple - two small children and a child. There their future is thought out. All social services are paid for, they live like the rich. They hardly work, they just hang out. But here there is no such thing. You are born this way, you receive a pension of eight thousand, and how you establish yourself in society depends only on you.”

Abroad this is normal: two little ones and a child. All social services are paid for, they live like the rich

Anya established herself in society. She left the group, but her popularity has not gone away: “Now I don’t take the subway, I’m afraid. Because people constantly take pictures with me everywhere and say hello. Little Big fans, police officers - everyone. Recently I went to temple. A couple of days later, an unfamiliar boy wrote to me that he saw me confessing and even crying. There is no peace even in the temple.”

Of course, there is a kind of coquetry in this. But Anya also has to deal with hostility, from all sides: « Me and my pages in in social networks Little people talk a lot. They don't understand me, they think I disgrace them. I show myself in images, and they think that I am a buffoon. The fact that I am an animator and earn money from this, and this is difficult in our situation, does not interest them. And they don’t have a single photo on their personal pages at all, I don’t understand this. When the state and society are against people, they unite in their own small groups similar friends at a friend and say: “Yes, we are unhappy. Okay, we’ll live as is.”

Anna Kast

They judge me and ordinary women: “How so? She's not like everyone else. Why is she so outspoken? Why can't we do this? This is not normal." They write to me: “Aren’t you ashamed? This is a disgrace.” They will never say it's because I'm small. Why don't they write this to others? I offend them because I am different and I am brave. According to the standards, I should live within four walls, remain silent and enjoy my pension.”

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Little Big- a St. Petersburg rave group, known for its controversial and daring videos not only in Russia, but also abroad. Ilya Prusikin (Ilyich), Sergey Makarov (Gokk), Anna Kast and Olympia Ivleva position themselves not as a musical group, but as a whole collaboration of musicians, models, video makers, make-up artists, a millionaire clown and a writer. With this lineup, over the course of a year of existence, they have already released five videos and one full-length album.

Gokk: Our album was released on March 15, and on March 22 there will be only a presentation. So there is already a reaction, and it is, understandably, ambiguous: some praise it, while others write: “How can you? You are a disgrace to Mother Russia." Even those who think the album is disgusting repost it and tell their friends about it. This means that there are no indifferent people, and this is the main thing. By the way, there are literally two songs in the album with such banter content, the rest are great stories about the country and our friends.

About your favorite tracks

Ilyich:“Freedom” is a track about the pointlessness of war, when they simply pit people against each other and tell them to fight for the redistribution of spheres of influence or resources. I really don’t understand this: how can people go at each other, million on million, although no one has caused personal harm to either side?

And don’t think that this song is a response to the current political situation. Because it has always been like this - there have always been these senseless wars.

Gokk: My favorite song from the album is “My way”. The track is so soulful, about all of us, our friends, with whom we make our history, write music, shoot videos, just spend time together and try to make ourselves and this world better.

Anna Kast on the set of a video invitation to the Die Antwoord concert
Sergey Makarov (Gokk) on the set of a video invitation to the Die Antwoord concert
Olympia Ivleva on the set of a video invitation to the Die Antwoord concert

Ilya Prusikin (Ilyich) on the set of a video invitation to the Die Antwoord concert

About your audience

Gokk: We looked at the statistics of our group’s attendance: 63% are people over 18 years old. That is, a very young audience is only 30 and a penny percent. The majority are from 18 to 25, then those who are about thirty and over 50.

Ilyich: No joke, we want to become world stars. If it works, great. We already have a global audience, the number is approximately the same as in Russia. Many people listen to us in France, Germany, Holland. There is also an audience in Canada and Australia. The first video sold more in France than here.

Claims usually come from those who themselves come abroad and vomit in the pool

About their and our perception

Gokk: Foreigners perceive our videos and songs, first of all, as healthy satire, but the Russian public does not always react adequately. Some people say we're making the Russians look bad. Claims usually come from those who themselves come abroad and vomit in the pool. It's like they listened to our album and said, "I'm going to go puke in the pool."

Olympia Ivleva on the set of the video Everyday I’m drinking

About stereotypes

Ilyich: Our songs and videos only play on existing stereotypes, and we haven’t invented or added anything new - Russia does everything for us. This Russian person insults the country and himself with his behavior, and I don’t want to have anything in common with such people. We're just making fun of it.

In general, these stereotypes are delusional: on the one hand, true, but at the same time exaggerated. And we want to bring them to such an absurdity that one day they will simply disappear. Our foreign fans will watch the clips and say: “What the hell, everything is really not like that, this is Russia. Everyone there is smart and reads books.” But it will still be a stereotype, only on the contrary: we have a huge number of illiterate people. So no matter how much we want, we will still lie.

We are regularly compared to Die Antwoord - mainly because of Ilya's hairstyle

About Russian people

Ilyich: the main problem Russia was and will be - these are people. 80% are happy with everything, and they do nothing, they live like animals. And if you go to the regions, it’s absolutely crazy. Trouble is not a road, it is just a consequence that cannot be gotten rid of until people change.

And the officials are ordinary people who were born in the Soviet Union. They are just like the rest of us, only they became rich. Politicians are total reflection our society. And if these 80%, who spread rot on the authorities, drink and don’t want to change anything in their lives, put those officials in their place, we will still get today’s Russia.

About comparisons with Die Antwoord

Gokk: We are regularly compared to Die Antwoord - mainly because of Ilya's hairstyle. Only he has been walking with it since 2009, and Ninja got it much later. The music and style are different, but because of the hairstyle, we must definitely say that we are similar. It is necessary and convenient for people to compare us with them based on this insignificant external similarity, but oh well.

In general, Die Antwoord are great guys, last year we opened for them in St. Petersburg and it was very cool. We met, took pictures, they invited us to visit. Maybe we can get together and record something cool together.

About the concert

Gokk: Everyone who watches and listens to us on the Internet should definitely come to the concert and see it all live. Now we are doing a cool program with installations, the light and sound will be on high level. We want it to be fun for us to play, and for others to enjoy it too. And, by the way, we are going to film a cool crowd scene with everyone who comes to the concert.

Little Big concert in support of the debut album will be held on March 22 at 20:00 at the Cosmonaut club. Ticket prices start from 600 rubles. For details, please call (812) 303–33–33.