Svyatoslav Vakarchuk is one of the most influential artists in the Ukrainian show business, a singer, songwriter, but also a candidate in physical and mathematical sciences and a politician. In our new article, we talk about the difficult and very interesting life path of the frontman of the Okean Elzy group and share interesting information with you.
The early years of Svyatoslav
Svyatoslav Vakarchuk was born in Mukachevo, in the family of the physicist Ivan Vakarchuk, and soon the whole family returned to Lviv, where they lived further.
Interesting can be called the hobbies of the future artist. He showed ability in music, sports, and the exact sciences. Svyatoslav graduated from Lviv Secondary School No. 4 with an in-depth study of English, and during his school years, he also studied at a music school. As a result, the singer can play the violin and the button accordion.
In addition, Vakarchuk participated in the KVN school league, had a hand in creating a school theater, and was even an active basketball player.
In 1990, the fall of the “Iron Curtain” successfully coincided with the penultimate class, Svyatoslav went on an exchange to Canada, from where he brought not only a perfect knowledge of English but also a huge collection of cassettes and recordings of Western rock musicians, which influenced the choice of musical style.
After graduating from school, Svyatoslav enters the Faculty of Physics of Lviv University and chooses a second higher education in the economic field. In addition, Svyatoslav Vakarchuk entered graduate school at the Department of Theoretical Physics in 1996.
“Ocean Elzy”
Svyatoslav Vakarchuk made his first creative steps in 1992, as part of the art-rock group “Clan of Silence”, in which he took the place of the vocalist Andrei Golyak, who left her, and two years later the group takes the well-known name, Okean Elzy.
Svyatoslav is a vocalist, the author of most texts, music, and also the permanent leader of the group.
The first successes of Okean Elzy
Okean Elzy debuted in the winter of 1995 for almost seven thousand spectators, and it was a resounding success. Following this, in the same year, the group shoots their first unofficial video for the song “Long time ago”, and also performs at the large Lviv festival “Chervona Ruta”.
Soon “Okean Elzy” begins to conquer more and more new heights, because since 1996 the artists begin touring, and not only in Ukraine. The band is capturing attention and gaining new fans in Poland, Germany, and France. Then there were the Tavria Games and the Autumn Rock Marathon in Kyiv, where OE performed on the same stage as the legendary Deep Purple.
Already in 1997, Okean Elzy gave his first large-scale solo album. It was in the small homeland of the artists: Lviv.
In 1998, the musicians moved to Kyiv, where they finally focused on their musical career: there the guys are recording their debut album “There, where we are dumb” together with producer Vitaly Klimov. With this, a new round of development of the popularity of Okean Elzy begins.
Their songs take first place in all charts, and their unusual presentation captured the attention of most Ukrainian listeners.
Constant work on yourself and creative development has borne fruit. Two years later, in 2000, the group finished work on the disc “Yananebibuv”, the second album of “OE”.
In 2000 and 2001, Okean Elzy became a laureate in the category “Best Pop Group” at the Tavria Games.
And already in 2001, the team recorded another disc – “Model”. According to the results of 2001, at the same Tavria Games, “OE” receive new awards for two songs at once. The compositions “Drug” and “911” were included in the list of the 10 most popular hits in Ukraine, and the team itself was awarded in the category “Best Rock Band”.
In 2003, the next disc was released – “Supersymmetry”, which was the first of all Ukrainian ones to receive the status of double platinum.
The departure of almost all the founders of the group and a change in the composition
In the same year, the group loses two of its performers: bassist Yuri Khustochka and keyboardist Dmitry Shurov took up the implementation of the Esthetic Education project and therefore left Okean Elzy.
In subsequent years, the public often saw the news about a change in the composition of their favorite group: since 2004, Denis Dudko and Milos Yelich have been playing in OE.
Scandal with Pavel Gudimov
In April 2005, guitarist Pavel Gudimov left the band.
According to Gudimov himself, who gave this event a special resonance, Vakarchuk himself was the initiator of this line-up change. In an official statement from the band, it was said that:
Between Gudimov and “Okean Elzy” the creative connection was lost, and in the future, the group is going to continue its musical and public activities in a renewed line-up.
However, Gudimov’s answer was rather unexpected: the guitarist said that he was forced to leave the band and Svyatoslav Vakarchuk himself did it. Fans, noticing the absence of Gudimov at the Tavria Games, understood everything and began to build theories, looking for an answer to the question “Why did Gudimov leave the group?”
One of them – Gudimov’s solo album could become the reason for the breakup, but the guitarist himself assured us that it was all about relationships, not creativity.
Successes of the second team
In September 2005, the group released the album “Gloria”, which “shot” on the first day: 106,000 copies were sold in six hours, the album went platinum.
In 2007, the group’s most “heavy” and “rock” album, “Mira”, dedicated to the deceased sound producer Sergei Tovstoluzsky, was released.
Three years later, the album Dolce Vita, the seventh studio album of Okean Elzy, was also released, for the presentation of which the artists traveled to more than 100 cities in Ukraine, Russia, Belarus, Canada, the USA, and Europe.
In 2013, guitarist Petr Chernyavsky leaves the band, according to official reports – with the consent of all members of the group.
And in the spring of the same year, a new album by Okean Elzy was released: Earth. The tour in support of him passed through the stadiums, and it was also notable that the group turned 20 years old at that time, and they announced big concerts throughout Ukraine.
During the Euromaidan period, the group in the “gold line-up” took part in the protests and played in support of them.
On June 21, 2014, in Kyiv, at the “Olympic”, a big concert “Ocean Elzy – 20 years together!” Especially for this three-hour concert, the artists gathered with the old cast: Svyatoslav Vakarchuk, Pavel Gudimov, Dmitry Shurov, Denis Glinin, Yuri Khustochka. Only Pyotr Cherniavsky did not take the stage.
By the way, this concert was the most massive in the history of Ukraine: it gathered about 70 thousand spectators!
In 2017, after active social and creative activities, Svyatoslav told reporters that the group was taking a creative break for a year to take a break from tours and write new material.
Until today, “Okean Elzy” and Svyatoslav Vakarchuk conduct their creative activities and work on new songs. That’s diligence!
Other projects and activities
Svyatoslav Vakarchuk is often involved in side projects, not limited to creativity within the framework of Okean Elzy. Politics, social and charitable activities were the focus of his attention at one time.
In September 2007, Svyatoslav Vakarchuk became a people’s deputy, however, he quickly ended his political activity, asking for early termination of his powers.
In 2008, under his name, the jazz project “Vnochi” was released, as well as an album of the same name. It is noteworthy that Vakarchuk was the ideological inspirer of the project, but all the OE musicians worked on it, as well as guest musicians.
By the way, Svyatoslav did not leave scientific activity either: in 2009 he defended his dissertation for the title of candidate of physical and mathematical sciences. The topic is “Supersymmetry of an electron in a magnetic field”, which the artist has been revealing for many years due to his work in art.
In 2011, on the official YouTube page of the group, Svyatoslav presented to the public his second project called “Brussels”, and then “Okean Elzy” held a tour in support of it in the CIS.
In May 2019, Svyatoslav returned to political activity, presenting his party “Voice”.
The musician lives a full social and social life: he hosts programs and becomes their hero, reveals new talents on television shows. At one time, Svyatoslav Vakarchuk was a judge on the show “Voice” and helped Kristina Solovey start her creative activity.
Personal life
Very little is known about the personal life of Svyatoslav Vakarchuk because he tries not to advertise and not make it public. Together with his beloved Lyalya Lantern, the singer is raising her daughter from her first marriage, Diana.
At first, they lived in a civil marriage, and only after a long 15 years, in 2015, the couple finally played a secret wedding in Lviv. The public would not even know about what happened if it were not for the congratulations of one of the OE musicians on the social network.
