One of the biggest celebrities in Ukraine from the early ’90s is Verka Serduchka.
That’s the stage name for Andriy Danylko, a Ukrainian comedian, actor and singer.
Danylko’s drag persona, Verka Serduchka, is a middle-aged woman from a rural family who works as a railroad sleeping car attendant — think of a cross between Robin Williams’ “Mrs. Doubtfire” and American pop singer Britney Spears. Today, Danylko uses her to represent Ukraine on the world stage.
Danylko grew up in the working-class town of Poltava in the ’70s.
When he was a kid, whether at school or summer camp, he said he always wanted to make people laugh.
“Making people laugh was the most important thing for me,” Danylko said. “You get an immediate reaction, and suddenly, people like you because you’re funny.”
He said humor was also a way of getting through school because kids could be cruel. He was the class clown, and later, at summer camp, he’d get on stage and act out funny scenes — sometimes dressed in drag.
“The idea of a boy playing a woman, back then, just that, got laughs. That image, for many people, was hilarious,” he said.
And that’s how Danylko created the Verka Serduchka character.
Serduchka is loud, flamboyant and silly. She often wears a beret, red lipstick and a cloud of aqua-blue eye shadow.
In Danylko’s early 20s, Verka Serduchka became much more than just a bit. He started a theater troupe, and Serduchka became his on-stage persona.
Danylko took his Serduchka act across the country and eventually became so popular that by the mid-’90s, he had his own TV show, “The Sleeping Car Show.”
“Serduchka was the first late-night show in Ukraine,” he said. And it was original. We didn’t copy the American format or anybody.”
The program was a hybrid of sketch comedy and a late-night talk show. Verka Serduchka would welcome celebrities to a train car, improvise a scene and the celebrity would react.
In one of the episodes, Philipp Kirkorov, one of the biggest pop stars in Russia, was a guest. Serduchka and her assistant tried to convince him to nap, and he resists.
Part of the show’s appeal was that guest celebrities had no clue what could happen.
The show became so popular that it got picked up in Russia, which, Danylko said, was a big deal.
But he wanted to go even further with Serduchka.
“To be a star, and at that point, that’s where Serduchka was heading, she needed to sing,” said Danylko. “That’s what could take her from being a popular character to becoming a Michael Jackson type.”
The first attempts at turning Serduchka into a musical act failed, he said. But then, in 2004, Danylko came out with “Hop-Hop,” and it became a hit. The first line in the song is, “I will not mourn, I will dance.”
In the music video, Serduchka dresses in traditional Ukrainian garb and sits around a large table with her friends as they drink, feast and celebrate.
“Since that song, Serduchka has been associated with weddings, birthdays and drunk outings — basically with holidays and celebrations,” Danylko said.
After a few hits, Serduchka’s rise to fame jumped exponentially, selling out arenas and stadiums in Ukraine and Russia.
But Danylko didn’t stop there. In 2007, Serduchka represented Ukraine in the Eurovision Song Contest.
“At that point, many people turned against me,” he said. “They said this was a shame for Ukraine. There were even protests. Some people wrote letters to the president. They even burned images of Verka Serduchka in Kyiv’s Maidan square.”
Danylko said that, up until then, Ukrainians didn’t consider Serduchka offensive or controversial even though he was dressed in drag.
Once he was selected for Eurovision, Danylko received a lot of hate. Despite the backlash, he still repped Ukraine.
Verka Serduchka’s Eurovision song “Dancing Lasha Tumbai” took Ukraine to second place in the competition. To this day, Serduchka is considered one of the most iconic acts in Eurovision’s history.
The song’s chorus goes, “I want to see Lasha Tumbai,” and according to Danylko, the words “Lasha Tumbai” are gibberish.
However, most people heard “Russia, goodbye.”
Back in Ukraine, Danylko was greeted as a hero because of his Eurovision success. However, in Russia, the story was different.
“This became a gigantic controversy,” he said. “They were destroying me on all the TV programs. They said Danylko spit in Russia’s face. They ended up canceling all my concerts. It was a terrible situation.”
Danylko stopped performing in Russia. In retrospect, he said that he was sometimes disparaged by people in Russia, even at the height of his success.
“Serduchka is Ukraine. I would travel there, to Russia, and people tried to put me down,” he said. “They would say, why are you so proud? Why are you so Ukrainian?”
Danylko said they used the word “Khokhol,” a demeaning term directed at Ukrainians, and would criticize him for speaking Surzhyk, a mix of Ukrainian and Russian.
But Danylko said he never shied away from his identity because his persona, Verka Serduchka, is quintessentially Ukrainian.
He believes that’s one of the reasons that he’s still so popular today in Ukraine.
A song that came out shortly after Russia’s full-scale invasion samples a clip from a Verka Serduchka comedy sketch.
In the sketch, he said, “Het’ z Ukraini Moskal Nekrasivi” — which in Ukrainian means, “Shoo from Ukraine, you hideous Russian.”
The word “Moskal” is a derogatory term directed at Russians.
“That phrase, ‘Shoo from Ukraine,’ is from a sketch in 2004, but it became popular after Russia’s invasion. It became a meme, and singers sampled it.”
“This is Verka Serduchka’s protest,” Danylko said. “It drives Russians crazy! Among artists, I’m one of Russia’s number one enemies.”
These days, Danylko said that he’s using his platform to support Ukrainians and that, for the first time in his career, he sometimes performs as Andriy Danylko — dropping his Verka Serduchka act.
“I know how Serduchka acts on stage, but now I’m discovering my own stage persona,” he said.
Danylko hopes to continue performing as he enters his 50s.
But right now, he believes his role as an artist in Ukraine is to entertain, lift morale, give people a break from the war and — above all else — to do what he’s always done: make people laugh.