Elena Vaenga

Elena Vaenga (pseudonym, real name Elena Vladimirovna Khrulyeva; born January 27, 1977, Severomorsk, Murmanskiy region) is a Russian singer, composer, actress. At the moment she resides in St.-Petersburg.

Elena's grandfather is a rear admiral Vasily Semyenovich Juravel'. Her common-law husband is Ivan Matvienko.

She wrote her first song 'Doves' at9, winning The national contest of young composers on the Kola Peninsula.

She has classical music education. After school she arrived in St.-Petersburg where she graduated musical school of N.A.Rimsky-Korsakov, piano class, received the diploma of teacher-leader. She also was engaged in vocal.

From her childhood Elena dreamt of becoming an actress, therefore after musical school she matriculated Theatrical academy (LGITMIK), G.Trostjanetsky's course, but studied only two months as her was invited to Moscow to write down her first album. The album was written down, Elena Vaenga's songs were sung by Alexander Marshal, Tatyana Tishinskaja, the bands "Strelki", "Bojya Korovka" and other well-known performers. However the Moscow creative period lasted only one year then Elena returned back to Petersburg. Here in 2000 she entered Baltiysk institute of economy, P.S.Velyaminov's course. Having graduated, she received the diploma in a 'drama art' speciality.

Elena has been giving concerts from 19. She is a laureate of Saint-Petersburg contest 'Popular Song 1998' with the song ' Gipsy', laureate of the contest 'Worthy Song 2002'.

Elena participated in the concerts-festivals 'Spring of a romance', 'the Free song over free Neva', 'the Neva breeze'. She gave solo concerts in a recreation centre of M.Gorky. She goes on tour across the country very often.

In 2009 the singer won the first prize 'the Gold record player' for a song "I Smoke".
In 2010 for the second time she received the award 'Gold record player' for the song "Airport". The same year Elena Vaenga became for the first time the winner of the festival 'Song of the Year', having sung the song "Absent".

Elena can't definitely determine her genre: 'For 50 percent it is folk rock, there are ancient ballads, city romances, chanson. But it is almost impossible to lay borders between them .'

In 2011 she participated in the annual National Award the Chanson of Year in the Kremlin. Popularity of the singer grows. In January, 2011 Elena Vaenga crushed Leonid Agutin on a musical ring on the NTV channel, having collected almost twice more listeners' votes.
Elena Vaenga has written about 800 songs. The north and its open spaces became one of leitmotives of its creativity. The singer's repertoire comprises her own songs, ancient Russian romances, modern romances, ballads and national songs, and also songs on classics' verses such, as Sergey Yesenin ('Evening began to steam') and Nikolay Gumilev ("Giraffe", "Clown").

Discography
- 2003 - Portrait
- 2003 - Flute 1
- 2004 - Flute 2
- 2005 - White Bird
- 2006 - Chopin
- 2007 - Absenta
- 2007 - Dunes
- 2008 - Keys

Digests
- 2007 - The Best
- 2010 - Princess
- 2010 - Best songs