Entertainment presenter Olga Shelest

2024 Author: James Gerald | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 14:00

On her trademark yell "Do not sleep!" a whole generation has grown up. Olga Shelest, winner of the "Stylish Things" awards in the nomination "The most stylish TV presenter" and "TEFI" in the nomination "The best presenter of an entertainment program", TV channels and popularity.

Olga, there are so many pessimistic people in our country, have you ever been told, like Ilf and Petrov, that laughing is harmful and sinful?

No never. It seems to me that everyone is pleased to see open smiling sincere faces. I don't think they bother anyone.

You belong to the first galaxy of Russian presenters, after whom they started talking about the VJ craft as an independent profession. What was the reason for such a start?

The exclusive effect of novelty. We have never had this before. We made a news and entertainment TV channel on which many heard music for the first time and saw clips that they did not even know existed. In creating programs, we relied solely on our own taste and did what we ourselves would be interested in watching. We touched upon a variety of musical directions, constantly experimented …

I was driven by a huge interest in what I encountered on television. To keep abreast of all the events and trends, I had to go around many shops, discos, watch a bunch of films. It attracted me also because nothing like this existed in my hometown. I wanted to see what people wear, find out which museums and theaters they visit … In the beginning, I was not paid a salary at all, I worked for an idea. Yes, and the bosses told us that the channel is only just being established. And there, they say, it is not yet known whether you will stay here or not. But in the end I became the highest paid TV presenter.

On business trips, fans tore us apart. Then only a few could watch MTV: early in the morning between "Culture" and "Euronews", via a cable channel or traveling abroad. There was a sense of the underground. Now this does not happen anymore, popularity and the desire to make a lot of money have replaced it.

For the first time I heard about snowboarding from you in "Bouncy Morning", and when did you become interested in extreme sports?

We decided to do the "New Athletics" program. At first, it was about all kinds of sports: from figure skating to football, but then we realized that extreme sports were just beginning in Russia, so we need to give it some kind of impetus to make this phenomenon more understandable and accessible to people. Once we went to the Caucasus to film a performance by snowboarders, which was canceled for some unknown reason, so there was nothing to film. That's when the idea came to teach me how to snowboard and film this action. I was given equipment, an instructor, and shown a descent of two or three kilometers.

I looked down and I got scared. But when you get up on a snowboard, you feel at least some ground beneath you. I slid for a kilometer and a half on the priest, then somehow I tried to get up. I had a wonderful instructor who said: "You can, you must, you are conducting such a broadcast." Somewhere halfway, I realized that I liked all this and that I would start skating.

After you left, Taya Katyusha appeared on the channel, who successfully picked up the image created by Shelest. Doesn't it bother you?

No! To be honest, now I have little to do with MTV and no longer track what is happening there. Indeed, after we left, a niche formed that needed to be filled. Blond boys and nimble girls began to appear under Komolov and Shelest. Although, let it sound immodest, our tandem with Anton is irreplaceable. Such meetings take place once every twenty years; it will not be possible to repeat the program with the same energy again.

And with Taya we do not share glory in any way: she has her own fans, I have my own. She is a fighting girl with her charisma, but she was released early. Too large audience, too much pressure, otherwise she would have conquered absolutely everyone. In any case, they don't tell me that I look like Taya Katyusha, but Taya say that she looks like me.

Did you manage the transition from the image of the "teenage queen" in "New Athletics" to the host of "Morning on NTV"?

Changes were needed, and I was completely ready for them. The management of the channel has just changed, Churikova, Strelnikov and Komolov and I together piled up. A good offer just turned up. I often come across a stereotype, they say, Shelest left for a solid job as an adult aunt, sits in a jacket and almost a tie, broadcasting something in a stern voice. In fact, this transmission is a fairly free format. I never said: "Hello, dear viewers." Just: "Hello. Good morning. How are you?"

It's hard for me to play a serious lady. Yes, I do not have such a task. I am the way I am. Naturally, I speak and joke in a language understandable to the audience, which grew up with me from "Cheerful Morning" to NTV and was replenished with people of the older generation. My gaiety was never clamped down. It's still an infotainment program - people need to wake up, recharge. Now I have returned to an easier path and realized that I am unlikely to agree to the program of the "Morning" format again, after all, I am an entertaining presenter.

You won the sympathy of a whole generation, and in your native Naberezhnye Chelny, must be a national heroine?

No, I am not a heroine and not even an honorary citizen of my city. In general, when I come home, they recognize me on the streets, in shops. Sometimes they come up and ask: "Did you come to visit your parents?" They follow their careers, they are worried somehow, and so no honors.

Popularity you do not occupy, does it give you inconvenience?

Well, everything has its pros and cons. Of the significant advantages is always a free table in the restaurant. At first, it was nice to see boys and girls on duty under the windows of MTV. But, despite the fact that I am a public person, the close attention outside of work rather annoys me. Sometimes among the fans come across unbalanced people. One wrote me five or six letters a day, telling me every step I took that day. What newspaper I bought, where I stayed, with whom I spoke. It was terrible from the feeling that he was always there, looking over his shoulder. But for the most part, my fans are nice and adequate people.

It is believed that famous people are isolated from minor everyday problems.

It is not true. I clean the apartment myself, cook, albeit infrequently, book tickets if I go on a trip. I communicate with saleswomen, plumbers, chauffeurs, people who do not know who I am and have never seen me. So everything is like everyone else.

As a person not from Moscow, have you encountered a conflict between indigenous people and visitors?

No, I have not felt and still do not feel anything like that. It still seems to me that this is some kind of myth invented by visitors. Because they have to achieve everything themselves, earn money not for sandwiches and entertainment, but for an apartment, clothes, and other needs. I have many friends from Moscow and other cities, and they never treated me like a provincial woman, and I treated them like people in the capital.

Olga, do you have a feeling that Moscow has already bowed before you?

In fact, I always want to take new heights, strive, achieve … But if you look back, I am a girl from the provinces who came to Moscow and got a job. Here are my friends, institute, beloved husband. Moscow has long been my city, I live in it. Perhaps we can say that she conquered. Although everything went very well for me - I did not have to climb up, pushing everyone with my elbows. Solid gifts of fate: in my life I almost always met good people, work itself found me. So I did not conquer Moscow - she gave me everything herself.