Short haircut, sports, French… Now all of that is the part of Valerie Warntz’s life: a young singer-songwriter from Saint Petersburg. We were lucky enough to talk to her on topics such as: how did she celebrate The New Year, why did she decide to learn French, what does she usually eat, and many more.

Hello, Valerie! It’s such a pleasure for us that your first interview this year is for our website. Tell us please, how did you celebrate The New Year 2021? Do you like this holiday?

— Hello! Thank you for the invitation. I don’t like this celebration as a whole, but I was waiting for The New Year 2021 very much and was so excited. Probably that’s because 2020 was, without any exagerration, extremely tough for me, so I was waiting for it to end: it was going very slowly. In December, I got cheerful New Year mood for the first time in many years. I celebrated amazingly too: on my own. Before that, I treated this as a ‘family holiday’, so I always celebrated wity my family, but this time I decided to make a change and celebrate this way. And, to be honest, it was the best The New Year celebration in my life! I’m very introverted-type person. I love my own company. So yeah, on January 31st I made some dishes, bought a juice, and in the evening put on Christmas and New Year music and just enjoyed it while gazing at the sparkling garlands. After that, I ate a little, watched the president’s speech and fireworks, and went to bed. Without any noise and nerves: especially since I’ve noticed that, before celebrations with somebody, something always went wrong: we quarreled or something. And now everything was perfect!

Sounds interesting. As you’ve mentioned stereotypes: we know that last year you also ruined stereotypes about appearence and cut your long hair off. Tell us why did you decide to do it? Did you regret about it?

— No, I didn’t. At first, it was unusual feeling, cause I used to have long hair since childhood, or, at least, they were longer that shoulders. But I got used to it for around a week, and noticed the benefits right away. I’ve already said many times that, as well as many others, in childhood I was pushed to think like it’s not good for women to do a short haircut, and so on. It seemed like a truth, so I couldn’t even think about cut my hair off before. Honestly, I don’t remember exactly, what really inspired me to go ahead and do it. Probably I started noticing more women with haircut and read their stories about how comfortable and economical it is. Yeah, also I was motivated by the fact that long hair often make working out complicated even with a ponytail, and also, while actively shaking a head, hair is falling out a little, so you have to sweep quite often. You don’t have these problems with a haircut. And honestly, if I knew that before, I would do it in childhood.

As you mentioned sports, our next question is: when and why did you decide to do sports?

— Overall, I used to play volleyball at school, and also used to ride a bycicle and jumprope everyday in summer, in the countryside, til’ I turn 12 years old. It was the only physical activity I did. Now I’m 22 years old, so I haven’t done any sports til’ the quarantine: around a year ago I started doing exercises for arms. Though I was doing it for 2 months and then stopped, because 1) as I said before, 2020 was hard for me, so I didn’t have energy and resourses to continue that time 2) I didn’t have enough motivation. But somehow, in the end of October, I stumbled upon Alexandra Trusova, Russian figure skater. I was impressed by her energy, power and muscules. Of course, there is much more in her, but her muscles shape… I was amazed by how athletic she is, and how strong willpower it takes to reach this, not to mention she is 2x Junior World Champion and is in the Guinness Book of Records! That being said, Alexandra inspired me, so in November I started doing sports and stretching. At first it was very hard and unusual, especially since I started doing it right away. But later I started liking it! Now I really enjoy working out, though stretching is really tough, I still do it regularly and do my best.

Tell us about your day. Do you workout everyday? What do you eat?

— I do strength training on Monday and Thursday, stretching — every other day, cardio — I try to do it everyday, back exercises — Wednesday and Saturday. Overall, that’s how my usual day go: I wake up and lay in bed for around an hour, where I just surf through the Internet. Then, I fill my 1,9 l bottle with water for this day and do 15-min dance cardio. After that, if it’s Monday or Thursday, I do strength workout on legs, then — stretching, then — training on arms and ABS. If it’s not, I do either stretching or back exercises. After that I breakfast: it’s usually either smoothie from banana, vegan milk (I like many), flax seeds, peanut butter and probably some salad/spinach/berries, or oat meal with berries. For dinner and/or supper I prefer soups and pasta with vegan cutles and ketchup or simply with oil and salt. I also like bread with hummus or Japanese tofu pate, or to do vegan fish analog from tofu and nori. Sometimes I please myself with pizza or sushi, but try to follow healthy lifestyle. Back to the topic: after that I usually study French and help foreigners with Russian grammar and pronunciation. Then I work if I have to, or play: usually it’s online billiard, solitaire or cards, or races, or parking and design games. I also like intellectual apps: words, Sudoku, tetris. Sometimes I also do tests about correct stress/emphasis in Russian words and use apps for increasing my English vocabulary. Also, I quite often sing in app Smule!

That’s deep! By the way, you said through your Instagram that this year you are celebrating 8 years of being vegan. Congratulations!

— Thank you!

Of course we can’t escape asking: why did you decide to study French?

— I wanted to learn it a long time ago, since I visited France for the first time and fell in love with this country 9 years ago. From beautiful Paris to small villages: France is a magical country with calm and pleasant atmosphere. I lived in French families and listened to French speech: it’s very beautiful. Before now, just like with sports, I didn’t have enough motivation to start learning this language, and I also didn’t know where to start. But recently I discovered useful stuff and started learning, step by step.

— Yes. Before that, I was never interested in figure skating, because I saw only pair skating in show «Lednikoviy Period», which my parents used to watch long time ago. Pair skating doesn’t fascinate me, and that time I didn’t know about women’s single skating. But when I watched it, I was amazed by the grace and, at the same time, power of this discipline and skaters, cause you have to have a lot of strength to skate fast and smooth, as well as to do various elements. It’s amazing and inspiring. Of course, Alexandra Trusova is number one for me, but I also like Alyona Kostornaya and 2 juniors: Sofya Akatieva and Sofya Samodelkina. So yeah, I wanted to learn how to roller skate and ice skate too. Now I can do it very slowly, but I have much fun!

That’s amazing, good luck to you! What about music? Do you plan to release something this year?

— I can’t say certainly at the moment. I write new songs when inspiration comes, and think about the concept of the next album. Releasing new music for me is more a spontaneous process: I can release something unexpectedly, just write a song in a day, like «what I needed.» and «Beautiful Places». But now I’m focused on what we’ve discussed earlier.

Ok, thanks, Valerie! We’ll be looking forward to your new music! Good luck and thanks for talking to us!

— Thank you too!