Lyzhychko Ruslana: Eurovision 2004 winner and Ukrainian show business star

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

Lyzhychko Ruslana is known to many music lovers in Eastern and Western Europe, thanks to her victory at Eurovision in 2004. The singer is also known for her irrepressible temperament and attempts to take an active part in the political life of Ukraine. How did Ruslana achieve great success in Ukrainian show business and what does she do today?

Ruslana Lyzhychko: biography, childhood

Ruslana was born in Lvov in a family of employees of the Institute of Petrochemistry. According to the sign of the zodiac, the singer is Gemini.

Parents divorced when the girl was eight years old. Mother subsequently made a lot of efforts so that Lyzhychko Ruslana took place in show business. And even now the woman works in a production agency created by her daughter in Kyiv.

It was her mother - Nina Arkadyevna - who sent her daughter to study at a music school. At the same time, little Ruslana performed with children's groups called "Orion", "Horizon" and "Smile".

Since childhood accustomed to musical culture, Ruslana afterAfter finishing school, she did not puzzle over what profession she would get: she went straight to the Lviv Conservatory. At the conservatory, Lyzhychko mastered playing the piano and conducting skills.

Career start

Lyzhychko Ruslana has a singing voice of alto and contr alto. Since she sang since childhood, after graduating from the conservatory she decided to try herself in show business. The first victory was not long in coming, and already in 1996 Ruslana won a triumph at the Slavianski Bazaar festival.

In the same year, Ruslana shoots her first video for the song "Dzvinky Wind". While working on the audio recording of this composition, the girl meets her future producer and husband.

In '97. Ruslana is invited to the Lviv TV in order to create the program "Christmas with Ruslana". Cooperation with television helps the performer to win the attention of many viewers, so in a year she finally releases her first album. The tracks “Light and Shadow”, “Balad about the Princess” and “You never dreamed of …” were especially popular. The song "Svitanok" was warmly received by critics and even received the "Golden Firebird 98" award.

Breakthrough and worldwide fame

However, Ruslana always felt like a bird of great flight, so she was looking for ways to distinguish herself and enter the world market. Lyzhychko Ruslana, whose paternal ancestors were Hutsuls, finally found her inspiration in folk music. For the 2003 album "Wild Dances", the singer synthesized a new style, which actively used dance motifs mixed withplaying folk Hutsul instruments. This album in Ukraine became platinum 5 times. Half a million copies sold.

In 2004 Ruslana goes to the Eurovision Song Contest in Istanbul at her own expense. According to the singer, she and her husband “put everything into this competition” and even got into debt. That is why Ruslana understood that she could return back only with a full victory. Already in the semi-finals of the competition, Lyzhychko took 2nd place. When the final concert died down, Ruslana was given the highest scores by many countries, including Russia, Iceland, Poland, Turkey, Estonia, Israel and many other states. The singer scored 280 points and took first place by a wide margin.

After that, crazy popularity hit the performer. The album "Wild Dances" entered the music stores in Europe. In Romania, the singer even received a prestigious award in the Best Foreign Album nomination.

Private life and family

Ruslana Lyzhychko, whose family currently lives in Kyiv, has been married to her producer Alexander Ksenofontov since 1995

In an interview with the Ukrainian TV channel, Ruslana admitted that the year of preparation for Eurovision and several years after that exhausted her: there were times when the singer was carried away from the stage by a show ballet, because she could not move from fatigue. Such exhausting tours affected her he alth, so for many years they cannot have a child with her husband. Adopt Ruslan with a spouseso far no one is planned, so to this day the singer has no children.

Recent life events

The singer directed her unrealized maternal potential in a completely different direction: she is trying to take an active part in the political and public life of Ukraine. Ruslana Lyzhychko, whose songs the whole country knows, was an active participant in Maidan 2004, as well as Euromaidan 2013

The performer sincerely believed that she was defending a “just” cause and from the stage she uttered big words on this subject: in particular, she promised that she would burn herself if Euromaidan did not bring positive changes to the lives of Ukrainians. Well, no positive changes have been observed yet, but Ruslana is in no hurry to publicly burn herself. After a fiasco in the political arena, in March 2015 the singer returned to show business after a long break.

By the way, the singer's last album was released in 2012 ("Ey-fori-Ya"), and the last video clip - in 2013. In the same year, the singer played her last concert before becoming an activist of the Maidan, which began in November 2013