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For twenty years he led the international cultural project Interkultura, and he now heads “Cooperate for Life”, the centre it became. He has been writing music since 1973, with songs in Ukrainian and Esperanto, teaches Esperanto by his own method, and has been taking photographs since 1978. Since 2022 he has lived in Switzerland, now in the canton of Vaud, and does all of this at once.
He heads the Global Centre for the Support of Eco/Intercultural Movements “Cooperate for Life”, which Interkultura became in 2025. The centre brings together the global movements FORPEACE, KlimMate, Pandemi and AI-friend and a language centre with SEPTIMA and RefrenDoo; in Switzerland there are the association Interkultura Svislando and the Force for Peace flashmob parade in Lausanne.
Cooperate for Life websiteGlobal movements
In Switzerland and online
Writing music since 1973, when he was fourteen: songs and ballads, choral, chamber and symphonic works, rock and world music. Now he is giving new life to songs and poems written more than forty years ago, arranging and orchestrating them himself. Songs in Esperanto and in Ukrainian — on his YouTube channel.
For him Esperanto is people-to-people diplomacy through language. He teaches it by his own refrain method, in the seven-day song course SEPTIMA and in RefrenDoo; “Robinson’s Language” and “Lingvo-Ring” grew out of the same method. And he organizes Interkulturo events where Esperanto, music and people of different cultures meet. Now in Switzerland.
Magpie Studio, a mobile photo studio: professional lighting that comes to you — to an old castle, a garden, a concert or an exhibition. “Every photoshoot is like an art therapy session for me.”
His international online initiative bringing together photographers who look for human beauty and capture it. You can book a shoot in your own city.
One life, four callings
He has been writing music since 1973. In 1980 he taught himself Esperanto and at once began teaching it and writing songs. In 1986 his band Natkhnennia (“Inspiration”) represented the USSR at a rock festival in Martin, Slovakia, and at the end of the 1980s it recorded an album of his songs in Esperanto for the Melodiya label. From 1989 in Stockholm he built the Magpie production recording studio from nothing. In 2000 he worked out his own refrain method of learning languages and, on it, SEPTIMA, a seven-day Esperanto course built on several hundred songs written specially for it. RefrenDoo is built on the method and SEPTIMA as well.
He started with black-and-white film in his father’s photo studio, the best in town: collages, posters, portraits as large as one metre by one and a half. From 1980, slide film and light-and-music projections.
Back in 1997, with his brother Yurii, he founded the creative association GAUDEAMUS: if Greenpeace defends nature, someone ought to defend culture too. In 2005 in Kyiv it grew into the Round-the-World Caravan Interkultura — language festivals, book campaigns, media movements, flashmob parades. According to the organization, more than 500 initiatives were supported.
Interkultura archive 2005–2017Since 2026 public work, music, language and photography have gone together. Before that, in 2019 digital photography brought him back to professional work; in 2022 the war forced him to move to Switzerland, and he managed to rescue his photography gear “from under the bombs”; in 2025 the association Interkultura Svislando was set up in the canton of Vaud.
The full story
A native of Poltava, composer and conductor, and a linguist too. He has been writing music since 1973, since the age of fourteen. In 1980 he taught himself Esperanto and at once began teaching it and writing songs in it. That same year Poltava journalists nicknamed him “Mister Great Inspiration”, and his band later took the name Natkhnennia (“Inspiration”). Natkhnennia became the first Ukrainian Esperanto band to represent the USSR at an international rock festival, in Martin, Slovakia, in 1986, and at the end of the 1980s recorded an album of his Esperanto songs, “Destin’”, for the Melodiya label.
From 1989 he was in Stockholm, where he built the Magpie production recording studio from nothing and for several years recorded Esperanto bands from around the world free of charge. Alongside it he ran an informal Poltava–Stockholm project, through which dozens of musicians and artists from Poltava performed and exhibited in Sweden.
In 1997, at the World Youth Esperanto Congress in Hungary, he and his brother Yurii founded the creative association GAUDEAMUS: if Greenpeace defends nature, they reasoned, someone ought to defend culture too. GAUDEAMUS became the prototype of Interkultura. Before the Caravan there was also the International Centre for the Development and Implementation of Advanced Communication Technologies, where they worked out their own formats.
In 2000 he worked out his own refrain method of learning foreign languages, and on it the seven-day Esperanto song course SEPTIMA, built on several hundred songs written specially for it; in 2002 the magazine La Ondo de Esperanto wrote about the course. RefrenDoo is built on the method and on SEPTIMA too. He has gone on teaching the course — in Kyiv, for instance, in January 2017. The later projects “Robinson’s Language” and “Lingvo-Ring” grew out of the method: on the International Day of Peace in 2015 he announced Lingvo-Ring from the Maidan — a challenge to the best language-teaching methods in the world to come to Kyiv.
The name “Interkultura” itself was borrowed in 2005 from a mid-1990s UNESCO project built on Esperanto. When it became clear that the Round-the-World Caravan could not be prepared quickly, the preparation became a thing in its own right: the project’s international standing was put to work both on questions inside the country and on international ones. Projects were tried out on the Ukrainian cultural landscape, bringing in embassies, journalists, well-known people, ministries and young people.
Hence the movements he started and coordinated: “In Support of National and Ethnic Languages and Cultures” (1997), “A Common Language for the Children of the Planet” (2000), “NABAT 2020” (2003), “In Support of UNESCO Projects and Resolutions” and the Clean Channels media movement (2006), “SOBI RAJ” and the Eco-Culture world movement (2008), “Force for Peace” / FORPEACE (2009). Hence too the parade-of-festivals format (2004) and the annual ones: 2009 the Year of Initiatives, 2010 the Year of Mutual Understanding, 2011 the Year of Interaction. In 2025 Interkultura became the Global Centre for the Support of Eco/Intercultural Movements “Cooperate for Life”, which he heads.
He invents formats with rules that others can repeat rather than one-off events: the Book Wave, the Flashmob Parade, the Tea Supper, where criticism is replaced by counter-proposals only. And he gives them away: he handed the “Red Book of Ukrainian Culture” to the Kapranov brothers live on Era FM radio when he saw they were doing the same thing.
No advertising budget, but precise planning: the event is built so that it becomes news by itself. The Clean Channels media movement brought in ten TV and radio companies as participants, and the campaign “Feel the Taste of Your Native Language” opened live on Kultura radio.
When raiders destroyed a children’s library in Poltava, the campaign grew large: ministries, cultural centres, schools and other institutions joined in, and Kyiv schoolchildren brought their favourite books. A gate was built from them by the Golden Gate, and overnight several tonnes of books were driven to Poltava.
The UN, UNESCO, four ministries, six foreign cultural centres, sixteen embassies, the Universal Esperanto Association. In Stockholm, for years, he recorded Esperanto bands free of charge and helped dozens of musicians and artists from Poltava perform and exhibit in Sweden.
Events free of alcohol and tobacco — the format was first applied at Trypillian Circle in 2008. A festival instead of a contest: in ten years he supported only two competitions. In the early years he even forbade the use of the Interkultura logo, so that those being helped could see nothing was wanted from them.
“First of all, a photo shoot should be an enjoyable experience.” Sincerity, natural connection and inspiration are what help him connect with the person in front of the lens. And the studio is mobile: it comes to the person, not the other way round.
“Peace as the goal, culture as the means, language as the tool”