The three-story mansion of the singer and her husband Vadim Tsyganov, located near Zelenograd, according to polls by design and interior magazines, is among the ten best houses in Russia.
18August 17 2017
– In childhood and adolescence in my life there were only communal apartments, hostels, rented apartments, I did not hope and did not dream that someday I would live in the castle. But God sent me such a husband – and now we have been living here for the thirteenth year.
– Construction, along with finishing, went on for five years. And the design of the house has been going on for seven years, and even now it continues. After all, I am a designer by profession, so everything that surrounds us is made according to my sketches.
– This is not a luxury, all things fit into our life organically. I remember I came to Dubai. As soon as the hotel “Parus” opened there, everyone piled into it. And I went in and cried, did not begin to live there. And everyone loves to stay with us. The mansion also has an oriental-style tea room.
– The 1953 German grand piano, which is in one of the rooms, is my pride. This instrument was played by Tatiana Nikolaeva, a professor at the Moscow Conservatory. I remember we went to the store to buy a piano, but all the “Germans” were very expensive and made in China. The store manager said that you should look for a good German grand piano from the 50s. And my admin found one option. We arrived at the apartment, the owner said: “This is my black swan. Take it guys! ” It turned out that the man’s wife had died, and he wanted to give the piano in good hands. So this instrument has a destiny, so many students of the conservatory have learned on it. We have a lot of people playing on it. With composer Alexander Morozov they composed the album “My Blue Flowers”. Sasha is temperamental, he pounded strongly on the keys made of turtle bone, but our “German” resisted his pressure. The house has a lot of carvings, stained-glass windows, and all this was done according to the sketches of her husband.
– By the way, many famous people have my things. For example, a chair made in our workshop stands by President Vladimir Putin. It was ordered from me for one of the anniversaries of Vladimir Vladimirovich. This chair is made of bog oak, covered with the skin of a dark bear and decorated with Ural precious stones, and is crowned with a two-headed eagle. I was told that the President liked the gift. The house has its own design workshop and the hostess.
– I myself come up with collections, select a color palette. I keep a coat – a stage veteran who is over 20 years old, I even took it to performances in Chechnya. I wanted my Russian image to be strengthened by beautiful patterns and Russian sables. Usually, four people work on one thing in the workshop for a month: a cutter, a dressmaker, a furrier, since there are fur inserts here, and an embroiderer. So I saw that Karl Lagerfeld staged a show in the Louvre, and I thought: we are also not bastard and we have something to show in the Kremlin. And already twice successfully participated in the shows, which were held in the Historical Museum as part of the Russian Fashion Week Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week. This year I also take part in it. And at the beginning of the year, I presented the first lady of the United States, Melania Trump, with a cashmere and sable jacket. Now I wanted to make a gift to Anna Netrebko, a coat is already ready for her, which I called “Salute of Flowers”. I signed up with Anya via Instagram, now I’m waiting for a visit. Here, in this room, there is also a sable coat that Vadik gave me 25 years ago. I went to Italy to a fur coat factory, saw the whole process of dressing and realized that the technology was being violated there: the fur was pulled strongly. She refused a western fur coat, and Vadik presented a Russian sable one. A quarter of a century has passed, and it is like new.
– There is a 25-meter swimming pool in the house, it is located in a gallery with a glass ceiling and huge arched windows. Next to the pool there is a Russian bathhouse – a log cabin inside the house and a relaxation room. In winter, we swim in the pool, and in summer, in warm weather, we swim in our pond. This pond is artificial and a unique environment has been specially created in it with the help of clay of different rocks, which kills microbes. In winter, it does not freeze – more than four meters deep. It also contains equipment that enriches the water with oxygen to make the fish comfortable. There were a lot of large fish in our pond: sturgeons, catfish, grass carp, and carps … But not so long ago, a black thief from the forest – a weasel – began to visit us, and she dragged all the large fish. Only the little carp remained. We catch this weasel, but so far to no avail. She comes at night – only a splash is heard, as she jumps into the water.
– Icons embroidered with beads are hung on the walls throughout the house. 15 years ago, a girl named Olya from our village came to me and said: “Let’s sell my icons.” I looked at her work and gasped. And Olya: “For me icons are a miracle, when I don’t work on them, I am covered with psoriasis, and as soon as I sit down to work, I am healed”. So Olya began to work with us, and now you can see her icons everywhere. We presented George the Victorious in the Donetsk region, and then we brought the same to Syria and there we learned that George the Victorious, it turns out, was from this country.
The house has a knight’s hall, where men like to spend time, it is decorated using stone and painting. There is also a collection of edged weapons, a massive five-meter table made of a rare species of wood – alpine maple. Nearby is a huge bench, upholstered with a six-meter python. The skin of a polar bear is lying by the fireplace. “The owner of the house calls one of the bedside tables a new word in furniture. She stands on the horns of a buffalo that lives in the Kilimanjaro mountains. The horn of this animal can reach a length of one and a half meters. The armchair in the hall is trimmed with the skin of the Ussuri tiger.
– Our house is not a fortress, but a creative workshop, maybe even a creative academy. Now we are working on the creation of the Fyodor Konyukhov Museum of Sea Travel. It will be accommodated on the yacht “Saint Victoria” in Sochi, which has passed two rounds of the world. And also Vika and Fyodor Konyukhov and I are preparing for a new musical project “Russian Space”. The result will be Konyukhov’s flight into the stratosphere in a balloon with the task of breaking the world record of 50 hours 39 minutes, set 20 years ago by the Japanese. “Russian Space” is a large-scale project, it will involve Emir Kusturica, Italian composer and producer Fio Zanotti (he has 12 platinum discs on his account), Fyodor Bondarchuk, and possibly director James Cameron. Librettos and songs for musical action are already being written. Vika is inspired to work with Zanotti. At the end of September, according to my project, a monument to the commander with a height of 18 meters will be unveiled for the birthday of Alexander Nevsky. It will be installed exactly in the place where Nevsky finally defeated the Teutonic Order on Lake Peipsi.