Gleb, Galina. Anton Slyepakov about Kherson in the 1990s and Stas Volyazlovsky/ YourArt, from October 14, 2019

About experimental music of the 1990s, rebellious moods of nonconformists, the culture of “gopnichestvo” in Kherson, and specifically about friendship with Stas Volyazlovsky and joint projects, musician, poet, and frontman of the band “vagonovozhatye” Anton Slyepakov told in an interview with Halyna Hleba.

The conversation took place as part of the work on Stas Volyazlovsky’s profile for the Ukrainian art archive “Research Platform” of PinchukArtCentre.

The interview was recorded in November 2018.

KHERSON CULTURE OF THE 1990s: “GOPNICHESTVO” AND NONCONFORMISTS

Anton, your loudest musical projects, such as “Ya i drug moy Gruzovik” and “vagonovozhatye,” are associated with Dnipro and Kyiv. But you studied in Kherson, and your first musical bands in the early 1990s were formed there, although you yourself are from Kyiv. How did you end up in Kherson?

In my youth, there was a strong desire to leave home, to get out from under my parents’ care as soon as possible. And my aunt lived in the Kherson region, so I often went to her for holidays or vacations. Passing by Kherson, I happened to have a full set of documents with me and unexpectedly applied to the Kherson Pedagogical Institute for Russian language and literature. Then came the dormitory, friends, and a very, very strange city. As it turned out later, a city with a somewhat hostile environment.

What was the hostility of post-Soviet cities like in the 1990s?

The main problem in Kherson, in particular, was the so-called “gopnik” movement, and they created problematic conditions for any free expressions. The cause of street fights was most often appearance: long hair, unusual clothes, earrings in ears. To preserve health, earrings often had to be taken out on the street.

Were there specific precedents?

There were fights; I was often on the receiving end of quite harsh beatings. The informal movement in Kherson at that time was NOT calm, NOT safe, and NOT free. Throughout the first year, I felt like a confused hero of a film with a paranoid desire and need to find at least a few like-minded people.

Did the need for self-identification manifest through appearance, or was it a rebellious response to the system?

Those external manifestations of inner freedom in Kherson were a challenge to society, to retrograde ideology, because it was still the Soviet Union, and we were the first generation of transition. On my jacket lapel, the yellow-blue flag was next to a Lenin badge because I was supposedly a Komsomol member. Such a strange combination that today is hard to imagine.

What was Kyiv like at that time?

In Kyiv, of course, conditions were also difficult; it was patrolled by so-called “city sanitarians” who aimed to catch and “re-educate” all those metalheads, punks, and hippies. But Kyiv was still freer; there were places for mass gatherings of nonconformists, many events “for our own” — sessions, concerts, exhibitions.

In Kherson, it was too easy to catch those who looked different: not in a tracksuit, not in an “Alaska” jacket, not in a cap like a “Georgian aerodrome.”

Where and how did you look for like-minded people?

The entire media space of those times was oversaturated with the moods of the informal movement. By the second year, I set a clear goal to create my own band. I wrote songs, seeing it as an opportunity to find similar people.

What was circulating in the media space then?

Programs like “Vzglyad,” “Programma A,” for example. They aired only on central Soviet television, showing many rock bands, typical “Soviet” rock. From Ukrainian content, there appeared, for example, the youth studio “Hart,” where after midnight they played clips of Ukrainian bands; it was there that “VV” and “Braty Hadyukiny” first appeared.

How quickly did you find like-minded people?

I got used to the city landscapes and finally began to notice strange, extraordinary people in it. That’s how I learned that nonconformists existed in the city. I attended a few uncertain sessions, met a whole bunch of people, and by autumn 1991 we created our own band “Vitya Maleev v shkole i doma.”

The philological faculty is quite noticeable in the names of your bands.

Yes, indeed. In particular, the reference for that band was a story by Nikolay Nosov. I was fascinated by children’s literature then. It seemed that the themes of children’s works were much more interesting and stronger than those of adult literature.

After the first concerts with our band, a cellist from the Kherson Music College, Katya Klimenko, joined us. Impressed by our unusual crowd, she really wanted to show off her acquaintance with her extraordinary friends, among whom was Stas. It was then that we visited the artist Stas Volyazlovsky.

What year was this?

In October 1992, we came to his home with a guitar and cello. It was a two-room apartment where he lived all his life with his mother. His room was cramped but cozy — a sofa, a record player, books, and a constant circulation of some people. I remember his archaic coffee maker, which had to be turned for a very long and tedious time to brew even a small portion of coffee. Stas performed this ritual. We drank, played, and new guests kept opening the door saying: “Only in Volyazlovsky’s apartment can you go to the artist and get into musical sessions.”

How long did you live in Kherson?

During my studies. Then I left Kherson and returned several times. Until 1997, I was there on visits.

Returning to the topic of “gopniks.” What do you think could be the reason for the prevalence of such a peculiar social layer specifically in Kherson? Because I heard two different versions from locals — either the contingent of colonies located in the Kherson region or sailors who at some point in history were left without work and gradually marginalized.

You know, it’s hard for me to understand why exactly this way. In the 1990s, entire residential areas in Kherson were criminalized; they often arranged large mass fights among themselves. And this is really strange because the parents of local friends told me that in the 1960s, hippies from other republics gathered in Kherson on their way to Odessa and Crimea. And how hippies turned into gopniks — I simply can’t comprehend. And in the context of gopniks, I was only interested in my safety, and all our sessions were always associated with the danger of attack. At least because after one of the first concerts, guys from the friendly band “Kaktus+BB” were brutally beaten, cut, and the drummer, who was studying to be a hairdresser, had his hand pierced with scissors.

Who was the audience of the sessions and your concerts, since you said earlier that it was not easy to find informal culture in the city?

Actually, nonconformists gathered near the Suvorov monument since the late 1980s. This is the only pedestrian promenade in the city, and there you could find like-minded people. Secondly, there was a large migration of crowds from one to another. We mixed — artists, musicians, theater people, scattered crowds became united.

ABOUT STAS

You mentioned meeting Volyazlovsky. What was his place in these crowds?

It seems to me that the “gopnicheskaya” culture greatly influenced his creativity, videos, and works. The aura of certain conversations, characters that Stas absorbed was never indifferent or condescending to their aesthetics and worldview features. And yet he was part of the city’s nonconformist crowd, attended all our sessions, actively hung out, although he could communicate with “shaved guys.”

Did such mixed crowds create something together? Were there joint projects, collaborations?

All this was not serious activity for us, rather a pleasure from joint action. Once Stas and I started a mini-performance: I beat rhythm on an empty cardboard box and sang, and Stas, according to the rhythm and mood, painted his associations and images on sheets hung on the wall. Around 1995, I proposed publishing a joint “samizdat” with his drawings and my poems.

Was Stas already writing poems then? I ask because Volyazlovsky is quite textual in his artistic practice; your poetry with him has similarities in rhythm, structure, and speech oxymorons. The only difference is that Stas actively uses obscene vocabulary, images, and themes.

I don’t recall him writing poems then, but it was exactly then that he began to find his style in drawings. He was also fascinated by ceramics, archaic images, totemic symbols. I even have works he gave me as gifts, one of which is an anthropomorphic pencil holder called “The Man Who Carries His Cross.” Later he suddenly disowned ceramics, saying he was fed up with it. It even seemed he began to be ashamed and hide this part of his practice.

After leaving Kherson, did you keep in touch with him?

For almost 10 years, I did not communicate with him; there was no opportunity to come, and messengers for correspondence were not yet available. From 1997 to 2007, I only learned from the press what was happening with him.

Describe Stas at that time as a person; you knew him long before his professional rise, long before gallery and commercial success.

Stas was a complicated person, neurotic, cautious, but open and incredibly sincere with close ones. There were different episodes; sometimes, worrying about his works and their value to art, he would smash his ceramics, throw them on the floor. As for appearance, Stas loved to be noticeable — with long hair, earrings in his ears. Although later, quite suddenly, he shaved his head bald, probably also in some emotional frenzy.

And I also remember an interesting episode: I was walking down Andriyivskyy Descent in Kyiv, entered the “Triptych” gallery, and there was an exhibition of ceramics by a famous Soviet artist. The works looked like ceramic plumbing — some taps, elbows. I brought the exhibition booklet to Stas as a gift, and he looked at it for a long time, closed it, and said thoughtfully: “Maybe I should start sculpting taps, huh, Slyepakov…?”

Did Stas try himself in music then? Because later the gop-glam band “RAPANY” would appear, and it’s interesting whether there were musical ambitions of Volyazlovsky before that.

I don’t recall that either. But Volyazlovsky designed my first CD. We created it in 1996. At that time, not only did not everyone have CD players — few had cassette players. So, I found on the floor of Stas’s ceramic vocational school a metal blank that looked very much like a CD. Stas designed it as a cover with his signature font; we invented the album’s tracklist and a fictional lineup of participants. In fact, it was an art object — a metal disc resembling a CD that cannot be played. We decided it would contain a concert of silence, and all tracks were related to this concept — “Silent Lena,” “Some Kind of Silence…” and others. We also held international “Scientific Conferences of Kherson Avant-garde,” and in 1995 the “Perm Society of Poets, Artist-Literators” (also “ODIKAL – Society of Captain Lebyadkin’s Children”) came; we befriended them and gave them the disc. It is still kept by the guys in Perm.

Who else was in your crowd at that time?

Stas once befriended a unique guy named Hlib; he and his brother lived in Tsyurupinsk (now the village of Oleshky, Kherson region — ed.). They were absolutely crazy, unlike anyone else, maybe because they moved here from the Baltics. And this Hlib with his brother Maltus and guys from Kherson created the only punk band in the world “Pichismo,” which sang in Esperanto. It was not just punk; such music did not exist at that time — it was some kind of screamo-hardcore, pure screech, noise…

Stas hung out with these guys for a long time, designed their albums with his signature font. His font story fully formed around 1995.

Do you remember any of his works from that time, anything memorable?

For me, his ceramics from that time are valuable. I’m incredibly glad I have them preserved. He also began to be fascinated by graphics then. He made many colorful works, blue with white spots. He opened his sofa to friends, and there was everything piled up in a huge heap.

Was your farewell to Kherson traumatic?

Rather symbolic. When I was leaving Kherson, I arranged in a tiny local cinema a hall for 40-50 seats to hold an acoustic festival. Stas made us a poster for this event. I still have it somewhere, by the way.

How did you restore communication?

It happened somehow by itself… And I was more a friend to Stas, so there was no dramatic break or renewal of friendship. Although, due to his character (or maybe mood, I don’t know), very strange things happened. For example, in the winter of 2013–2014, he suddenly deleted me from friends on Facebook without any reason. For some time, I even assumed that Stas, due to close ties with Russia, might have had different political views regarding Maidan and the war, although this turned out to be a mistaken opinion. But later he suddenly sent me a friend request again on Facebook. I wrote to him then: “Stas, let’s value the friendship of so many years. Friends are not made with one click of a button in a drunken stupor, but they can stop being friends…” to which he replied: “Of course, Anton, you understand yourself — the demons confused us…”

Stas himself said that the period 2012–2014 was difficult for him.

I remember that at the moment of my departure from Kherson, Volyazlovsky said in a moment of weakness: “Slyepakov, take me to Kyiv from here.” It was a message like: “…otherwise, I’ll rot here.” But very little time passed, and he became really successful, famous, interesting precisely because of his close connection with Kherson’s color and aesthetics.

He had previously experienced such states of frustration with difficulty, was a choleric person, but still found a way out.

P.S.

…regarding the names of bands and Kherson poetry — I had a project called “Malchik so shpagoy” (Boy with a Sword). So Stas signed one of the exhibition catalogs where his works were printed: “To the boy with a sword, from the boy with a bottle. Volyazlovsky.”