The amazing Ani Lorak story

Raised in a children’s home, she wrote her first lyrics when her brother was killed in Afghanistan.

But Lorak, whose real name is Karolina Kuyek, says she wouldn’t change a thing. With a bright music career spanning over a decade and Whitney Houston-strong vocals, Lorak has become a household name in Ukraine. Achieving second place in Eurovision marked another step up the musical career ladder by opening up the world stage.

The petite 32-year-old sneaked into a restaurant one recent afternoon to meet a Kyiv Post reporter without waiters identifying her. With her natural curly hair tied in a modest ponytail, she wore a simple T-shirt, skinny jeans and little make-up. “You know, stars are in the sky and people should be on the ground, so I behave accordingly,” she said gazing into the window.

The woman famous for her “Shady Lady” Eurovision song seems anything but shady. Often quoting the Bible, she comes across as a calm, sensitive and charming person. Lorak recalls that she was a lonely child. Born in the small town of Kitsman in Chernivtsi Oblast, she was raised by a single mother, Zhanna Linkova. Her father left the family before she was born, and the family struggled to make ends meet. When Lorak turned six, Linkova sent her along and her two elder brothers to a
children’s home. 

“With my hair cut short, I was brought up like one of the boys. Soccer and fishing were among my daily tomboy routines. I had no time to get bored,” Lorak said. They all had to wear second-hand clothes left over from the older children in the boarding home. “I learned how to be quick to choose something better than what we had,” Lorak said. It was her first big survival test, but she said she held no grudge against her parents, despite missing them terribly.

“God gave me many secret signs to make me understand where I belong. My task was only to read them properly and understand that I should be where the stage, applause and loads of love are,” Lorak said. She said the first sign was that she
was born in the same town and house as Volodymyr Ivasiuk, a popular composer in 1970s. His song “Chervona Ruta” has evolved into a legend that no wedding, party or that folk concert goes without.

“I could have been born in any other village or any other house. It was definitely not a coincidence that I was lulled to sleep in Ivasiuk’s own pram when I was taken from the maternity hospital,” said Lorak who has no family ties with the Ivasiuks.
She started singing at the age of four, pulling out a chair onto the street and performing Russian songs. During one such street concert, an old woman gave her a coin saying that she would “earn much more for her talent soon.” She soon enrolled in an entertainment school to practice singing professionally.
At 13, she met her music producer Yuriy Falyosa, 33 at the time. He took her to Kyiv four years later, and at 19, she already earned Ukraine’s biggest award in the art world – the Honored Artist award. Falyosa left his family to see his budding star rise Lorak has toured the world and recorded 12 albums to date, in which many of the songs she composed herself. Her first language is Ukrainian but she also sings in Russian and English. She’s also become a popular TV host and sometimes voices cartoons. When she had met hotelier Murat Nalcacioglu in Antalya in 2005, the geography of her concerts and personal
life expanded to Turkey. They got married five years later. “In my family life I use a mixture of Russian and English, but I pray in Ukrainian,” she said, drawing attention back to religion again. She said that Nalcaciouglu, a Turkish Muslim, didn’t ask her to convert.

Today Lorak’s portraits hang in some Turkish hotels that belong to the Nalcacioglu family. “When guests ask who the lady is, hotel managers say that this is the modern Ukrainian Roksolana who stole our Murat,” she said recalling a historic event when Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent of the Ottoman Empire captured a Ukrainian girl Roksolana in the 15th century, who
later became his wife. For more information on Ani Lorak, see www.anilorak.com