Is there something you want to talk about? What’s on your mind?
Well, it would be hardly music related.
 
It doesn’t have to be at all music related.
Mainly, it’s the world situation. What’s happening right now is very heavy and it’s obviously on my mind all the time. Also, one of my cats is not too well. I mean, he’s fine now, but he had some little things, so he’s on my mind. Now we are on tour, of course, so that’s also very cool. But it’s like being in a hyper living state for many, many days. And today’s a day off, now I’m back to thinking about everything else. And so much shit is going on.
 
Is it easy for you to come home from such a long tour and re-adapt?
No, it’s not. Marco has been touring much longer than I did with his own band. He toured a lot, and we never had any vacations, because he always went on tour when it was time for holidays. And I supported him, of course, because it’s very cool. But when he was coming back, he always was very weird for a couple of days. Like distant, almost mean. I know that he wasn’t mean, it’s just like, you are in a bubble. You need to get out of that.
 

 
And now understand what it is. It’s a thing. You need a safe space. I mean, it’s like there are people who are unsafe all the time everywhere now. But when you are on tour, you are exposed more than you are in your normal life. And we are also sharing the van with other people. And you’re always at the venue playing in front of other people, many or few, but still everyone. And I’m a solitary person in my own normal life, I’m an introvert.
 
Yeah, me too.
Yeah, it’s a thing, like with people who do some creative stuff, to get outside of the shell or something, and then you need to go back to crawl back inside. For me it’s staying home with my cats, doing things like reading books, doing some sport, cooking, or just doing nothing. Or spending time with very close family or friends. A small circle.
Also, you miss being on the road a lot during the first days. It’s cool to be back, but I also miss it and first you say, oh, “never again” and then it’s “oh, when will be the next time?” It’s a vicious circle.
 
Tell me a bit about yourself. As I understood you were born in Russia and now you live in Italy.
Yes, I was born and raised in Russia.
 
At what age did you leave Russia?
So, I was born in eastern Siberia, exactly where the Siberian tiger comes from. I like to think that we have been connected in some other lives. I identify with felines a lot. When I was 16, I left that place to study at the university in St. Petersburg. That’s on the other part of the country. It was very hard for me because I was a baby, really. I finished the school and I said, okay, I need to go explore the world. Also, my father and my brother died by then. So, it was just me and my mother, so I was basically leaving her alone and went on the other side of the country, thousands of kilometers away.
Then I stayed in St. Petersburg for a few years, and then I went to Finland to live there. I have a very strong connection with the north, with Nordic countries. In fact, we went to shoot the video for one of the songs from the last album in Helsinki. Also, I lived in Germany, in Aachen as well.
 

 
Why Aachen?
I had an internship there. It’s a weird place, I cried the first day. The first days I was walking around, and the people were just completely cold. Like they wouldn’t care about you. In Italy, you’re used to people are being nice to you. They’re talking to you. But in Germany it was like nobody cared. I had no friends, and I didn’t know anybody. So, what was I supposed to do here?
So now I live in Italy, and this is where I chose to live. It’s a very cool place to stay.
 
When a Russian comes to Italy, what are the things that strike you first as being weird or very different?
It’s people smiling. Nobody smiles in Russia. People saying “hi” when you enter a place and being genuinely just nice to you. I live in Trieste; it is not very typically Italian. It’s still very Austrian, Hungarian, somewhat like Nordic, Slavic, I don’t know, it’s a mix. So, people are not that sweet and nice there. They have their own charm. I like this obsession with food, but in a good way, like the quality of food and the time they spend making it and consuming it.
I just enjoy the fact that they are actually enjoying their lives. They don’t live just to work.
 

 
Are there also negative aspects that gets on your nerves sometimes?
The men are little bit much sometimes. Often, they don’t mean anything bad, It’s just weird in the beginning. They are pretty much in your face with compliments and whatnot. For a young girl it can be like, “oh, okay”, but so far nothing bad ever happened to me. I know people who had it much worse, which is different. I was lucky. But besides that, there is a little bit of racism, especially now. It’s directed towards people who have a different colour of skin, sadly. But even though I am a foreigner, just like the person who comes from Africa, I am treated differently.
 
The way you look you could actually be Italian.
Yes. But also, women are treated a little bit differently than man – better, which is sad.
 
Of course.
But still, I feel home in Italy now. Somehow, if I can tell one place which is home, it’s probably there. It’s of course because of all the people, all my friends. And with all the problems Italy has, especially with the government we have now, I still much rather be there than in Russia. Also, for me going to Russia now could be kind of dangerous. It’s enough now to be openly against the regime, which I am, I have been for all my life. And the smallest donation towards anything in the Ukraine can be considered supporting the enemy. I have a line of merch, of which I donate all the proceeds to Ukrainian animal charities and also people. Since I started doing this, already donated around 700-800 euros. This goes from my PayPal account to organizations in Ukraine. If they see it, and they see my posts, in which I openly say what I think about what’s happening, I could end up in jail. Just for that. Because in Russia, things like this are happening now. There are so many political prisoners now there, children, people of 18 years old, 15 years old, who just maybe hang some anti-war poetry somewhere and they are in jail now for, I don’t know, maybe 7 years. It’s insane. So, for me, going back to Russia is impossible. It’s very sad because I love my country and my culture very much. But I hate what they made out of it now. It’s sad that if I think about it, that I cannot go back there. But hopefully one day.
 

 
When was the last time when you were there?
It was before the war, a couple of months before the war. So, it’s more than four years ago. I know a lot of people who had to flee the country when the war started because of their position or because they were men who didn’t want to be recruited. I wasn’t one of them, but if I would have been still there, I would have done the same.
I still have the Russian passport. I have the residence permit for Italy, so I live there. But my citizenship is still Russian.
 
And you can stay in Italy?
For now. Unless the European Parliament decides that all the Russians are not welcome here anymore. I hope the war is over soon, but I don’t know.
 
What’s your prediction? Will there ever be a change in Russia?
It must be, it must be. Russia has been one of the countries that actually made drastic changes in its history, you know, the revolution and such. But it has to come from within, because I don’t see it happening from up to down. I think it has to be from down to up, because also we have a history of people who were trying to do it from up to bottom and didn’t end well.
I didn’t even think that the war would start. I thought there would be like some tension, but then it turned into a full-blown war for years. It’s almost longer than WW2 for us. Because in Russia, we have “our war” within the Second World War. In Russia it’s called velikaya otechestvennaya voina, it means the Great Patriotic War. It goes from the day the Germans bombed Kiew on June 22nd, 1941, to May 9th, 1945, when they put the flag here. So that’s the major war in our history. But now the Ukrainian war, it’s even longer already. So, this is becoming “The War”. It’s insane.
I hope change will come soon, but I have no idea. It’s also not only up to the Ukraine and Russia as we understand.
 
It doesn’t seem that there are many negotiations going on at the moment. They tried, but lately you didn’t hear very much.
I don’t know enough about internal politics to speculate about it. Even when it’s over, there needs to be a drastic regime change, which I don’t see happening now in Russia. So, I don’t know, it’s scary. I talk with some friends there, but they’re all afraid, so it’s hard to talk to them. And with a lot of people, I cut ties because of their views towards the war, which is different from mine. It is also very sad, but that’s life.

 

 
Yes, it is. Maybe let’s talk about music now.
Yes, please. Thank you. Or cats.
 
At what age did you start making music?
That’s an interesting question. For me the lyrics always come first, words are my medium. I have had notepads since I was like six or seven. I was writing very dark poetry. Today I look at it and I think “Oh my God”. I wasn’t a depressed child; I was a happy child. I studied in music school. Everyone in Russia does something, sport or music school. I did both. And I played the piano. Like I did the solfeggio and the choir and all of the music theory and everything. Then I graduated. I don’t know how, because I don’t know how to read the musical sheets, I played by ear instead. They were telling me all the time that it’s impossible, that I should be able to look at the sheet and read it. When I looked at the notes, I could sing them, but I could not play them. I played by ear. So, I graduated and then I stopped playing piano for many, many years. My brother was a guitar player, a great guitar player, so I got inspired by him. Unfortunately, he died when I was twelve. I learned a little bit how to do some simple chords, but I didn’t really play much. Then many years later, I was living in different places, studying, going around and exploring the world. Music has always been a big thing for me, but I was just going to shows, you know, only listening to music. We have this big Russian rock, punk, postpunk, Russian, Siberian, even rock from the 80s, which has a revival now. Moden bands like MOLCHAT DOMA who got inspired by bands like KINO from the 80ies.
I’ve been listening to a lot of it, but then I started making my own songs. I think it was in 2018 or 2019. Marco brought home an old broken semi-acoustic guitar; he rescued it from someone who wanted to throw it away. And I asked our friend who is a luthier, to fix it. Then I started playing it. I learned some simple finger picking and started writing songs on the guitar. I wrote enough material for an album, and I played those demos to a friend of ours. He’s said, “Let’s make a record”. I said “Okay, yeah, why not?”. So, we made the record. Then I published one song on YouTube and some friends shared it. And then the label contacted me. The album came out in 2020, but I couldn’t play live for two years because of the pandemic. Actually, I never wanted to play live, because I was terrified of the idea. But then an friend of mine sort of pushed me to do it. So, my first show was exactly one year after my first record came out in September 2021. And then for another year I couldn’t play because of the pandemic. So, I’ve been actually playing live since 2022. I toured with the German band COLTAINE; they invited me. It’s always these human connections, that’s how it happened and now I cannot stop anymore. I’m already writing 4th album [laughs].
It’s a necessity for me. The music just comes by itself, and when it comes, I just let it out. As long as it goes. But when I have nothing more to say, I will never force myself to sit down and write. When it stops coming, I’ll just stop.

 

 
I think that’s a great way when you don’t have to force things, when it’s not like work and when it just comes by itself, that’s the best.
I respect people who are able and willing to make it into their living. And if they can maintain their creative vision and be at peace with themselves. That’s cool. But not in my case. For me, it’s an emotional outlet, first of all. And when I played life for the first time, the feelings I had, now I want them again, so that’s why I keep playing live. But it’s never forced or planned. I wouldn’t know how to do that.
 
And do you have any other projects?
Quite often I get invited to sing on other people’s records, it’s mostly extreme metal like atmospheric black metal or some progressive death metal. And I also made a record with this French artist who is also now on my label, NON SERVIAM. We made some sort of industrial trip hop record which I loved. I always wanted to make a trip hop record. This was the closest thing to that.
Last year also, we were invited to do the live scoring of a 100-year-old German body horror movie, a silent movie called ORLAC’S HÄNDE. It was very cool. We did the live scoring, but no singing. I just played synths with all the crazy effects and Marco played the drone machine and guitar.
 
Was it improvised?
Yes. I mean, we wrote some melodies and themes before and then we did the improvisation for one hour and a half. That was the best time I’ve ever had on stage.
And now something cool is going to happen in September. I cannot speak about it yet, but it’s in that same realm. I will be going a lot into synths and exploring different effects. It’s not like properly electronic music, but with the use of a lot of different tools, which is very interesting. I’m very excited about it.
 

 
Check out KARITI:
Bandcamp: kariti.bandcamp.com
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