 Julia, welcome to the show meeting interesting people. Today my guest Julia Pikalva, poet, musician, and more. And we have our interview via Zoom from United States to Italy. Welcome to the show Julia. Thank you Yelena, thank you very much for inviting and I say ciao to all your viewers. Thank you. So as a poet of course we should start with the poem which was written just recently and translated and you can say the person who translated the poem and then we will be listening first in English and then I will ask you to read in Russian also because that was originally written in Russian. Yes I would like to start with a very new poem that fortunately was translated into English just two days before. I wish I did not have a reason to write it. I don't even use my own words. I use only a biblical you shall not kill and the cliches of Russian propaganda. Two comments before I start that the letter that you will hear twice written like this is not in the Cyrillic alphabet but now it is used in Russia to brand the special operation. That's how we in Russia must call this war and the poem is dedicated to the war that unfortunately currently is going between Russia and Ukraine. I will not pronounce the last word because I don't want the propaganda to have the last word but you will guess it and you will hear my poem is a brilliant translation of Anna Krushelnitskaya. Thank you Anna. Don't kill. Don't kill. No one is killed. They are all leaving. Don't kill. At least now we are even Steven. Don't kill. Let them crouch in the basement some more. Don't kill. But killing was fine before. Don't kill. It was them. They killed their own. Now they sit under rubble calling out to the West. Now they mourn. Don't kill. They aren't even a nation. They need a firm hand. What we do to them we do as a friend and we won't rest till they see the best for them to be saved from the wicked West. Don't kill. Then they will kill us. Glory to the special operation. Glory to the Spetsnaz. Glory to Russia's military force. Thanks to them the planet is staying its course. Glory to Putin the saviour and crusher. Glory to Russia. Don't kill. The world lies in evil lives. Put a white arm band on it. Now it's one of our guys. Then we'll point our guns away. It can stay. Don't kill. For peace we'll do what it takes. Don't kill. Precision strikes on the Nazis. The commander makes no mistakes. Don't kill. You know this issue has two sides. Don't kill. Sending you a rug and the kid a code in his size. I'll mail a larger one once I find it as well. In hell. Don't kill. We remind the traitors sweeping fifth column of their grand-dads in the gulag. That's where we can hold them. Don't kill. The world doesn't know what good news we bring in this upheaval. We are the pure, absolute, unadulterated. Thank you. Thank you Julia. I think it is really too long to read it in Russian and the translation of Anna is so brilliant. I would rather prefer to read later on another poem in Russian if you don't mind. Sure. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So just let's start to talk about yourself first. Just tell the people to our viewers how long ago you just start to write a poetry and yes, all your success. I was born in Moscow in the family of a Navy officer and this is why I'm fascinated by water and ships since childhood. And now I see them every day from my window. I grew up in St. Petersburg but after the fall of the Iron Curtain and lived and worked in many countries. All of my life I was working in big multinational companies like Procter and Gamble, Carsburg, Danone. Eight or ten years ago I started to write poetry and I cannot explain it. I think it's just miracle that happened to me. I started from a short humoristic poem and little by little it grew up into something more serious. Then as a result I can show you the two books that were issued quite recently in Russia and in Italy. The first book is called The First Tech 2 and this is a Russian book which was published in Moscow in Christmas 2020. I prepared during the beginning of pandemics and it's a very heavy volume. It contains 500 poems. Inside I split it into three big parts which are called Birth, Life and Return. And who reads my book to the end finds out that the book does not end. It returns to birth, to life, to return and repeats cycle ever and ever again. The book contains the beautiful works by Russian artists and sculpture whose name is Alexander Kostin. Just let me show you an example and I hope you can see some. Recently for the Christmas of 2021 the Italian book was published. It has a similar cover because the Italian publishing house liked the cover so much but it is quite different in content. First of all it is not really smaller. Second it is bilingual. It contains 81 poems translated by Paolo Statucci, a brilliant interpreter who translated all our classics from Pushkin to Pasternak and has more than 50 years of experience. Most poems here are from the previous book, the first, but there are some poems which are newer and that were not yet published in Russia but they are published in Italy in the translations. And both books are interactive. They contain QR codes. I'm just looking for some examples. So for example a QR code where you can listen to some of the poems, sometimes read by me in Russian, sometimes by actors in Russian, sometimes in the Italian book also by Italian actors. And using the opportunity that I'm now here, I may, whenever you are ready to read your short poem in three languages if you want. Yes please. Okay and then I can continue talking a little bit about my current project and biography. So I want to share with you a poem that is called Three Sisters. It's a short one, don't worry. And I start with English so that you know what it is about. Then I'll read in Italian and finally in the original. Three Sisters, translation of Irina Rosenberg. The day has died. Keena my eyes, but I am shy before the gate to twilight. Three sisters are the first to rise. The gold, the blue, the white. Poor globe dashes tipsy. With my own flesh I'll heal its wounds. Like my own kin, I love these sisters. The white, the gold, the blue. And when myself beyond the edge allowed by sky so indivisible and whole, it will penetrate the universe throughout the blue, the white, the gold. And now in Italian, the Three Sisters, translation of Paolo Statuti. Il giorno è morto, i miei occhi sono acuti, ma entrando nel Crepuscolo sono scoraggiata. Per prime sorgono tre sorelle, bianca, azzurra, dorata. La povera sfera, inebriata, vole veloce, ferita, dalle miei mani sarà curata. Come sorelle germane io le amo. Bianca, azzurra, dorata. E quando di superare i confini del cielo indivisibile mi sarà dato nell'universo di lagherà il mio io. Bianco, azzurro, dorato. And finally I can read by memory in Russian. When I read in Russian I actually always read by memory. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, so tell us about your current projects and, yeah, the future projects. And probably while the more poems will be translated into English, we will be expecting book in English. Oh, I hope so. So far only five of my poems have been translated into English. So if among the audience there are people who translate, I will be happy to cooperate. Okay, so I mentioned already that I started to write poetry relatively recently about eight, ten years ago. And two years ago I decided to stop my work for the international companies because I thought, okay, everybody can be a marketing director or many people can be, but no one will write my poetry instead of me. So now I concentrate basically on my books and only after I left my job I finally had time to concentrate and put all the poems together. Then I also have restarted to play the piano that I learned as a child. And now I'm very fortunate every year I take a part in a musical festival in Milan where I play with an orchestra. And in September I played in Castellos Forzesco in Milan, the castle of Sforza, which is almost like Kremlin in Moscow, a very important institution. And now I'm preparing to play in Paris in two weeks from now. In September, an Italian composer, Giorgio Bernabeu, has created a performance based on my poems, that is the fusion of music, poetry, ballet, art of diplomacy, visual art, architecture, because it took part in Villa Tiena of the 15th century, which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. I suggest you to view a short extract from this performance with my poem called Never. It is not translated in English, but in short, I ask my soul whether it will get tired one day to support my frail body. But the soul keeps raising me every morning for an invisible work in search of the only world that will never be found. Yeah, we definitely will show that video, yes. But every day you inspire me again. It is an invisible work, you give me. In search of a single word that will never be found. And so now you tell us what is your plans, except that, yes, you work in on this maybe common book in English. And so you're preparing for another competition or just a festival? It is just a festival. I do not like competitions in music or poetry actually, never take part. But music, I just like expressing myself. And I think that actually music and poetry are so interrelated. Yes, they help, music helps me in poetry. For example, in composition, it is not when I work at the poetry that I think, okay, I will create it like a sonata. No, but after I read it, I realized that, oh, actually, there is an influence of music and I also write a lot about music. Then talking about my recent and upcoming projects, I'm now getting back to the topic from which we have started. I have recently took part in an international poetry marathon against the war, where I have represented also, not only myself, but a Ukrainian poet, philosopher Aleksandr Pustavit. He chose a poem. And on his behalf, I read this poem. It was Ensign for doomed youth by Wilfred Dolom, a poet who was killed just one week before the end of the world war, the first world war. And he was only 25 years old. So the poem starts with what passing bells for these who die as cattle. So it is very relevant and it was very difficult for me to read this poem because it stirs big emotions in me. And soon I will take part in another marathon fundraising to support Ukrainian children who have suffered from the war. I will participate with the poem called Bit Hoven. And I will suggest that you show it in the end of our conversation. In the meantime, I can tell you about how this poem was created and how this film was created. Yes, I think we don't have much time left. So I want you just to talk about the bit of how the film was made. Yes, please. Yes. So the poem is based on the letters of Beethoven during the war with Napoleon and I even included some lines from his poem, from his letters in my poem. I was writing it for three weeks and it took all of me and after that I couldn't even write for a long time. And when the poem was finished, I always wanted to combine it with the seventh symphony of Beethoven, its second part. However, all the famous performances by Karajan and Fort Wengler, they were slower than I felt it inside. In fact, Beethoven marked it as alegretto, which means cheerful, but they were not cheerful. One day, however, I was fortunate to listen to the modern performance conducted by Pavel Gerstein. And it was exactly the tempo of my reading. And I contacted Pavel. Unfortunately, he allowed me to use the performance of his orchestra, Kostroma Gubensky orchestra. And so I immediately contacted my ex-colleagues, my colleagues from the previous life, with whom we created a lot of advertising together. My friends from Moscow, Anatolii Yasinsky and Edward Usidus. And it was difficult because I was in Italy, it was the pandemic. They were in Moscow and Vienna was in Vienna. So I had to learn to shoot myself and not on a selfie, but on the camera without seeing myself. It was quite an experience. Then they shoot the footage in Moscow and they had to wait for the rain because they were shooting in May. And the poem takes part in, happens in November. And a girl called Teotavov played my role there in Moscow. And then we bought the Vienna footage. And it was a big challenge to bring it all together and make it look like a, like a whole, not like a patchwork. And the poem is translated both into the Italian and into English. And I will suggest you, I will suggest you the version where I read in Russian, but it has English titles, English subtitles. And the translation again is made by Anna Kroshenitskaya. Because it talks about the war, it is very in tune with what we are living through today. And Beethoven gives us strength. Well, I think, you know, we can talk hours and hours because you have so many things going on and you will participate in a lot of projects. So we just hope that everything will go well and you will get more success, more readers, more admirers. And thank you so much for being with us and give us that interview. So we, again, thank you so much. And we tell you goodbye. Arrivederci. Thank you very much. Goodbye. Arrivederci. Ciao. 3. Intriguing and confusing on the way. 4. The mixture of the previous two does not get into the vein and the hysterical truth enters its own right. According to the unbroken bridge, the French army enters the vein. I look at the Danube from it, my head is spinning. Tell yourself to leave, leave, break yourself, but keep the letter, put it in the seventh page. I stand on the bridge, autumn is scary, I do not. You ask how I live. I prefer not to answer. Next to Napoleon, the bloody walls burst. Fear does not let you lie down, low and do not start. And under the bridge, deep blood from the vein flows, flows. Better in the lockout than in the flow of the plate. Black square is everything. Having taken off his head, he laughs well, the last one, over time, he lied to us that he would carry everything. Your songs will be found in one and a half centuries. They will pass, they will give up. I read them two days later. Too bad, they said to me, from the whole person, we are left with a part of the meeting. My head is spinning. What did you feel? Living, trying, myself. The trouble is here, or the wine. Everything flows, flows through the veins, the blood is deep. And you are alive while it is pouring in you. Destruction, desertion, robberies or marauders. City, land, soul, fire, fire. He will find himself, he will look for support and will find it. At the same time, adding it, clinging to the perils and in a loud needle, the difference begins. From far away, or two, only with sounds. Oh, not too much influence, not modest. I think that sounds are more obedient than words. Only with sounds. He will find himself. And let him hear neither the stereo, nor the sound. Not silence. It's easier. Because music is over.