“Russian Barbie” singer Tanya Tuzova does not believe in the ban on dolls

For all the brilliance of the ZD Awards Soundtrack ceremony in 2019, for example, her number Russian Barbie surpassed all other staged and directed delights in fantasy and brightness and became the subject of no less heated discussion than the spicy dialogue of Lolita and Olga Buzova ” about all the men who are bastards ”, which, due to this very pepperiness, was not included in any television broadcast, but scattered over the Internet with millions of views.

Tanya Tuzova met the current finest hour of her career fully armed, because for her barbeaming is an everyday state of consciousness, spirit and physical form throughout her life. The new song could have been a bright hook at the next ZD party, but until the party got to the point, and barbeamania reached its new peak, ZD considered it necessary to discuss the current situation of “pink insanity” with one of its most devoted adherents on this territory.

– Even the world’s leading pop artists could not ignore the new surge of barbie mania. How unexpected was it for you?

“Now everyone is dressing in pink again, cosplaying Barbie, and she really has started another wave. The first wave of barbeaming, however, was in the 90s, the second – in 2012, then, too, many girls dressed up as a doll, now the third wave. It didn’t come as a surprise to me. After all, the filming of the film began back in 2016, and they wanted to coincide with the 60th anniversary of Barbie in 2020, but then the pandemic intervened.

– How many years has your passion for this doll been?

My mother gave me my first Barbie for my birthday when I was 6 years old. Then the first stores with these dolls were opened in Moscow, before that, if they were brought to someone, then only thieves’ parents because of the “Iron Curtain”. I immediately fell in love with this toy, I realized that this is the ideal of a beautiful girl. As a child, I had only one doll, then Ken appeared for her. By the age of nine or ten, I got a second Barbie and a second Ken. After 12 years, I already began to earn extra money myself, drawing newspapers at school, and at 14 I got a job in a cosmetics store. I even went to work as a waitress in my free time, in the evening after school. Wherever they took me from the age of 14, I went there, and spent all the money I earned on dolls, on houses, on cars for them … I had a poor family. My father died when I was six months old, I was raised by my mother and grandmother. My grandmother worked as the head teacher of a music school, which I later entered, and my mother worked as a music teacher in a kindergarten. They certainly wanted me to follow in their footsteps. After graduating from a music school, I even tried to get a job in the profile, I was told that the salary there would be 6 thousand rubles, and if, they say, you work as a cleaner, then we will add 2 thousand more. I thought: I devoted 8 years to teaching music, so that later I could work for 8000?! Mom and grandmother lived rather poorly, and I did not want to repeat their fate. All this spurred me to development, to the image, to the fact that I decided to be not an employee, even from music, but a creative independent unit.

– The search for an image for many artists becomes a difficult challenge. For you, apparently, it was not a problem?

– I can’t even say that it’s an image. I have everything mixed up, this is my way of life. I no longer know where I am, where the image is. I believe that this is my inner world, which I simply brought out through my image. They say that people pay attention to appearance, and do not see the soul of a person, but my soul is in plain sight, in my image.

– Didn’t you suspect that the image of Barbie, transferred from a childhood hobby to the type of an adult woman, may not always cause an unambiguous reaction?

– Certainly. In general, I am grateful to my haters for what they are. Thanks to them, I keep moving forward. I have always faced hate – 20 years ago, 10 years ago, and I still face it today. In principle, from the first day I immediately heard a hatred addressed to me. As I came out for the first time in my pink dress with a big bow from the entrance, I was 15 years old, and I heard the first hat – from grandmothers on a bench at the entrance: “Here you are dressed up!” There was no Internet then, but there was already a hat. I have already developed immunity to this. Sometimes I wonder who is writing it. I go to look at the profiles of haters, and it will definitely be some woman of the age, or not very well-groomed, or mothers with many children, they really like to pee like that. No successful person has said anything bad to me. Even Philip Kirkorov noted that I have a cool image. Sergey Zverev fully supports me. I listen to those who have achieved something in their lives. And to pay attention to the comments of those who are sitting on a bench or under a bush with a beer, why, in fact, should I? Whoever writes, I have a specific goal.

– Have you reached it yet?

– I dream of opening a huge Barbie museum in the form of a castle. My goal is to bring joy and kindness to people, and I will never give up on this, this is the work of my whole life, which I did not start doing yesterday. How can I quit?!

– In the soundtrack, which is now in all the tops, despite a lot of new products, the old-time hit Barbie Girl from the Aqua band in 1997 was a common thread.

– Just a very bright pattern, which is probably not so easy to repeat. When this track appeared – Barbie Girl, I was in school, we danced to it in discos. When I got older and began to play music professionally, I recorded a Russian version of this song, which I still perform often. However, I only have rights to the lyrics that I wrote myself, and no rights to the music, so I don’t perform it at commercial events or on set, but mostly at children’s parties. But I am the very first who recorded this song in Russian. After me, everyone started recording in different languages, so many re-records, remixes, remakes appeared!

– The most resonant in this wave was the appearance of Billy Eilish, whose clip was very much expected, and then vigorously discussed. How do you like her interpretation of the theme?

– In the heroine of her video, I saw a little of myself, a girl who lives in her own world, faces problems, they are shown in the video as wind, rain, even an earthquake. For me, these are some problems and challenges in life, both global and private, but I continue to do my job, continue to create, no matter what, and my audience is growing every day. But she gave up, put (in the video) back all the things in a suitcase and left. In addition, Billy Eilish is a singer and artist who performs different images, she does not live by this, for her it is just another role in one video shot in one take, but for me it is a whole life.

– Does the flight of your musical fantasy as a singer limit the need to follow one image?

– This is not a necessity, not something forced. I said that it is, on the contrary, my natural essence, way of thinking and life. I had a couple of off-topic songs, I recorded them for a long time, and immediately realized that this was not mine. The producers also asked: they say, move away from the image of Barbie, let’s record something else. I made concessions, overcoming myself. I felt bad about it. And now I really regret that I made these concessions, deviated from the image. Not mine! And what I do is mine. You must always stick to your line. I like it, it gives me pleasure, and everyone who does not like it, let them go through the forest.

– Due to the global catastrophes that began with the pandemic, the Soundtrack ceremonies have been paused for the time being. Your performance at the last ceremony in 2019 was one of the brightest and most resonant. Have the current cataclysms made any adjustments to your work and attitude?

– When the pandemic began, everyone abruptly decided to switch to an online format. I also decided and came up with my own cartoon, I myself became its director. They started drawing a cartoon doll Tanya, a Russian version of Barbie, and I was already preparing a performance for ZD, where I wanted to show fragments of my cartoon transferred to the stage – with bright decorations and costumes. I already have a queue for duets.

– From celebrity?

– I have already worked with Sergey Zverev, Prokhor Chaliapin, Anastasia Volochkova, now we will do a collaboration with Masya Shpak, a millionaire blogger …

Will Volochkova now sit on the splits in a Barbie dress?

– She has already been photographed in this image. I really like Volochkova. She is so fragile, skinny, pretty blonde. And very well fit (in the image). If I’m more of a Barbie singer, then we called her Barbie Ballerina and recently we sang the song “Girls” as a duet, shot a video. We are planning to record a song with Sergey Zverev, we already have one video for my song, but Sergey is only a cartoon there. In general, the cartoon format is very convenient, there is no need to hire a film crew, look for locations, rent equipment, lighting, pavilions. And in the cartoon you can draw absolutely everything that cannot be done with a camera. I love fantasy.

– Well, not any. Your entire Barbie renaissance runs the risk of being covered with a copper and not at all glamorous basin. The deputies’ lamentations about the perniciousness of Barbie for the spiritual development of Russian children are getting louder, and practice says that sooner or later, once it has begun, this will lead to another ban. You, Tanyusha, can be declared not just outside the law, but an extremely harmful element. What will you do?

– Well, now in general everything that is possible is forbidden … Barbie is just a grain of sand in this sea. They already tried to ban it in 2016 – they did not ban it. I then went to the picket with a support group, they stood with signs near the State Duma, they even showed it on the news. I don’t think it’s completely serious…

– Oh, I didn’t think so much at first. Moreover, not just anything, but the corruption of the younger generation is being incriminated …

– Nu what decomposition?! Vice versa! This is an example of a well-groomed girl. Barbie can be anyone. Now I have 17 thousand dolls in my collection, and several thousand of them are of different professions. There is an astronaut Barbie, a parachutist Barbie … There is just no one! And what kind of decomposition if a girl plays Barbie the astronaut? Maybe it will make her want to become an astronaut or a veterinarian. I only have about 50 Barbie veterinarians in my collection … In extreme cases, there is an analogue – my doll Tanya, although she looks like, but is no longer Barbie. Barbie has never worn a bow. And I’ve been wearing it for years. This is my know-how. And I’ve been noticing lately that many girls seem to be Barbie, but they walk around in puffy dresses and with a bow, like a Tanya doll. They don’t even realize that they are no longer copying Barbie, but me.

– You already have enough songs for a full-fledged album, don’t you?

– The album is gaining, but now everyone is releasing singles and tracks. Albums as a publishing format are becoming a thing of the past, no one really releases them anymore.

– And musically, your Russian Barbie is not very, I see, tends to newfangled trends? Are you a fan of the classic pop genre?

– I don’t really like what they’re singing now. For example, I don’t understand some of Instasamka’s songs, I’m so far from it that I don’t even understand who is listening to it. Nevertheless, young people all know them, they go to concerts, but I would not want to do what I don’t like. I have my listeners, if not millions, like theirs, but they are, they come in both number and quality. The main thing is not to stop…