A young ballerina from Russia bends her legs so that they look like sabers. Prima ballerina of the Berlin Opera Yana Salenko: "At first, my husband's parents were not very happy about the daughter-in-law from Ukraine"

Yana Cherepanova, a 13-year-old student of the Vaganova Academy of Russian Ballet, is a real Instagram star: more than 68 thousand people from all over the world have subscribed to her social network account. The young dancer gained fame after the publication of a video showing how she balances on a simulator for athletes. In an interview with RT, Cherepanova spoke about her popularity on the Internet, her reaction to criticism and competition among future ballerinas.

Tell us how you got into ballet, did you immediately get involved?

My mother brought me to ballet when I was four years old - to the Nutcracker Ballet Theater in Yekaterinburg. When I came, I was little, I didn't care. And when I got older, I started to like it.

Do you remember the moment when you realized that you really want to become a ballerina and nothing else?

Probably when I danced a good role and I liked it. It was at the opera house in Yekaterinburg. I danced Thumbelina. Even though not in a professional team, but I liked it.

Surely you have idols among ballet stars.

What ballerina would you like to be like?

I don’t know, all ballerinas are good in their own way, everyone has something good.

Is there any ballet in which you would like to dance the main role? What role do you think is yours?

I would like to dance the main role in all ballets. Maybe Kitri in Don Quixote. I like these roles when you are fast and active.

You are already making great strides in the ballet field at such a young age. What do you consider the main achievement?

In our Academy, everyone is doing well at that age. I don't know what achievement.

Cool - probably the first time I made a video on the platform. Nobody else has done this.

You have become popular on the Internet very quickly. How did it happen?

It happened when I shot the first video on the platform, there were 30 million views in one day. And then I thought that I need to start Instagram - maybe it will help me someday.

Why did you decide to make this video?

I just had nothing to do, I decided to stand on the platform and do something ballet.

What did you feel when you hit 30 million views? This is a very big number.

I was shocked. Parents were also shocked that there were so many views in one day.

This impresses everyone. How long have you been on Instagram?

When I started to lead so actively… probably for two years. Before that, I led him without any purpose.

How do you react to negative comments?

I try not to react at all.

Don't your parents tell you "That's it, stop using social networks"?

No, on the contrary, my mother helps me with this. We post on Instagram what I'm working on for lessons. So it doesn't interfere.

You don't seem to have any free time at all. Do you find time for any hobbies?

Hobby is leading Instagram. I can go to the gym after the lessons, put the camera in order to look at my mistakes later. I post it and after a while I post it again to see the result.

Maybe you go out with your friends?

Yes, I go out with some girls from the academy, we love to go ride the rides.

Has there been such a thing in your life that you do, do, do, and at some point you want to take it and go to a desert island, so that there is no Instagram, no work?

It was, but there are holidays for that.

Her story is amazing. She began to study ballet at the age of 12 (!) years, when it was already quite late. Thanks to dancing, she also met her future husband, a German.

Now 34-year-old Yana Salenko is the prima ballerina of the Berlin State Opera. And on October 21, in her native Kyiv, she, along with other world stars, will give a gala concert.

We talked with Yana not only about ballet, but also about her unusual fate.

"Doctors didn't believe I could dance"

- Yana, you have been dancing in theaters all over the world for 12 years. Why did you suddenly decide to organize a concert in Kyiv?

After all, this is my hometown, my parents are here, many warm memories are associated with it. Last year, I came to dance at Swan Lake twice and decided that I wanted to give Kyiv something special. Thus, the idea arose to invite my friends and colleagues here - leading dancers from Berlin, Milan, London - and stage a ballet with them especially for the Kyiv concert.

- And what did you come up with?

Our ballet is called "Dietrich", it was created based on the biography of the famous actress Marlene Dietrich - about her and the main men in her life. This is a ballet about feelings, about a strong-willed woman who, at the same time, is very vulnerable and fragile inside.

- Such qualities are not inherent in everyone.

Yes, but it seems to me that I have been like this since childhood. I have four siblings, I always took an example from them. Never cried, never complained. And there was no one to cry: the parents were constantly at work, trying to feed a large family.

In addition, even before school, I was engaged in rhythmic gymnastics at Deryugina's school - and there is iron discipline, very strict conditions.

- Gymnastics? How did ballet come into your life?

You know, I had every chance to become an athlete. Even at the selection, the commission noted my data - out of a hundred people, only me and another girl were taken to the school. Everything worked out for me, but I quickly became uninteresting. Therefore, dad decided to try to send me to dances and called the Kiyanochka College.

There they recruited children into a ballet class, and we thought it was ballroom dancing, and came. I was 12 years old - it’s too late to start at that age, but the teacher examined something in me and offered to stay and try.

I fell in love with ballet right away and did my best to catch up with the rest of the girls in the class. When I put on pointe shoes for the first time, I didn’t take them off almost around the clock, just to learn how to dance on them as soon as possible. I stretched so hard that I got a back injury. The doctors did not believe that I could dance, but I recovered in six months and I still dance!

"It was love at first sight!"

- Did your relatives and friends believe that a ballerina would grow out of you?

Not! At first they thought it was not serious, my mother wanted me to get a "normal" education and become a doctor. But in the end, not only me, but also my brother was drawn into the ballet. He was forced to go with me to study by my mother, who did not want me to return from training in the evening alone. Before ballet, his brother played basketball, and it was a great tragedy for him to leave the sport. In addition, he got into the ballet class very late, at the age of 14. But I managed to get him interested in dancing, and for good reason - now he dances and teaches in Japan, he has his own ballet school.

- And how did you get to Berlin?

After studying at Vadim Pisarev's school, I worked at the Donetsk Opera and Ballet Theatre, then returned to Kyiv as a soloist of the National Opera. In this status, she went to Vienna for an international competition, where she took gold and met her future husband Marian Walter, who also won first place. It was love at first sight!

After my departure, he sought me out, and we spent half a year on the phone, periodically meeting either in Kyiv or in Berlin. As a result, Marian proposed to me and even planned to move to Ukraine. But then we thought: why not try to pass the competition at the Berlin State Opera? They took me and almost immediately transferred me to soloists, and a couple of years later I was promoted to prima.

- Sounds like a Cinderella story. Did you have friends or acquaintances there?

No, apart from my husband, I had no one in Berlin. In addition, his parents at first were not very happy with the daughter-in-law from Ukraine.

It was hard, I did not know the language, people had a completely different mentality. At first I felt very lonely. But then she pulled herself together and began to communicate, get acquainted, learn German. Reshape yourself to fit them.

Now it seems to me that the German way of life is the most correct. Here you have all the social guarantees - you will never be left on the street without a pension. The banking system works very well. Taxes are high, yes, you definitely won’t get rich here. But you will always be confident in the future. People live very consciously and make sure that no one disturbs the order.

I had a funny case when I just moved. Everyone separates the garbage there, and I went to take it out in a bag, like we do - everything is a bunch. As a result, the neighbors forced me to get the bag out of the tank and sort everything as it should be. They have this order. Order in everything.

By the way

What is the difference between Berlin and Kyiv theaters?

In Berlin, they are more open to new things, they invite modern choreographers, artists from different countries. We are constantly trying different dance techniques. There are also classics, but they do not make the main emphasis on them. The artist is given a lot of new information, and this allows him to grow in the profession.

In addition, the atmosphere in the troupe is much more democratic. We support each other, we have healthy competition, without gossip and envy. To some extent, I understand why this is so: in Germany we are protected by the state. Artists, even after an injury or retirement at 35, will not be left with nothing.

In Ukraine, everything is different - people are fighting for every chance to stay on stage as long as possible, because they understand that they have nothing outside the theater.

• Deal with documents as quickly as possible, especially with medical insurance. Here it is required.
• Listen to local advice and absorb information. Berlin lives strictly by the rules, so traffic is very monitored here and a little something can be seriously fined.
• With garbage - the same: learn to pack it correctly, otherwise the neighbors will not understand you and will not love you.
• All public transport runs on time.
• When it comes to entertainment, Berlin has it all! You definitely won't be bored.

A young ballerina from St. Petersburg, Yana Cherepanova, became famous on Reddit thanks to a video in which she confidently stands and even does a step on a rocking disc. But many users paid attention not only to the girl's balance skills, but also to her strongly bent legs. As odd as they may look, this is normal for ballet dancers and even displays a special skill.

A gif came to the top on Reddit, in which a girl stands with one foot on a very unstable simulator for athletes (balancing disk), and lifts the other up and then wraps her arm around her. The girl does not just stand on the platform - she rests on the balancing disc only with her toes.

The balance skills of the heroine of the video struck Reddit users to the core.

Yes, I consistently fall once or twice a week, trying to put on my pants. And here it is, I'm just in shock. Expand

I can't even stand on this thing with both feet. Expand

As a person who has very bad vestibular apparatus, I am sad, envious, and I am impressed. What an infernal mixture of emotions! Expand

Some users immediately assumed that the girl was from Russia, mainly judging by the view of the flight of stairs behind her. And they were right. The name of the little acrobat is Yana Cherepanova, she is 13 years old, and she lives in St. Petersburg, where she studies at the Academy of Russian Ballet. Vaganova - one of the oldest ballet schools in the world, from which such famous dancers as Anna Pavlova, Matilda Kshesinskaya, Mikhail Baryshnikov and many others graduated.

Yana leads instagram, where she often uploads videos in which she demonstrates her skills. Some of them may look like her leg is broken, but this is a specially trained skill, which in ballet jargon is called "X legs". It is considered a sign of high skill, but it is very difficult and dangerous to achieve it.

Some of the videos can give you goosebumps because they look creepy from the point of view of those who are not familiar with ballet.

And some of Yana's videos impress with their beauty.

The girl looks especially charming in those photos where she is in a dress.

Yana, as her mother Olga Cherepanova told the Italian edition, has been doing ballet since the age of four. Mom took the girl to dance classes, and, according to her, it was an accidental decision.

There is no fairytale story about how we discovered her talent for ballet. I accidentally saw an ad for a ballet school somewhere and decided to try it. Yana was selected for the local ballet theater, but from the very beginning she was different from other children. She was very attentive and took her classes very seriously. It was even strange to see such zeal in a child.

Yana at four years old

At the age of nine, Yana had already become a prima ballerina in the theater of Yekaterinburg, where the family lived. And this is what her performance looked like at that age.

Yana already dreamed of studying at the Vaganov Academy, and in August 2014, her parents were going to take their daughter to enter there. But the girl's grandmother fell ill and had to spend money on the trip and her treatment. A year later, the Cherepanov family launched an IndieGoGo crowdfunding campaign to move to St. Petersburg, as there were not enough funds for tickets and accommodation.

At that time, Yana was helped a lot by the fact that she was noticed by the ballet photographer Zhenya Shiavon, who published pictures with the girl on his page, which allowed her parents to raise more money for the move. So at the age of ten, Yana ended up at the academy, where most of the children were a year older than her, and therefore at first she experienced difficulties.

A young ballerina from St. Petersburg, Yana Cherepanova, became famous on Reddit thanks to a video in which she confidently stands and even does a step on a rocking disc. But many users paid attention not only to the girl's balance skills, but also to her strongly bent legs. As odd as they may look, this is normal for ballet dancers and even displays a special skill.

The balance skills of the heroine of the video struck Reddit users to the core.

Yes, I consistently fall once or twice a week, trying to put on my pants. And here it is, I'm just in shock.

I can't even stand on this thing with both feet.

As a person who has very bad vestibular apparatus, I am sad, envious, and I am impressed. What an infernal mixture of emotions!

Some users immediately assumed that the girl was from Russia, mainly judging by the view of the flight of stairs behind her. And they were right. The name of the little acrobat is Yana Cherepanova, she is 13 years old, and she lives in St. Petersburg, where she studies at the Academy of Russian Ballet. Vaganova - one of the oldest ballet schools in the world, from which such famous dancers as Anna Pavlova, Matilda Kshesinskaya, Mikhail Baryshnikov and many others graduated.

Yana leads instagram, where she often uploads videos in which she demonstrates her skills. Some of them may look like her leg is broken, but this is a specially trained skill, which in ballet jargon is called "X legs". It is considered a sign of high skill, but it is very difficult and dangerous to achieve it.

Some of the videos can give you goosebumps because they look creepy from the point of view of those who are not familiar with ballet.

And some of Yana's videos impress with their beauty.

The girl looks especially charming in those photos where she is in a dress.

Yana, as her mother Olga Cherepanova told the Italian publication Derivati ​​Sanniti, has been doing ballet since she was four years old. Mom took the girl to dance classes, and, according to her, it was an accidental decision.

"There is no fairy tale story about how we discovered her talent for ballet. I accidentally saw an ad for admission to a ballet school somewhere and decided to try. Yana was selected for the local ballet theater, but from the very beginning she was different from other children. She was very attentive and very serious about her studies. It was even strange to see such zeal in a child. "

Yana at four years old

At the age of nine, Yana had already become a prima ballerina in the theater of Yekaterinburg, where the family lived. And this is what her performance looked like at that age.

Yana already dreamed of studying at the Vaganov Academy, and in August 2014, her parents were going to take their daughter to enter there. But the girl's grandmother fell ill and had to spend money on the trip and her treatment. A year later, the Cherepanov family launched an IndieGoGo crowdfunding campaign to move to St. Petersburg, as there were not enough funds for tickets and accommodation.

At that time, Yana was helped a lot by the fact that she was noticed by the ballet photographer Zhenya Shiavon, who published pictures with the girl on his page, which allowed her parents to raise more money for the move. So at the age of ten, Yana ended up at the academy, where most of the children were a year older than her, and therefore at first she experienced difficulties.

“She was very worried that she was not tall enough. Almost all the girls in her class were taller because they were older, but we could not influence this in any way, so we just waited,” says Olga Cherepanova.

Now the girl has grown up and successfully conquers the heights of ballet mastery, and her mother dreams of seeing her on the world stage.

"I want her to work hard, be a good girl and become a ballerina. But to be honest, I want her to be a superstar and want to have all the theaters in the world. Every parent wants this for their child, believe me."

Yana really works hard and does not stop working even on the escalators, where you can again see her X legs.