“I’m a big believer in all that mystical wish card stuff.”
Nelya, they say that you knew a few years ago that you would become a TV host of “1+1”?
I can’t remember what day it was (definitely not chimes), but in December 2016, I sat down and wrote a list of dreams for myself.
In general, I believe very much in all mystical things like “maps of desires”. I wrote down on a sheet of paper the items I wanted in all spheres of life. It said that I was “the host of Breakfast with 1 + 1”. I recently took out that piece of paper and half of it has already come true! If a dream comes from the heart and you do a lot for its realization, it will become a reality. And as you know, water does not flow under a lying stone. Making a wish and waiting for a million to fall on your head is not an option. To achieve my dream, I went to study at a media school curated by Yulia Zhmakina, the director of the morning broadcasting department of the 1+1 channel. She invited me, her student, to an audition.
You’re a very empathic person. Where did that come from?
Probably from my parents. To be honest, sometimes I think I’m too empathic. And I even suffer from it, because I can easily cry while watching a story on air. However, TV presenter Oprah Winfrey was fired from her first job for being too sentimental. She could cry during a live broadcast, sympathizing with someone’s distress, and her employers decided that a journalist could not be so open. It is important to remain sincere at all times and with everyone – in any profession, in my opinion. Recently we had a bandura player on the air whose music just gave me goosebumps. It seems to me that music is a guide to another world, another dimension. Where there are no monotonous things, no contrived problems and unsolvable conflicts. Where we are real. When we listen to music, we listen to ourselves.
Do you have enough time for yourself right now? Have you been out with friends for a long time?
On New Year’s holidays, a friend came to visit me from Poltava, where we lived with my husband after our marriage. And for the first time I visited my cousin and my godson from Kharkiv, where I am from. We had not seen each other for almost a year, because I physically did not have enough time to travel home. And such trips are essential – they fill me up with energy. I feel as if I can even breathe more easily. My relatives are still there, almost all my friends. They ask me: “Have you forgotten our Barvinkov?”
“I’m trying to slowly tune in to the fact that you have to love yourself first and foremost.”
What fills you energetically?
I’m a very communicative person. And it used to be enough to get a call from my friends after work: “Well, shall we meet?” – and an hour later we were at someone’s apartment playing board games. Or we sit together in a café. A few such meetings or interesting trips together and I can roll mountains again. Now my priorities have changed. From time to time I want to be in complete silence. To turn off the phone, to go out into nature, to be alone with a book. Everyone wants to go to the Carpathian Mountains to ski, but I would go there to hide away in some beautiful wilderness and spend quiet time in a cabin. My husband suggests: “Let’s go to Egypt!” I don’t mind, but I warn you that I won’t go on excursions, I’ll lie down in a sun lounger. And I don’t want anyone touching me! Not even talk to me. Sometimes such thoughts make me feel guilty. I scold myself: I must be a bad mother if I want to be alone without my children.
And for nothing!
I try to slowly tune in to the fact that you have to love yourself first and foremost. I like the famous expression: a happy mother makes a happy family. Indeed, mom is not just a member of the family, she is the soul of the home, its heart, its center. If she’s nervous and lethargic, there’s no case.
“Among my classmates, only two became marketers.”
Who was the first to congratulate you on the fact that you passed the casting and became the host of “Snidanku z 1+1”?
My colleagues were the first to congratulate me and at the same time play a joke on me. Many people saw the video – on the Internet and on the air. And then, when I left the office, I called my husband: “Congratulations!” I didn’t tell my mom for two weeks because it was forbidden under the terms of the contract. And when I finally did, she said: “I felt you were hiding something!” Then I learned from her coworkers that after our conversation she cried a little with joy. And in general, it seems to me that more congratulations were given to my mother in those days than to me. Apparently, she had half the city in the bank.
How did your mother take the news that you were not planning to become a marketer, although you entered an economic university on her advice?
When I finished school, everyone I knew said: you will definitely follow your mother’s path. Yes, I graduated from Kharkiv National Economic University. But in my fourth year, when I had my first internship with my girlfriend in one of the banks, I realized that it was not my thing. My mother knows how to combine routine work with socializing with people, but I’m a little different – I can’t sit still. And, as it turned out later, I was not the only one in the group. Among my classmates, only two became marketers. The rest went wherever. After graduating from university, I went to work in karaoke and became a wedding host. I felt an incredible thrill from it: the first word into the microphone – and it was on!
You speak Ukrainian well, which is atypical for a Russian-speaking region.
My classmates wrote to me: “How did you get such a good speech? We went to the same school!” In our city, everyone speaks Surzhik, in Kharkiv – mostly Russian. I myself, to be honest, don’t know how I manage to speak Ukrainian so well. Our director says that it’s a trick that Egor Gordeev and I have (he also grew up in a Russian-speaking environment): when we enter the frame, it’s as if some sort of toggle switch is switched on. I’m not so good at it at home, I admit. However, I strive to improve – I read books and watch movies exclusively in Ukrainian. In time, I dream of switching to Ukrainian completely.
“I have an honors complex – I want everyone to love me.”
Reading about yourself on the internet?
Very rarely. I have an excellent student complex – I want everyone to love me, to like me. And if I read unpleasant things about myself, it demotivates me. And they write all sorts of things.
What advice did Ruslan Senichkin and Lyudmila Barbir, “senior comrades” in the program, give you?
I really liked that they, as soon as we were introduced, received me very friendly and sincere. They were very supportive: “Come on, you will do well! We explained that adaptation is a rather long process. It takes time to get used to Egor, to get into the information flow, and to “work out” in your head all the technical peculiarities of live broadcasting. And, they said, everything will not work out right away, but don’t despair – it’s normal. Thank you for not painting me rosy pictures, honestly warning me: “It will be difficult at first. And I looked at them and thought: in four years of airing together, they have become a perfect couple. They feel each other half-heartedly. That’s why things are bound to work out for me and Egor in time.
Which of the Breakfast guests do you remember the most?
I really liked Dzidzio – he is just a positive person! He was a guest of the charity marathon “Zdіisni mriyu” in “Snidanku”. I watched how he communicated with our guest – a girl in a wheelchair – so openly and sincerely. Well, that’s just great!
When you’re rushing to work at 4:30 in the morning, the streets are perhaps not at all what they become when a lot of people go out there.
I really love the morning city, but not when it’s still night outside like it is now, in winter. Sometimes at this time you really want to sleep. It feels like you just got up in the middle of the night instead of early in the morning. It’s very different in summer, especially when the sun rises. It is so beautiful and incredibly energizing!
Are you a lark or an owl?
I never thought about it. I used to work karaoke from night till morning, which is very difficult. It’s better for me to get up in the morning. If the kids fall asleep at nine and I manage to put myself to bed, I can wake up at three with the full feeling that I have slept well. But it doesn’t always work out that way. Because when we go to bed, we have to read them a book. And more than one. Then one boy to scratch his back and the other to tell a story when we have already closed the book and turned off the light. It turns out that we start to fall asleep about forty minutes later than planned. I confess: I love to sleep! My godmother always joked that if I took the firefighter exams, I would definitely pass. They are officially allowed to sleep if everything is quiet, because the shift lasts a whole day. We know these subtleties because my dad is a firefighter.
Do people recognize you on the street?
It happened a few times! Once I was going to a concert and got a little lost. I asked a strange girl for directions, and she said to me, “You’re the new hostess!” I was confused! Recently, moms came up to me in the children’s playroom: “Oh, do you have children?” I often see passers-by scrutinizing me, whispering – at such moments I feel very awkward.
Dossier
- Nelya Shovkoplyas was born on January 26, 1987 in Barvenkovo, Kharkiv region.
- After graduating from school, she entered Kharkiv National Economic University. Specialization – economist-marketer.
- A graduate of Media&Production High School, she completed the Entertainment Show Hosting course in the spring of 2017.
- Together with her husband, she is raising twins Timofey and Matvey. She was on maternity leave for three years, devoting herself to raising her sons.
- Since September 2017 – a new presenter of “Snidanku z 1+1” in a pair with Yegor Gordeev.
