early years
Vaenga's real name is Khruleva. She took her pseudonym in honor of the old name of Severomorsk (the city was called Vaenga until 1951), which comes from the Sami word meaning “deer.” Her mother advised the singer to take such a pseudonym.
The future singer was born into the family of a chemist and engineer. Elena’s parents worked in the village of Vyuzhny at a ship repair shop that serviced nuclear submarines.
Elena's paternal grandparents were from Leningrad. During the Great Patriotic War, my grandfather fought in anti-aircraft units, and my grandmother worked as a doctor in besieged Leningrad. Elena's maternal grandfather was Rear Admiral of the Northern Fleet Vasily Zhuravel, who served in the navy during World War II.
Elena has a younger sister, Tatyana, who speaks several languages and works as an international journalist. At first, Lena studied at school in Vyuzhny, but she graduated from school 395 in Snezhnogorsk, where she studied in a literature class.
Already as a child, Elena wrote her first song “Pigeons” (in her own words, she was then either 9 or 11 years old). With this song the girl won the All-Union Competition for Young Composers of the Kola Peninsula.
Having received a certificate of secondary education, the girl entered the Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov Music School in St. Petersburg. There she studied piano, receiving a diploma as an accompanist teacher. After university, she taught music at school for a short time, while studying vocals.
Fatal mistakes of Elena Vaenga
The queen of chanson, Elena Vaenga, gained great popularity among the public thanks to her talent and singing. In addition to her beautiful voice, the woman differs from other singers in her directness and honesty. Such a straightforward character brought the star a lot of problems at one time, but she still remains true to herself and tries to calm down her ardor. Despite this, viewers love and respect Elena for who she is.
The artist has spoken more than once about her childhood, regretting the many mistakes of her youth. Her parents raised Elena Khruleva (the singer's real name) in strictness and did not give her any concessions. Therefore, at school she was an excellent student and an example for her peers. But this attitude of her parents greatly influenced the character of the future star, and, as the girl grew older, she could hardly contain her ardor. Once at a family holiday, where many guests were present, Lena loudly shouted that her parents were “monsters.” This statement shocked not only mom and dad, but also everyone present.
It turned out that these were only flowers; soon she stunned everyone even more. In high school, a girl decided to drink a little before a party and overdid it, after which she told her teacher everything that she thought about her. Because of this act, the schoolgirl ended up in the police station. The parents could not control their daughter's mood swings and did not know how to deal with it. They managed to save her from bad company only when they sent her to study in St. Petersburg. There the star received a musical education and met her first love.
Parents did not approve of this relationship, because the man was much older than Lena, so for three years she was in a quarrel with her family. But she did not leave her beloved, giving in to her feelings. Ivan Matvienko did a lot for the girl, and thanks to him she became the person she is now. And yet, the couple broke up after the singer’s first success. Elena admitted that both were to blame for this.
The star’s personal life was a big secret for a long time, and no one knew who the woman was dating now. Only after the birth of her child did Vaenga admit that she was in a relationship with a musician from her band, Roman Sadyrbaev. Soon the lovers got married, and family came first for Elena after work. It was noticeable how much the singer had changed, not only in appearance, but also in character. She became much kinder and happier, smiled constantly and no longer made scandals as before. Now the woman is happily married to Roman, they are raising a child together and supporting each other in difficult times.
How do you feel about Vaenga’s work?
Career in music
Since Elena wanted to become an actress as a child, after music school she entered the St. Petersburg Academy of Theater Arts (formerly LGITMiK) on the course of Gennady Trostyanetsky. However, she did not study there for long; two months later she went to Moscow to record her first album.
According to Wikipedia, the singer’s producer was Stepan Razin, who worked with the group “Ataman”. The music for the young singer was to be written by Yuri Chernavsky, who collaborated with Mikhail Boyarsky, Vladimir Presnyakov Jr., Alla Pugacheva and other Soviet pop stars. Elena was supposed to perform under the stage name Nina. She even recorded an album and released a video for the song “Long Corridors.”
Elena Vaenga’s first concerts took place back in 1996, and already in 1998 the young singer became a laureate of the St. Petersburg “Hit of the Year” competition with the song “Gypsy.”
The singer quarreled with Razin, after which she went back to St. Petersburg, breaking the contract ahead of schedule. Later she said that, according to the contract, she could not perform under her real name, so she took a pseudonym (which her mother came up with). The rights to the songs written at that time remained with Razin, who sold them to Alexander Marshal, Tatyana Tishinskaya, and the groups “Strelki” and “Ladybug”.
Returning to St. Petersburg, the girl learned that Pyotr Velyaminov was taking a course at the Baltic Institute of Ecology, Politics and Law in the Department of Theater Arts. The second time she managed to get a theater education, Elena received a diploma in dramatic art.
In the early 2000s, the singer came to Moscow again. Her first album was “Portrait”, released in 2003. It was released on the Unites Music Group label and consisted of 16 songs.
Then the singer released the album “Flute” in two parts (the first of them had 15 songs, the second 16). Two of the songs from this album by Elena Vaenga were written to poems by Nikolai Gumilyov (“Jester” and “Giraffe”).
However, real popularity came to Elena Vaenga in 2005, when the album “White Bird” was released. On it, in addition to the title hit, there were other hits - “I Wish”, “Airport”, “Taiga” and “Chopin”.
“Chopin” also ended up on the singer’s next album, which was followed by “Absinthe” and “Dunes” in Elena Vaenga’s discography. The last album of the 2000s was “Keyboards,” on which perhaps the singer’s most famous hit, “Smoke,” appeared. For “Smoke” Elena Vaenga was given her first “Golden Gramophone”.
The singer received her second statuette in 2010 for the song “Airport”. In total, Elena has four awards (two more - for “Keys” and “Where I Was”).
In the same 2010, the performer became the laureate of “Song of the Year” (but not with “Airport”, but with “Absinthe”) and for the first time in her career gave a solo concert in the Kremlin Palace, which was later shown on Channel One.
In 2011, the singer collected many Russian awards - “Golden Gramophone”, “Chanson of the Year”, “Song of the Year”, etc. The only exception was the Muz-TV Award, where the performer lost the statuette to Vera Brezhneva. At the same time, Elena first entered the top 10 most successful representatives of domestic show business according to Forbes.
The first album of the 2010s was “Lena,” released on the UMG label. The songs “Mommy”, “A friend was driving to me”, “On my cheek”, etc. were released on it.
The next disc was called “NEW”, it included songs based on poems by Sergei Yesenin, Bulat Okudzhava, Oleg Mityaev. Songs from this album include "Queen", "Lady Di" and "Bride".
The singer’s last album was “1+1”. It was released in 2020. Among the songs from this album, it is worth highlighting “Gravity” and “Neva”. For the first of them, the music was written by Intars Busulis, but the lyrics were written by Elena Vaenga.
The performer sang together with Mikhail Bublik (“What have we done?”), as well as Laima Vaikule, Mikhail Nikitin, Alena Petrovskaya, Achi Purtseladze and Cuban Roberto Quel Torres.
The singer's latest works were three singles recorded by a duet. These are “Black Eyes” (together with Anton Yakovlev), “Man and Woman” and “Whore” (both with Andrei Yagunov).
Among the hits with Elena’s participation, her collaboration with rappers Basta (in the world Vasily Vakulenko) and Smokey Mo (in the world Alexander Tsikhov), which was called “Stone Flowers,” stands out.
Now Vaenga is successfully continuing her career: before the onset of coronavirus restrictions, she toured the country with concerts and participated in major shows. Thus, in 2017, the performer took part in the “Best Songs-16” concert, and in 2018 – in the “Own Track” concert, dedicated to the memory of Vladimir Vysotsky.
Already in the summer of 2020, Vaenga was among the participants in the popular project “Voice 60+”, aired on Channel One. Together with her, Tamara Gverdtsiteli and Garik Sukachev, as well as Lev Leshchenko and the permanent Dmitry Nagiyev, were among the mentors of older talents. This is the third season of the show, in the first and second the mentors were Leonid Agutin, Pelageya, Valery Meladze, Mikhail Boyarsky and Valeria.
Opinions about Vaenga
Many representatives of Russian music and music criticism spoke positively about Vaenga. According to Artemy Troitsky, Vaenga’s success is due to the fact that domestic listeners are tired of listening to Star Factory graduates, as well as to her undoubted artistic talent and lively voice.
Producer Joseph Prigozhin noted that Vaenga, like Stas Mikhailov, occupied a non-format niche. According to him, this is an example of how listeners chose not what radio and TV imposed on them.
The famous composer Raymond Pauls called Elena a “wonderful singer” who stands out from the background of “those who like to sing to a soundtrack,” and compared her with the early Alla Pugacheva. Vladimir Presnyakov Sr. also spoke complimentarily about the performer, who predicted that Vaenga had replaced Diva. She is not one of the “singing cowards,” he added.
The leader of the Leningrad group, Sergei Shnurov, noted that Vaenga’s performances are an absolute hit with his target audience.
However, not everyone speaks as positively about Elena as Troitsky or Pauls. The notorious music critic Nikolai Fandeev said that Vaenga is a singer with average vocal abilities, and her repertoire consists of “tavern rubbish and plagiarism.”
Writer Evgeny Grishkovets also spoke negatively about the singer’s work. He described her work as “tavern songs” and “disgusting rhymes.”
Politics and the cause of Pussy Riot
In the biography of Elena Vaenga, there was also a place for politics. Back in 2011, the singer took part in a rally-concert in support of St. Petersburg governor Valentina Matvienko. As Vadim Tyulpanov, the then speaker of the St. Petersburg Legislative Assembly, said, he personally invited Vaenga to perform at the event, and she did it for free (like many other artists).
The singer’s statement in 2012 regarding the case of the group Pussy Riot, whose members were tried for a punk prayer service in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior “Virgin Mother of God, drive Putin away,” caused a wide resonance.
On her website, Elena posted an open letter in which she stated that this action offended her “to the core.” The letter was replete with grammatical and spelling errors (“michet”, “ohrineli”, “at once”, etc.). The publicist Viktor Shenderovich responded to this appeal in an ironic manner, writing a “Letter to Elena Vaenka.” The singer later apologized for the mistakes and admitted that the letter was written under the influence of emotions.
Also in 2012, the performer supported Vladimir Putin, who decided to run for a third term. Vaenga even starred in the video “Why I vote for Putin.”
Already in 2020, Vaenga received the medal “Participant in the military operation in Syria” for performing at a concert at the Khmeimim airbase (she was accompanied at that time by Grigory Leps).
People's Elena Vaenga
There are people who feel their purpose from childhood.
One such girl, Lena Khruleva, was born on January 27, 1977, and in 1986 she already wrote her first original song. She took her pseudonym in honor of the old name of her hometown - Severomorsk. This word also means a female deer (there is a consonant word “important”). Indeed, there is something old and northern in Vaenga.
Vaenga's musical style is a mixture of pop music, folk songs, chanson (both in the Russian and European sense), and all this is mixed very organically. Elena writes not only for herself: her songs have entered the repertoire of many performers, from “Strelok” to Tatyana Tishinskaya.
Today Vaenga is one of the most popular singers in the post-Soviet space. Although her last album was released in 2012, her listeners do not need constant updates; they will gladly sing along to old songs at the concert - “Smoke”, “White Bird”, “I Wish” and other hits, and viewers of Vaenga’s Instagram would definitely like to see even more new photos! Her work seems timeless; it could be relevant in our time, fifty or a hundred years ago.
You can hear something gypsy in Vaenga’s songs. Perhaps this is the influence of her common-law husband and producer Ivan Matvienko (no, not a relative of Igor Matvienko), a gypsy by nationality. In 2011, Elena and Ivan broke up, but it was during their years together that her greatest success occurred. In 2012, Elena gave birth to a son, Ivan.
