“I can’t take credit for the popularity in social media. I see people who put in daily effort, working on strategies. I didn’t do any of that.” Vasilisa Kaganovskaia and Maksim Nekrasov

Interview with ice dancers Vasilisa Kaganovskaia and Maksim Nekrasov.

original source: Championat dd. March 12th by Ekaterina Bobrova and Andrei Zhurankov

Vasilisa and Maksim reflect on their first season Ttgether on the “Khod Konkom” Podcast. Here’s a translation of some of their comments.

Internet Comments

Maksim Nekrasov: What our fans post on our Telegram channel, and we definitely read your opinions. There’s a lot.

Vasilisa Kaganovskaia: I love the people who run our Telegram channel. We know them personally; we’ve met them. They’re so quick at finding everything, almost like they’re searching 24/7.

Maksim Nekrasov: Every day, something new appears — things even we weren’t aware of.

Vasilisa Kaganovskaia: Sometimes they’ll find the competition schedules before we even see them. They’re incredible people (smiles). Most of the comments about us, we see through this group. I’ve never stumbled across random comments about myself anywhere else.

Role Models

Vasilisa Kaganovskaia: My top three are Papadakis/Cizeron, Virtue/Moir, and Sinitsina/Katsalapov.

Maksim Nekrasov: What about Charlie [White]?

Vasilisa Kaganovskaia: Well, then we’d be able to list pairs endlessly.

Maksim Nekrasov: My list is the same as Vasilisa’s, but I’d add Davis/White. I like both of them as a team. They pulled off moves no one else did. For example, there’s this lift where she jumps from below onto his shoulders — I’ve tried to do it but couldn’t manage it.

On Cizeron’s Return to Competition

Vasilisa Kaganovskaia: I was really surprised and, at the same time, so happy that this athlete is returning to competitive ice and that we’ll get to see him skate again. I silently wished him the best of luck.

Maksim Nekrasov: Cizeron’s comeback shocked me as well. I think I was the first to send the news to Vasilisa. It’s so cool. I’m curious to see if they’ll bring something new. If they do, it’s going to be a “wow” moment for sure.

On Working with a Sports Psychologist

Vasilisa Kaganovskaia: I used to work with one.

Maksim Nekrasov: I’ve never worked with one. Only during our training camps with Alexander Svinin and Irina Zhuk, where we had a psychologist named Zhanna. To this day, I still work with her. I can message her anytime to ask for advice or talk. Vasilisa met her this year. During the camps, we sometimes work with her through games, to distract us from the intensity of training. When we’re completely drained and out of energy, she’ll sit down, hug us, and we start to open up and talk.

On Social Media Videos

Maksim Nekrasov: She [Vasilisa] pushes for it, but I do it too [take videos]. At most, we’ll do five or six takes — no spending an hour recording one thing. In our pair, Vasilisa is the main PR manager. She leads the majority of it.

Vasilisa Kaganovskaia: I don’t feel like we’re posting a lot. We just try to make fun videos that can cheer people up. Most of them are dances or videos from the ice. Sometimes, when I run out of good ideas, I just film myself lip-syncing to songs.

On Social Media Popularity

Vasilisa Kaganovskaia: I can’t take credit for it. I see people who put in daily effort, working on strategies. I didn’t do any of that. Most of our audience growth happened after the 2022 test skates. I searched for the reason behind it. I wondered if the test skates had suddenly become super popular, but looking at other skaters, I realized that people started making video compilations of our lifts and posting them.

Those videos, which I didn’t even make, became incredibly popular. At the time, we were performing “East.” Then people started looking for other programs of ours, including “Romeo and Juliet,” and so on.

On Their Free Program to “Moonlight Sonata”

Vasilisa Kaganovskaia: The story is centered around the composer himself, Beethoven. My grandmother is a skilled pianist and a great teacher, and she shared stories about him with me as a child. Our program tells the story of a love that takes a tragic turn. It’s about two people who start out in love, but over time, their relationship deteriorates with problems and arguments. In the end, their paths diverge, but they still remain a deep part of each other’s hearts.

On Praise for Last Season

Maksim Nekrasov: Thanks to Krylova, I was able to open up more emotionally.

Vasilisa Kaganovskaia: For me, it was likely more in terms of technique. But I’d say this more broadly: we never gave up, even during tough times or moments of misunderstanding, we always got through it together. We helped each other in everything, including during competitions. It was a pretty good season — it could have been much worse. When did we truly enjoy the season? After finishing the free dance at the Grand Prix Final, we could finally breathe out. There weren’t too many bad moments. We always kept things positive.

On the movie “Anora”

Vasilisa Kaganovskaia: The film is very specific. I hadn’t read anything about it beforehand and didn’t even have a vague idea of what it would be about. Judging by the pictures, I imagined it differently. I probably should have read more about it first. That said, it’s a good film, well done.

I’m more into TV series — I rarely watch movies. I used to love Netflix shows and rewatched many of them. It’s hard to recommend anything specific. I liked a lot of them when I was 14 or 15.

Would I like them now? I don’t know — it’s not guaranteed. The last show I watched was The 100 — I saw a clip with beautiful butterflies flying around, and that drew me in. It was decent. A dystopia. I also love Sherlock with Benedict Cumberbatch and Pride and Prejudice with Keira Knightley.

On the Dream of Climbing Mount Elbrus

Maksim Nekrasov: I really want to climb Mount Elbrus, to its very peak. I want to approach it fully, but I can’t do it now — it’s something for after my career. It’s risky and requires preparation. You need to train for each level. I’ve climbed in the Elbrus region before, but I don’t even know if I suffer from altitude sickness. That only really shows up when you go above 3,000 meters.

I’m drawn to mountains — I love them. When I visit my grandmother in Stavropol, I always crave going into the mountains. Mashuk, Dombai. And I’d love to at least see Everest from afar. Also the Alps. Different mountains, but these are places I’ve always wanted to experience, even from a distance.

On the Best Programs in Figure Skating History

Vasilisa Kaganovskaia: My favorite program in ice dance is Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir’s Olympic “Tango Roxanne” from 2018. Also, the free dance by Papadakis and Cizeron from 2016 and the short dance by Virtue and Moir from the 2016–2017 season. I love figure skating and started ice dance when I was six years old. Ever since then, I’ve been watching everything. From Anjelika Alexeevna Krylova, I loved her Carmen — the most memorable and unique.

If I had to pick something outside of ice dance, it would be Aljona Savchenko and Bruno Massot’s free program from the 2018 Olympics. Also, the free skate from 2022 by the Chinese pair Wenjing Sui and Cong Han.

On Their Coaching Duo: Krylova and Gorshkov

Vasilisa Kaganovskaia: I didn’t train with Anjelika Alexeevna [Krylova] as long as Maxim trained with Alexei Yurievich [Gorshkov], but it was still quite a significant period. Anjelika Alexeevna has known me practically since childhood. Honestly, my biggest fear was that our coaches wouldn’t be able to find a compromise and nothing would work out. I knew Maksim wouldn’t want to leave Alexei Yurievich for another coach, and I had no intention of leaving Anjelika Alexeevna.

But thankfully, our coaches are mature and wise individuals who found a solution and supported us in every possible way. Thanks to them, our skating partnership came to life.

Maksim Nekrasov: The compromise was that we skated together as a trial, and then Vasya came to our side. She tried everything I’d been doing with Alexei Yurievich — our shared approach. Vasya was shocked. I looked at her and asked, “How’s it going?” She was like, “Um, okay…” (laughs). In 30 minutes, we went through so many exercises: technique, movement, everything.

Eventually, we all sat down and talked. They decided Vasya would train with us for two weeks, and I’d spend two weeks at “Kristall.” But things changed. I ended up spending a month at Kristall with Anjelika Alexeevna and even celebrated my birthday there.

Vasilisa Kaganovskaia: After that, we spent several months in Odintsovo, so the plans shifted. In the end, the compromise is that we have two coaches who don’t always work on the same rink. It’s not a typical team setup — it’s something new.

Maksim Nekrasov: Recently, starting from the Grand Prix stage in Krasnoyarsk, we’ve been training in Odintsovo from Monday to Friday and then going for a five-minute warmup and run-through at Anjelika Alexeevna’s on Saturdays. Or sometimes, midweek, we’ll stop by her rink. Before the Grand Prix Final, Anjelika Alexeevna came to us in Odintsovo, and we spent three days there.

Vasilisa Kaganovskaia: It works like this: once the programs are set and the season is underway, they’ve planned out the run-through schedules. One day we’ll do the free dance, the next day the short dance, and so on. Even if plans change — like thinking we’ll stay in Odintsovo but needing to head to Kristall — the training schedule doesn’t change because both coaches know what we need to do. Regardless of the rink, we follow the combined plan.

When we first started skating together, it was about figuring out how best to organize things for success. At the start, there were some hiccups, but that was just because it was all new for us. Over time, those issues disappeared. Now they have excellent working relationships, and neither coach tries to dominate the other. Instead, we always feel that both of our main coaches are doing everything they can to help us succeed.

Related topics: Maksim Nekrasov, Vasilisa Kaganovskaya