I'd like to tell you about myself. I know that many people know me, but I'd like to share
something, talk to someone, create something. But without information, without encouragement, you can't really… Places have to be created where people could share their talents, talk to one another, and they'd be like, Oh, what a cool guy, let's create something together. There are creative people who stay at home and are scared to come out, and thanks to such places you could take them out and say, let's get started. And people asked me if they could be singing taxi drivers too, we like it, how can we do it, and I said, guys, I can't teach you that, you can only learn it by yourselves. Because one thinks, why not sing a song to the passenger? But it's actually very hard. When I was going through it, I was really scared.

Was it hard to get started?

Well, it was like this. I picked up some girls from a restaurant, and they got into the car and said, why isn't there any music playing? Let's turn on some music! So I turned on "Ruki Vverkh", it's my favourite band, but I turned on the backing track and started singing: "He kisses you and tells you he loves you, and puts his arms around you…" And the girls are like, what? Are you going to sing it yourself? And so we went on, and we were cruising the town for about an hour because they really liked it, they continued the party in my car. And then I thought to myself: why not? Why yes, however. But I gradually started singing, to girl passengers to get some experience, then to couples, who were a bit skeptical at first, and then to guys, to men, that is. And it came as a surprise that men were the most adequate audience. They would start cheering, like. (sings) "I know it for sure, the ice will melt in the dead of night, and the Volga will sing, and, like a red-haired girl, warm from her sleep, into this cold world will come the spring". And then people started posting information about me in the social media, and so it went on. I was really scared of social media at first, to present myself as a singing taxi driver, start an Instagram account, I was scared of publicity because publicity means responsibility. I've been driving for 7 years, and to be a taxi driver, like, what? Yeah, I'm a taxi driver. As for singing, it was my childhood hobby, my ambition to sing, to perform, to be somebody famous – well, it
came true.

You have your own stage, kind of…

Yeah, I'd like to go further but I understand that I'm not a professional singer, I'm an amateur. I don't always hit the right notes, I don't know the techniques… But now I've made up my mind that it's time to move on, and I took up singing classes. I've just started and my first goal is to learn to sing the right notes. The rest will come with experience. I don't know what's going to happen. Now I'm going through a sort of crisis, due to the bad weather, the pandemic, the post-surgery period… Sometimes I think to myself, to hell with it. But why did I start it after all?

The main reason why I became a singing taxi driver is because I like to see people smiling. For me it's the best reward, not the things that people will write or say about me. Of course it's important too, to be famous, one the one hand. On the other hand, for a long time I used to sing and people knew about me, but I didn't go public. When I picked up a sleepy passenger and started singing and saw the smile on his face, it was the best reward, I was inspired and went on. But I'd like to work in another city for a change if things work out, I'd like to go to St. Petersburg in May and June and work there for a while. I know I'll be very scared at first, especially of trams, I've never come across them while driving. But why St. Petersburg and not Moscow? Because Petersburg is a creative town. There's always someone playing the guitar or singing in all underpasses, you go out into the street and there's someone singing, something from Viktor Tzoy (sings) "But if you have a packet of cigarettes in your pocket, today won't be so bad" and it's great. By the way, it was in Petersburg that I heard Tzoy's songs for the first time. I'd heard them before, you used to hear them everywhere, boom-boom-boom, but you couldn't understand anything. And then when I was living in Petersburg I was sitting with my
friends, and a guy was singing Tzoy's songs. I didn't know it, so I said, wow, great music. And my friends were like, what? You don't know who wrote this music? And I was embarrassed. They told me it was Tzoy and I was really amazed. Tzoy wrote great lyrics. And, by the way, he was an amateur too. And it turns out that many songs sound different if performed by