Attractive appearance, a pleasant voice and a nostalgic style of performance, typical for the pop music of the post-Soviet space of the 90s in modern processing, allowed the performer to gain wide popularity among an interested audience.
Childhood and education
Kristina Viktorovna Gerasimova was born on August 28, 1990 in the city of Karl-Marx-Stadt (now Chemnitz) in the GDR. Her parents lived in this German city during the military service of the father of the family. After the unification of Germany in 1990 and the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the Gerasimov family moved to Kyiv. 
The period of life in Germany had practically no effect on Christina, who was then still small, although in an interview she recalled her mother's stories about joint walks around the Dresden Art Gallery or her birth in a boat sailing along the Elbe.
From early childhood, Christina strove for music and art, which was greatly facilitated by the girl's parents. Their considerable merit was that Kristina Gerasimova studied at a music school in vocal and piano classes.
According to the singer's own admission, the event that determined her desire for a musical career was a trip to Cuba in 2002. Being away from her parents, Christina did not study, but only composed songs, enjoying the special Cuban atmosphere of freedom and joy.
In 2007, the future singer Luna successfully graduated from the Kyiv school number 53 with in-depth study of the German language. The next step was studying at one of the Kyiv universities at the Faculty of Journalism. Although directing and music attracted the girl much more than the profession of a journalist.
The beginning of a musical career
In 2009, Christina met with her future husband Yuri Bardash, a music producer, founder and soloist of the hip-hop group "Mushrooms".Interview with Christina Gerasimova
Relations with Yuri have never been easy. According to the recollections of the singer herself, first her pregnancy, then post-natal depression ruined relations between the spouses, and in 2014 they decided on a temporary separation. It was during this period that Christina experienced a creative upsurge, wrote more than 30 songs and, after putting music on the text, published compositions called “Moon” and “Wingray” on her YouTube and Soundcloud accounts. The new performer quickly attracted the attention of the audience.
According to Christina's memoirs, in her childhood she was already interested in music of a certain genre and direction. Her circle of interests firmly included Zemfira, Mumiy Troll, Linda and Guests from the Future. This greatly influenced the musical style of the Moon itself in the future. Christina's songs belong to pop music, while the performer herself and her fans associate the specifics of her compositions with the nostalgic aesthetics of the musical culture of the 90s of the last century.
Rapid takeoff
Christina consolidated her success on October 15, 2015 with a video for the song "Autumn", which she filmed in the courtyard of the house. The simplicity and originality of the environment and the text itself aroused great interest among connoisseurs of popular music. The video quickly collected several hundred thousand views, and this success eventually became the beginning of the singer's career.Moon - Autumn
Christina's first public performance took place as part of the autumn fashion show "Mercedes-Benz Kiev Fashion Days", where she managed to conquer the audience with her simple love songs. It is noteworthy that in the following years the singer took part in this event more than once, leaving her mark even in one of the fashion collections, items from which were decorated with lines from the texts of the Moon.
The period from the end of 2015 to May 2016 was completely devoted to preparing for the release of the first studio album by Christina Gerasimova called Mag-ni-ty. It was for his release that the singer took the pseudonym Luna. It was presented in full at the debut solo concert of the singer in Kyiv. A number of lyrical and memorable compositions (“Moon”, “Autumn”, “Magnets”, “Bottle”, “Distances” and “Boy, you are snow ...”) immediately conquered major Ukrainian and Russian radio stations. The album was produced by Luna herself.
Until the end of 2016, the main occupation of Luna and her partners was touring the CIS countries and Israel, and on November 3, the singer's debut Moscow concert was a success. In parallel with this, on October 28, 2016, Luna released a mini-album "Sad Dance".
Constant touring and separation from her son inspired Luna to create songs on the theme of love at a distance, which were included in the second studio album, Island of Freedom. The release was scheduled for November 18, 2017, and the song "Free Love" became the main single of the disc, the video clip for which collected a record number of views on YouTube for the singer - 4.8 million. Shortly after the release, the album reached the 3rd place in downloads in the Russian section of iTunes.
Clip making
In addition to some of her own videos, a vivid example of which was the video for the song "Autumn", in 2011 Kristina Gerasimova filmed and edited a video clip for the song "Not You" for the popular singer Yulia Nelson.The clip that Kristina Bardash shot for Yulia Nelson
The successfully completed work gave the girl self-confidence, later clips for the compositions of the singer Inaya and the Nerves group were included in the list of Luna's works. By the way, all projects, except for Yulia Nelson, belong to the Ukrainian company Kruzheva Music, whose founder and owner is Yuriy Bardash.
Luna's personal life
As mentioned above, Kristina Gerasimova in 2009 married producer Yuri Bardash. Being pregnant, Christina and her husband flew to Los Angeles in 2011, where their son George was born soon after.Moon - Light
All the latest news from the life of the Moon can be found on the pages of the vocalist on Instagram and VKontakte, and you can get acquainted with her compositions and videos on the singer's YouTube profile.
It is known that on April 12, 2019, on Cosmonautics Day, Luna will present a new, very personal album "Enchanted Dreams" in one of the clubs in Minsk.
Adultery is an unpleasant matter, but a purely personal one. However, the founder of the "Mushrooms" group and part-time husband of the singer Luna, Yuri Bardash, decided to bring the family squabble to the public and published a large open letter to the culprit of the discord - the sound producer of the singer Alexander Voloshchuk. The post became a real sensation, many users of the social network Facebook left comments to sympathize with the grief of the musician. Others accused Bardash of inadequacy and sexism. More details - in the material "360".
The break gave rise to a career
Luna said in many interviews that it was the discord with her husband that made her a singer. When Kristina, that is the name of the star, met with Yuri, he had already created the Quest Pistols group and successfully toured the country and abroad. The girl was then 19 years old, and he was 27.
After the birth of the child, Christina Bardash plunged into postpartum depression. Frequent quarrels with her husband began. Then the couple decided to take a break in the relationship and separated for six months. During that period, Luna said, she wrote more than 30 songs. She shot the debut video for the song "Autumn" on the phone in her yard, edited it in a couple of hours and posted it on YouTube. The video produced the effect of an exploding bomb: it was watched by more than a million people. The moon began to be discussed.
Soon Christina and Yuri were able to restore relations. Luna claimed that Bardash was her support and support not only as a husband, but also as a producer: it was he who arranged the concerts and helped shoot the videos.
“The fact that I cheated on my wife is our problem with her”
On May 25, a video with an ambiguous caption appeared on Luna's Instagram. In the publication, the singer said that a new stage had begun in her life, and called the name of the cycle "Islands of Freedom" symbolic.
On Thursday, June 7, a post with a large number of obscene words and grammatical errors appeared on Yury Bardash's Facebook account. It is quite difficult to read it, so we will freely retell it briefly: Bardash turned to Luna's sound producer Alexander Voloshchuk with the accusation that he forced Christina change him. Also in the text, the producer admitted that he cheated on his wife more than once, but he considers all this to be purely family matters. At the same time, Bardash does not throw accusations towards the Moon, because he believes that "there is no demand from a woman."
Photo source: screenshotpublications Yuri Bardash on Facebook The post quickly went viral on the web. Luna herself was noted in the comments.
The post did not “hang” for six hours: Yuri Bardash deleted the post. After some time, he published another post, the meaning of which remained unknown to fans.
Photo source: screenshotpublications Yuri Bardash on Facebook At this time, a photo appeared on Luna's Instagram confirming that the singer had left her husband for Voloshchuk.
The singer's fans supported her decision:
“For some reason, it seemed to me that you seemed to be living under a roof like two different people. At first I could not believe that you were married ... ".
“Christina, I want to sincerely wish you happiness and true love, but for your whole life. You are worthy, you deserve it, let all the bad things be quickly forgotten, and good things will be every day of yours, wake up your beloved and fall asleep to your beloved. And so endlessly ... ".
“Love is free and pure! Even at a concert in St. Petersburg, I noticed a spark between you and suspected your love for a long time!!! I'm happy for you! This is the best couple! I'm only for you!
“He screams about the destroyed family, reproaching the child, who should not be involved in these showdowns at all. However, when he jumped on some women, the fact that there is a "beautiful wife with a golden child" did not stop him. This is a boomerang for him for his disregard and treacherous attitude towards his family, which he did not value when he went to the left. All these whims in social networks are so stupid that, apart from pity, you don’t feel anything else. Christina, I am extremely glad that you are now happy, loved and enjoying life. I wish you prosperity and a lot of love that you definitely deserve.”
“Everyone urgently googles who Bardash is”
The comments under the publication of the offended husband on Facebook became a special spice of the scandal that broke out. In them, for a short time of the "life" of the post, a serious battle had flared up. Fans of the union of Christina and Yuri were divided into two camps. Some saw sexism and inadequacy in Bardash's words:
Photo source: TV channel "360"Others suspected that in this way Bardash decided to warm up his popularity, and at the same time practiced humor:
Simple, sincere lyrics and minimalist arrangements in the spirit of the 90s - according to American Vogue, this is exactly what the “face of the Ukrainian musical revolution” looks like. The publication assigned this status to the Kiev resident Kristina Gerasimova, acting under the pseudonym Luna. Her songs were not rotated on the radio, and the clips were not broadcast on TV. Luna's work has become popular thanks to the Internet. At the same time, the artist herself declares that she does not consider herself an indie project.
Childhood and youth
Kristina Gerasimova (at the time of marriage - Bardash) was born on August 28, 1990 in the GDR, where her father served at that time. In the town of Karl-Marx-Stadt (now Chemnitz), the family lived for about two years, after which they moved to Ukraine. The Gerasimovs settled in Kyiv.
Together with her younger sister Alina, Kristina studied at school No. 53 in Kyiv, having time for choreography classes after school. In the lower grades, Christina attended folk dances, later - ballet, to which she gave 6 years. Then the girl changed dancing to music. At the art school for two years she studied solfeggio, vocals, attended the choir and took guitar lessons.
Music
Christina recorded her first demo when she was 14 years old. While studying at school, and then at a university, the girl wrote poetry and music, but she did not consider it necessary to demonstrate creativity to the public. The first performance took place only in 2015. The artist took part in Mercedes-Benz Kiev Fashion Days. And a year later she presented her first album "Mag-no-you".
The grandiose solo performance made too much impression on the performer: Christina took a break from creating songs and focused on performances. Following the capital of Ukraine, concerts of the Eclipse tour took place in Riga, Yekaterinburg, and Moscow.
Moon, clip "Autumn"In the songs of the first album - "Boy, you are snow", "Bottle", "Bambi" - the melancholy mood characteristic of the work of the Moon and the sound in the style of pop music of the 90s were immediately determined. Critics draw parallels with creativity,. The singer herself among her favorite performers calls Glass Animals, groups, "Guests from the Future", as well as performers and. She defines her own style as "soul pop".
At the end of 2016, Luna released the Sad Dance mini-album. The album was marked by a successful debut: on the first day it took first place in iTunes Ukraine and second in iTunes Russia and iTunes Armenia.
Clip of the Moon for the song "Spark"In 2017, the singer released her second album, Island of Freedom. Of the 8 tracks, 3 were presented earlier during the year: "Bullets", "Spark", "Friend". The video for the song "Spark" turned out to be the most massive video in the assets of the Moon: more than 50 people got into the frame. For 6 months, the video has collected a million views on Youtube. The songs "Jukebox" and "Free love" became hits.
Luna sings the song "Jukebox"It is noteworthy that in the first clips, the “multi-station” Luna not only thought through the plot and style of the video, but also tried to control the technical side:
“On the set of Bullet, I really gave it my all, because I thought through every frame, went to rent, chose lenses, a camera, set the light - on heels, then climbed into the frame.”In the future, the singer agreed to delegate these duties to directors. This, however, does not exclude the participation of the Moon in the creation of the script and the development of images.
Personal life
Christina was married. Her ex-husband is a producer, co-owner of the Kruzheva Music company, a participant. It is the Moon that is dedicated to the hit “Ice is melting”.
In 2012, the couple had a son, George. At the time, the family lived in Los Angeles. Christina describes this period of her biography inconsistently:
“I have just begun my conscious life. And it all came crashing down on me. It's all great, but this America is still around, and I just found myself alone with myself and my calling to be a woman. I butted heads for a while, because I wanted to remain a girl who could go to discos, smoke, hang out ... I threw objects out of the house, yelled for the police to come and take me to a madhouse, I could run naked into the street. But that's okay, I'm not ashamed of it. I had to survive this trash."Luna's life entered a calm channel after writing the first album. As the artist admits, he was sent by a friend. The girl became interested in the connection of a person with natural cycles, space, ways to control their energy.
Dasha Tatarkova
IN THE HEADING "NEW NAME" we talk about promising newcomers: musicians, directors, artists and other creative people - that is, everyone whose name is increasingly appearing on the pages of magazines, in social media feeds and in our conversations and who is clearly on the threshold of great success. Today we will talk about the Ukrainian singer Luna, who records, as she herself calls it, “soulful pop”.
For several years in Ukraine, the musical ball has been ruled by the production center "Lace", which owns the notorious Quest Pistols project. But not just outrageous: "Lace" has formed around itself a whole community of young and talented people: not only musicians, but also producers, photographers, directors, and so on, together arranging a renaissance of local pop music.
One of them is Luna, or Kristina Bardash (she could be seen in the clips of the same Quest Pistols). Formally, she acts independently, rather adopting the experience of the producers of "Lace", rather than integrating into their system. Luna purposely maintains the image of a DIY project by filming clips on her knee and posting her tracks on VKontakte. Kristina records dreamy pop, inspired in equal measure by modernity and native 90s.
In "Lace" Bardash initially worked as a photographer and director with her husband, Yuri, who founded the center. So, a couple of years ago, the Moon appeared: Christina's friends called her to the studio and offered to try to sing over Angelica Varum's track. Over time, she decided to switch from working on other people's projects to her own. Since then, Bardash has gone from timid trial recordings to releasing a full-fledged album, but the feeling that she still sings with an eye on the pop music of her childhood remains.
The album "Magnets" sounds like a live recording of the hits of the 90s, adjusted for the fact that now it's still 2016. The singer herself calls her project “soul pop”, says that Linda and “Guests from the Future” strongly influenced her, and believes that “The Cure” would have recorded this in 1984 based on a creative and sometimes erotic romance between Robert Smith and Alla Primadonna Pugacheva.
Luna gradually recorded her debut album over the course of two years. Although the singer does most of the things on her own, during this time she found like-minded people who helped her find her sound: Alexander Voloshchuk helped with production, and Igor Galart with mixing. "Magnets", in accordance with the title, is an album about the mutual attraction of people: on the one hand, those who recorded it, on the other, its lyrical heroes. The singer herself says that this is a record about a difficult period in her life associated with relationship problems and postpartum depression: "Magnets are an attempt to comprehend relationships between people through a metaphor of natural attraction."
Luna does her best to maintain the image of a new sincerity: for example, she spontaneously shot her video for the track "Autumn" on a small Japanese camera when her son did not want to go to kindergarten. Her slow, dreamy music also fulfills this principle: the lyrics deliberately operate with naive images of youthful love, which Christina sings simply and without frills. However, all this is so well adjusted to each other that it turns out exactly such a pop, which is very lacking in Russian (and not only). You can listen to the songs of the Moon not only in the public "VKontakte" - a live presentation of the album "Magnets" will be held in Kyiv in a few days.
- You have so many publications in the Russian press. Is this the job of management?
No one knocks on the door of journalists and asks to write about me. Esquire invited me to do the shoot. Interview magazine heard the album and wanted to do stuff. I remember how I wrote to you when I shot the clip "Autumn". I doubted - maybe nobody needs these songs at all? Worried all day. Then my clip was posted - it all started. I sent comments that were positive for me, people noticed exactly what was really important to me. Although you admitted in the description of the video that this is such an insidious producer's move.
And Ivan Dorn asked me the same question when we were with him for Interview magazine. He also believed that all this was invented by someone. And I have an internal rebellion every day. They tell me in production: “You have already seen that people like everything, now go and shoot yourself a commercial video. You'll see, a lot of views will go, you'll go on tour. And I say: “No, I want to do it my way.” And I'm constantly in conflict
- Were you worried when Dorn interviewed you?
It felt like before an exam. Although I know him - I photographed him a couple of years ago, we were friends with him. One day I met Ivan on the street. He says: “Oh, little one, can you take a picture of me?” I say: “Listen, Vanya, I'm already doing something else. And in general, I really want to become so cool so that we make a fit with you. And when at the end of the interview he reminded me of this, I ran home happy and wrote a new track in a second.
The fact is that after the album "Mag-ni-you" I could not write anything for two months. This glory has fallen. And I, like any normal person, got a little covered. I had a star disease, only it was expressed not in the fact that I was conceited, but in some kind of fright. And I was so inspired by Dorn's words that he feels vitality and honesty in me that I wrote a new track. The song is called "Sad Dance", I also decided to name it.
Following the premiere of the EP "Sad Dance", a video of the same name was released
- Do you understand where the talk comes from that the Moon is a fabricated project?
Of course not. Although I had questions why I don’t have so many views. But Luna is not a mass project, I have come to terms with that. And I continue to bend my line. They send me house remixes of "He Doesn't Walk With You" and they tell me that it will tear everyone apart, but I don't want to. Yura says this to me: "Mushrooms" - this is exactly what to do right now. And Luna… Her audience is gradually growing, but I think it will be for a long time. And in fifteen years this sound will be appreciated in the same way, because it is not in trend. I understand how to reformat into a more pop project. But me what publications are now contacting me.
- The interest of journalists is a fleeting thing. Today you are in fashion, tomorrow you need someone new.
I understand. But it doesn’t seem to me that I caught the hype of new items and it’s empty in the back. I live by this, I have plans, deep roots, a connection with the cosmos. And well, I don't care at all. My heart is calm.
- You didn't have many concerts. Are you afraid that something will not work out in Moscow?
I was afraid in Kyiv, it was the first concert in my life, I woke up every day at 5 in the morning, and in my head: "Concert, concert." And I spent my energy before the concert and at the concert I was in the last stages - what can I give? And what can I even do? I really expected that after the Kyiv concert there should be more performances, this did not happen, but I was not upset. Because if you start waiting for something, you can quickly grow old. I am on a relaxed wave, and I am pleased with my team, the creative team of the Moon. These are my musicians, this is Alina, with whom we develop ideas and grow together. I have already become liberated on stage, even if I sing alone under minus, I will absolutely keep people's attention. I have something to give, I want to tour.
My husband has a large production, I see how everything works there. I see how clips need to be shot, how important it is to launch them on time, and why it is not necessary to shoot ten clips a month, as I would like to. But I need to walk this path myself, make these mistakes. Every day I gain experience, grow up, I am only 26 years old, and until recently I did not understand much. And I wouldn’t have understood if I hadn’t stepped on all this rake myself. If a person does not eat and drink, he will die in four days. I also feel like I'm going to die if I don't go and shoot my videos the way I want and write my songs the way I want with my own musician that I choose and that suits me.
It seems that journalists, and behind them the audience, do not quite understand how my project works. They probably think that they invested money in me, shot clips and hired sound producers who created my musical image. In fact, this is a DIY project that arose as a result of a somewhat spontaneous collective work - mine, Sasha, other musicians, who together make up Luna prod. This is a life that begins in the morning after family affairs. Directly across the street from the house at Luna Prod. is our musical world. I have long been not alone in this vision of mine, behind the Moon there is its own lunar team, consisting of creative people who have found each other.
"Autumn" is not the first video of the Moon, but it so happened that after its premiere on "Afisha" they paid attention to it - and this is what it led to
There are several new Russian indie pop projects that I want to list with you, separated by commas. This is Yana Kedrina (“Cedar of Lebanon”), and this is the “None of Your Business” group. Do you know something about them?
I was at the live "Cedar of Lebanon" in Kyiv, I have her favorite song, I like it. Alina, who makes all the videos for me, did the visualization at her performance. I came with her, danced cool. Alina even told me: “By the way, many people compare you with her, they say that you repeat after her.” Somewhere we do touch, but she's more electronic and underground, I'm more pop. At my concert they stand and sing along, at her place they grabbed the wheel and dance, roughly speaking. I only saw the cover of “None of Your Business” - there is a girl and a bunch of men. I saw but didn't listen. . Cover is cool.
They have an album a week after yours, and they were also asked questions: there was Luna's album with references to pop music of the 90s, now yours - what does it all mean?
Did they react well?
- They laughed it off. I think any creative person doesn't really like being compared to someone else.
And I think this is normal. As for the trend for the 90s, I did not calculate anything. People ask me if I'm afraid to stay in the 90s when the trend changes, but I'm not in the 90s anyway. It just happened. I apparently have a sense of what will be fashionable. So with the Superstar sneakers, I saw them at the vintage market in LA - no one wore them then - and I thought: “Damn, they will be fashionable soon.” And a year later they all wore them.
Have you ever cried over music?
And more than once. I am an emotional person, I take everything very close to my heart - not even criticism, but my internal processes. I wake up in the morning - and it seems that Sasha does not understand me. But not because he didn’t write a song for me, but because at the rehearsal he somehow looked at me the wrong way. But now it's easier for me - I got carried away with astrology, learning new energy sciences. This allows me to switch, because when I'm idle, I start to pin. Now I have the release of an EP and clips, four shootings in Moscow, I'm such a class. And when I did everything, then I need to occupy myself with something. Otherwise, I start to think about what it is better not to think about. Here I am crying. This is reflected in the songs, there through the line “tears”, “my tears”. But then again, if I cry, it means I like it. And there's no getting away from it.
