Oleg Yuriyovych Skrypka is a Ukrainian musician, vocalist, composer, and leader of the group Vopli Vidoplyasova.
Biography
Oleg Skrypka was born in Sovietobad. His father Yuri Pavlovich, a radiologist, came from, a village in the Poltava region of Ukraine. His mother Anna Alekseevna, a teacher, came from a small village in the Kursk region of Russia. In 1972, the Skrypka family moved to the Murmansk region of Russia, due to Anna not liking the Tajik climate. In 1987, he graduated from Kyiv Polytechnic Institute, founding the rock group Vopli Vidopliassova that same year with Yuri Zdorenko and Alexander Pipa of the heavy metal band SOS and mutual friend Serhiy Sakhno. In 1987, VV became a member of the Kiev rock club, won the first prize at the Kiev rock festival "Rock-parade", released their hit "Танцi". In 1990, the group took a tour of France and Switzerland, during which time one of France's largest newspapers, Le Monde, published material about VV. From 1991 to 1996, Oleg Skrypka, together with his group, lived in France, and toured the country. In 1993, Zdorenko and Sakhno left and Skripka replaced them with French musicians. Sakhno would return in 1997. In 1996, he returned to Kiev and since then has been playing many concerts in Ukraine and abroad. Before 2014, he regularly visited Moscow. In 2000, VV performed in Riga, London, gave a concert in the Moscow Palace of Youth, after that - a tour around the cities of Siberia. In January 2002 the group toured Israel and Portugal, and in February of the same year gave several concerts in New York. In 2003, they performed in Toronto. In 2004, Skrypka was one of the organizers of the festival Krayina Mriy, the festival began its history 14 years after the song and ten years after the album "VV" with the same name. Under the auspices of "Krayina Mriy" Oleg Skrypka also involved in publishing and versatile educational activities. Skrypka is the founder of another festival of modern Ukrainian rock music - "Rock Sich". The main purpose of the festival - to support the national rock culture. This capital and the only festival where both the three stages heard Ukrainian rock music.. In 2007, Skrypka won the second place in the project "Dances with the stars 2". In 2009, a group of activists attempted to nominate Skrypka as a candidate for President of Ukraine, but he refused the nomination. He speaks fluently Ukrainian, Russian, English and French. His first language was Russian - his first exposure to Ukrainian came in 1974, when he went on a family holiday to Giltsi. He did not become fluent in Ukrainian until 1994.
Controversy
In 2014, Skripka stated in an interview with Rossiiskaya gazeta that he and Vopli Vidopliassova would no longer perform in Russia. Later that year, he pulled out of a concert in London that also featured popular Russian singer Valeriya, stating that he would not perform in Russia or alongside Russians "as long as Russia and Ukraine are at war". In 2016, Skrypka and numerous other Ukrainian entertainers lobbied President Petro Poroshenko to ban broadcasting of Russian film and music in the country, as well as banning the import of Russian film and music. In April 2017, he was recorded stating that people who don't speak Ukrainian have "low IQs" and should be sent to "ghettoes". He denied making those remarks, but the recording surfaced. On the 22nd of that month, Skripka was called by Russian prankster Vladimir Kuznetsov, of Vovan and Lexus fame, who introduced himself as Arsen Avakov, the Ukrainian Minister of Internal Affairs. During the conversation with "Avakov", Skripka was questioned about his comments, and also accused the newspaper Ukrainskaya Pravda of taking his words out of context. He did not issue a formal apology until later that night, when he realised he had been the victim of a prank. In his apology, he also stated that the prank call was not a "provocation" against him, but against all Ukraine.
