TrendSpace met with three small people and found out what difficulties they face in ordinary life.
Olympia Ivleva
Occupation: front-woman of a musical rave group Little Big
Age: 25 years
Height: 130 cm
I have never focused either myself or other people's attention on my height, and in most cases I have always found mutual language with the people who surrounded me. I first encountered this only when children appeared in my life, known for their cruelty and misunderstanding in their early teens at school.
Naturally, I had difficulties at school, but they were so rare that until some time I did not understand why children were trying to show such an increased interest in me. After some time, I myself conveyed to everyone who was burning with curiosity to find out why I was so “non-standard”, and all the questions disappeared. I just spoke to them calmly, without being aggressive, things like: “Look at yourself and look at me. How are you and I different? Everything is true, nothing, we can see, hear, speak and think, as well as feel and love. So why do you think I'm inferior to you? Maybe physiologically - yes, but does that change anything? I have always had many friends, as well as an extremely positive attitude towards the world.
Perhaps only with high bar stools and height limiters on the rides.
In regular stores, but I have a significant bonus - an expanded selection: I can buy clothes in the adult and children's departments. This significantly expands the boundaries of choice. In general, I believe that if you want to look cool, you just need to put in some effort and have a sense of style, and everything will be fine.
The vast majority, if we consider the average height to be 170–180 cm. Again, the concept of average, short and high height is very relative for me in particular. There are no limits or laws of growth. Therefore, it is difficult to say which of my friends is a person of average height.
No way.
It seems to me that no one thinks about this, except people with short stature. Well, again, I always get out of the situation very simply: I ask the people around me for help. Men, by the way, really appreciate it when they understand that they can help someone with something.
I would like to see changes in people. I want them to be kinder and more smiling. This is the most important thing.
Sergey Lekhkobyt
Occupation type: actor
Age: 21 years old
Height: 138 cm
How did you feel the first time you realized you were different from most people?
Honestly, I don't remember when I felt that I was different from other people. Probably in school years. I remember when we went to the doctors, then I already realized that I had a problem with my growth. I was even given the third disability group.
Did you encounter insults and bullying towards you as a child?
Yes, I have. Especially at school, various offensive words were said to me. It was very disappointing. And then I couldn’t hit or shut someone’s mouth. It was unpleasant. I often told my mother and cried because I was being offended. Now no one offends me. Just let them try!
What difficulties do you face in everyday life?
I wouldn't say that I really feel any difficulties. My legs and arms are fine, just like an ordinary person. I can do everything. Every person has difficulties, no matter what they are. For example, one of the difficulties is getting something in the supermarket. There are very high shelves, and you either have to jump up or ask someone to do it. Also, at various ticket offices, for example, at railway stations, it is difficult to reach the window, and mostly people sit there fat woman, and it’s even difficult for her to lift one place.
Where do you buy clothes and shoes?
I buy clothes in regular stores. For example, T-shirts, shirts, sweaters - I have everything. The pants are also easy to find, but you still need to bring them in to be cut off. Shoes are also easy. My feet are size 39, so, thank God, there are no difficulties in this regard.
I would not say that my life is somehow different from the life of another person. I decided that I was a man like all men. I live like everyone else and don’t look at what I have short stature. On the contrary, it is my uniqueness that everyone pays attention to. I walk, relax and do everything like everyone else.
On this moment I'm a young and single guy, without a soulmate yet. I emphasize that for now there is no soul mate, she will appear very soon. And I don’t see the point in rushing into this. I'm still very young, only 21.
Do you have friends of average height?
I have few true friends, but they are of different sizes - both small and large. Mostly I have comrades. I communicate more with girls than with guys. They are all taller than me, comfortable and comfortable with them.
Do you feel isolated from society?
In no case. I'm the same person as everyone else. I am open, uncomplicated, I set an example that I am cheerful and sociable, I went towards my goal and was not afraid of anything. There is only one life, and you need to take from it what you can.
Do you think there are conditions for short people in the city?
If we talk about conditions in cities, then they are nowhere to be found, since there are only about a couple of tens of thousands of little people in the world. Why should they think about little ones? We ourselves adapt to their conditions that they create for us.
What changes would you like to see in social and urban life to make your life more comfortable?
I like everything. I feel comfortable, I’m not afraid of anything, I’ll climb where no one can climb a common person. I never even paid much attention to it.
Anna Nikishina
Occupation type: unemployed
Age: 33 years
Height: 113 cm
How did you feel the first time you realized you were different from most people?
I do not remember. Probably, from childhood I understood that I was different from other people.
Did you encounter insults and bullying towards you as a child?
Yes, I did, but I dealt with it. My dad explained to me from childhood that I was the same person, just short in stature.
What difficulties do you face in everyday life?
In ordinary life, these are trips to shops and supermarkets. The food is high up there. Now is the 21st century, so almost everything has already been done for disabled people. It used to be difficult on buses, but now there is no problem with it. They now have low steps.
Where do you buy clothes and shoes?
I buy clothes in children's stores. It’s very difficult with shoes; I’m size 25. I also find it only in children's stores.
How does your life differ from the life of a person of average height?
It is very difficult for us to get a job. Because of their height, they don’t take them anywhere. Well, it’s good at home, because we arrange everything for ourselves.
Do you have a loved one?
Yes. He accepts me for who I am.
Do you feel isolated from society?
No, I don't feel it. I can visit anything you want. Problems with carousels were there before, but now I'm not interested. There were height restrictions. There are also problems with licenses; we are not given the right to drive.
Do you think there are conditions for short people in the city?
No, they have not been created. Shops, some banks, metro, where the cash registers are high. This is very inconvenient for us.
Today we will talk in detail about the Little Big project. The composition of the group will be given below. The team first made its presence felt on April 1, 2013, by posting its debut video Everyday I"m Drinking on the YouTube platform. Literally a few months later, the first lineup Little bands Big was invited to perform at a concert with sensational people, after which they were immediately nicknamed Russian greetings.
This analogy only played into the hands of the team. Until recently no one famous group from St. Petersburg at one point became popular not only in her native Russia, but also far beyond its borders. The project was also dubbed “funeral rave” and “trash tent” by fans, thanks to the wild, incomparable energy both in the videos and at concerts.
The name Little Big is due to the difference in height between the team members. The fact is that initially the group had two vocalists no taller than 130 cm. To this day, Olympia Ivleva is an active member who, despite her unique height, has incredible, powerful energy.
Little Big: group composition
- Ilya “Ilyich” Prusikin (frontman of the group, vocals).
- Sergey “Gokk” Makarov (sound producer, DJ).
- Olympia Ivleva (vocals).
- aka Mr Clown (vocals).
- Sofia Tayurskaya (vocals).
- Anna Kast ( former member, the first composition of the group).
Rock and more
According to the vocalist of the group Ilya “Ilyich” Prusikin, the rave genre, like all electronic music, is quite popular in its own right in our time, so the creators of the group did not invest a penny in its promotion, but at the same time they became known throughout Europe. He says that the band members position themselves, first of all, as rock musicians. They consider their performance style new form this direction. At the same time, a passion for electronic music helped to combine these two genres into one organic style.
During its existence, the group released two albums: With Russia From Love (2014) and Funeral Race (2015). The discs turned out to be in demand, thanks to which the main line-up of the group traveled almost all of Europe with concerts. Thus began the creative takeoff of the Little Big project. The composition of the group has changed somewhat since its founding. So, for example, vocalist Anna Kast left the band. Her place is still occupied by Sofia Tayurskaya.
The band members say that the meaning of the lyrics of their songs, as well as video clips, ridicule national stereotypes about Russians. By the way, the entire video is shot by Alina Pyazok, who is the founder of the group. Since Little Big have experience in creating videos and own their own production company, the team produces all the videos independently. It is quite difficult to definitely call the group musical. Rather, it is a kind of art project with a fairly diverse team. The frontman has already gained popularity earlier thanks to his show on the YouTube channel.
Similarity
The band members admit that they were influenced by completely different musicians, from famous giants of the rock scene, such as Cannibal Corpse, to the great classics. Despite the similarity of style and manner with the mega-popular South Africans Die Antwoord and constant comparison with them, Little Big themselves are distinguished by their individuality.
Issues
Each new track, like the video, is a mixture of original humor, filled with its own view of Russian culture and folk songs, and a rigid social position. The musicians have repeatedly emphasized that their style is not connected with hatred of the Motherland, it is simply such a unique way of drawing society’s attention to its problems. But despite this social position, the group remains a vibrant mix of seemingly incompatible styles and incredible, infectious energy.
Now you know what the features and uniqueness of the project called Little Big are. We also described the composition of the group above, as well as the changes that occurred in it.
Hello!
I remember very well the day when I first became acquainted with the work of Little Big. My friend and I were sitting in the kitchen, chatting about interesting YouTube channels, and then he was surprised that I hadn’t heard of these guys yet. Putting the tablet in front of me and turning on their video GIVE ME YOUR MONEY, he watched with delight as all possible emotions ran across my face in those 5 minutes. At first it was shock and bewilderment, but by the end of the video I realized that this was love for centuries
WHO ARE LITTLE BIG
Little Big- This Music band, which includes these guys:
Ilya Prusikin (Ilyich)- frontman of the band.
Sergey Makarov- deals with sound
Olympia Ivleva- vocals. She has her own channel on YouTube Olympia.
Sonya Tayurskaya- vocals.
Anton Lissov- the clown of the group. Literally.
This is what is written on their channel (my free translation from English):
Little Big is a Russian rave group that blows up dance floors not only in Russia, but also abroad. Each song, video or performance of the group reflects some social event in the world. The musicians touch on the real problems of Russia, as well as the stereotypes associated with it. Real thrash and an explosion of color, which balance on the edge of absurdity, combined with rave, electronic music and elements of hip-hop.
I don’t understand their music as a way to enjoy beauty; I regard them as cool experimenters in terms of the semantic load of the text and embodiment in the video. The recordings from the concerts did not impress me. So that's why I'm lowering the score.
THEIR CREATIONS
Their videos are a hodgepodge of the most unexpected things. For example, video PUBLIC ENEMY made me just laugh wildly. Someone actually spent hours drawing fire on cardboard, sewing costumes for cockroaches and bananas, and making a flat ambulance.
HATEFUL LOVE came out extremely “glamorous”, where beauty borders on very nasty things.
Or a real tank made of inflated balloons?
But the famous Instagram blogger Lena Sheidlina, who, although 20+, looks like she’s 13.
Well, here it is GIVE ME YOUR MONEY- where my acquaintance with the group began:
Is this a weapon? A tank is a weapon.
I still wonder where they found the tank, and even managed to ride on it.
Carpets are my forever love<3
And here WITH RUSSIA FROM LOVE(Yes exactly). A short video and very psychedelic.
I think it’s clear from these screenshots what to expect. It seems to me that all viewers are divided into 2 parts: those who want to close the video after 30 seconds and never return to them, and those who simply watch what is happening with humor and wait for new videos.
BEHIND THE SCENES
One of the team's latest videos is HATEFUL LOVE. It’s hard to call this video anything other than some kind of madness. It’s very cool that you can watch 2 videos at once about how it was filmed. Olympia published a behind-the-scenes vlog, and Little Big themselves have a more detailed version with before-after inserts.
For example, a closet of men (in the screenshot there is a rehearsal, in the video they are naked)
It was only necessary to think of such a thing!
Or here’s another thing: they decided to set the guy’s head on fire. The video turned out impressive. In the behind-the-scenes video, Ilyich was clearly worried about the guy.
POLYUSHKO POLYE
The guys listen to a lot of criticism about the fact that they are filming some kind of garbage. People who don’t know how to dig deeper don’t understand what Little Big are singing about and what they’re filming. Probably, it was for this reason that it was decided to do something new, in order to open the eyes of not very distant viewers.
"Polyushko Pole" is a non-standard format for Little Big. The video is a compilation of videos from quadcopters, which were filmed by viewers throughout Russia. Periodically, the video sequence is interspersed with inserts of the team itself against the backdrop of nature.
Michurinsk:
Taganrog:
Krasnodar region:
Kamchatka:
This is only part of what is in the video. I can’t say that this is some kind of bomb video, but why not spend 4 minutes admiring the beauty of your country?)
RESULT
These guys need to be treated very simply and with humor. I’m not currently evaluating the musical talents of this group, but I’m talking specifically about the video. You don’t want to listen to them, but you want to watch them again! Little Big is very cool are joking over some things. They are not without self-irony, are ready for the most daring experiments and are not afraid to think globally. If you compare their videos with videos of world celebrities, then this is heaven and earth. Famous musicians sometimes spend tens of thousands of dollars on videos that don't excite. Little Big gets by with much more modest sums and creates I'm not afraid of that word masterpieces.
By the way, Alena Dvoichenkova, who choreographed the Little Big dances, was cast for the 3rd season of the show “Dancing” on TNT.
If this photo seems to the moderator to contain sexual content, I ask you to remember the reviews in thongs for cellulite)
Ilya Prusikin (Ilyich) is an old-timer of the Russian YouTube scene, co-founder of the creative association “KlikKlak”, one of the authors of the idea for the web series “Police Everyday Life”, the Constructorr project, the social show “In the Order of Things” and many other rating videos. Blogger, director, video producer, judge of rap duels Versus Battle, leader of the musical rave group Little Big, with the help of which Ilyich fulfills his long-standing dream - to become a phenomenon of world musical culture and “pump up the whole world.”Childhood and youth
The future YouTube celebrity was born on April 8, 1985 on the border with China, in Transbaikalia. Soon the family moved to the Leningrad region, and later to the city on the Neva itself. According to the blogger, his family has Polish and Jewish roots. 
Ilya graduated not only from general education, but also from a music school with a degree in piano. As a teenager, he enjoyed football, airplane modeling and baseball.
In 2002, Ilya founded his first group – Tenkorr. The team worked in the emocore genre. Their first mini-album consisted of three tracks and was called “It Will Be Late.” In 2004, the group presented a concert video for the song “How It All Began (K.V.N.)” and received the Grand Prix at the Leningrad Regional Festival.
A year later, their debut album “My Last Letter” was recorded, which included ten conceptual compositions, including “It will be late”, “Pseudo love”, “World without you”, “Metro”, “K.V.N.” Then videos were released for the tracks “Hate” and “Believe”. In the latter, at first everything looked like a traditional emo video: there was a hero, a girl, suffering and a friend calming the guy down. But then it turned out that he was suffering not for her, but for his friend...
During the same period, Tenkorr recorded a new album, “ROCK, baby!”, and made a tour in support of it, visiting about three dozen cities in our country.
Ilya Prusikin and the Tenkorr group - “Sex police”
In 2008, their new long play “SEX POLICE” was released, which included 10 songs in the “alternative rock” genre.
At the same time, the musician managed to work with the groups Like A Virgin, st. Bastards, Construktorr, which the mass media dubbed “either the brightest phenomenon in the cultural life of the country, or expressive madmen.”
Biography of Ilya Prusikin
Taking up music did not prevent the young man from receiving higher education. He graduated from the Faculty of Psychology and Pedagogy at the St. Petersburg Institute of Culture.
Career Development
In 2011, the musician and songwriter, who had experience in producing video clips, began collaborating with the creative association “Thank you, Eva!” and master video blogging.In partnership with Vladimir Besedin, he launched the project “Guffy Gaff Show”. They attracted other YouTube stars to record it: Ilya Davydov (Madison), Ruslan Usachev, Arthur Galchenko (Sam Nickel), Vasily Rudenko (Vasya Ebashilovo), etc.
The show imitated children's entertainment and educational programs: the sock puppets sang funny songs, but they were not at all devoted to learning letters and basic social concepts - the Rafik Giraffe advised how to avoid the army, the Drug Cat taught how to become a rapper...
Only 2 seasons of the show saw the light, as the creators switched to more interesting projects, but many songs from “The Gaffy Gaff Show” are still stored in the memory of thousands of viewers.
The satirical show “The Great Rap Battle” (an adaptation of the English-language project Epic Rap Battles of History), where famous historical figures fought in the format of rap duels, became no less popular. The topical topics and pressing social issues discussed during them made us not only laugh, but also think. For example, in a battle Pussy Piot and Patriarch Kirill, Jesus Christ and Nikita Mikhalkov, Alexei Navalny and Vladimir Lenin could clash.
Great Rap Battle from Ilya Prusikin! Stalin vs Pavel Durov
In 2012, Ilyich became one of the directors of the web series “Police Everyday Life”, and also played the role of Sergeant Kotov in it. Many of the video makers from “Eva” again became his co-stars: Denis Kukoyaka, Vladimir Besedin, Sam Nickel, Ilya Maddison. The project was closed after the release of only three 12-minute episodes.
In 2013, Ilyich began collaborating with St. Petersburg video blogger, member of the “Successful Group” Eldar Dzharakhov. The result of their joint work was the creation of the ClickClakBand association. As part of the project, Ilyich, Dzharakhov, Yura Muzychenko and other bloggers played Jenga with a stun gun, fought in the pool with Vaseline in skimpy swimsuits, gave each other “bream” and did many other crazy but funny things.
Ilya Prusikin and “Little Big”
During the same period, he created the rave group Little Big, which was called a super virus in the press. Listeners often compared her with the shocking South African band Die Antwoord, whose opening act the musicians rocked at the St. Petersburg club “A2” on July 2, 2013. 
The band's frontman was even accused of completely copying his image from the lead singer of Die Antwoord, but the attacks did not last long. Little Big have proven their originality and great potential on the world stage: the St. Petersburgers have won the hearts of listeners in Germany, France, Belgium, Spain, Argentina, the USA and Brazil.
The pearl of the group were the dwarf soloists Olympia Ivleva and Anna Karst (later left the group).
The very first video of this shocking group called “Everyday I"m Drinking” instantly spread across the Internet. The clip ridiculed “cranberry” stereotypes about Russia and delighted the eye with stunning camera work: a bear snorting cocaine with a naked purple-haired girl, predatory grinning clowns in the background a shabby front door, Soviet interiors and a lot of vodka.
Ilya Prusikin and Little Big - Everyday I"m drinking
The bar was set high, but each new Little Big video was not inferior to the first in terms of quality and extravagance of approach: “Life in Da Trash”, popularly nicknamed “clip with maggots”, “Give Me Your Money”, “Big Dick” (winner of the Berlin festival music videos in the category “Best Trash Video”), “With Russia From Love”, “Public Enemy”, “Hateful Love”, in which model Elena Sheidlina starred.
- 11. 07. 2016
Her height is 130 centimeters. But the diagnosis of achondroplasia was not a death sentence for Anna Kast, but a way to assert her uniqueness
“Your child has died,” the doctors told Anna’s mother. The girl was actually born dead. But after 12 minutes I started breathing. And now, when they ask her how she achieved everything, the girl answers: “I began to survive from birth.”
She played in the films “Cop Wars”, “Pen and Sword”, “In Your Eyes”, “Once Upon a Time There Was a Fox”, “Treasure”, became the queen of the international tattoo convention; performed in productions of the theatrical and erotic project Neverporn; opened the premiere of the cartoon “Despicable Me” at the Kinotavr festival. She also participated in the Mercedes-Benz fashion show, founded the popular group Little Big, and recently opened her own tattoo parlor, KastHome. With all her actions, she is trying to prove to little people that people with achondroplasia can live a normal life, and not hide in their corners. But she has to fight not only with their prejudices, but also with the condemnation of the majority of society, which is not accustomed to others, unusual, not like everyone else. But Anya is stronger, because since childhood, her mother explained to her that she is the best and she will succeed.
In Soviet times, Anna's future father came to Leningrad from Cuba to defend his diploma in chemistry. Mom then worked at the secret Bolshevik plant, which produced spare parts for tanks. When everything started to spiral, KGB officers methodically began to call her, interrogated her and wanted to fire her, because the party forbade having a relationship with a foreigner. But the plant management intervened. The parents lived together until their daughter was one year old. Then dad left and didn’t return: maybe he was afraid of the girl’s diagnosis or the pressure of the party, or maybe he found another love.
Anna is not offended: “I am grateful to dad for giving me life. For your hair, skin, immunity. If it weren’t for him, I wouldn’t be so beautiful, so individual and wouldn’t smile at life. He is Spanish and lives in Cuba. They are starving there, but they are dancing.” The nickname Cast is an abbreviation of the Spanish surname Castellanos.
Anna Kast
Photo: Natalya Bulkina for TDThe girl was born small, but she didn’t notice it until she was 15 years old. From the very beginning, the mother convinced her daughter: “You are the best, you can do anything.” Already in kindergarten she began to receive her first awards in competitions. As a child, I felt like an ordinary child: I played volleyball with the boys, ran from dogs, ate crumpets with my cousin in a store on Staronevsky Prospekt, which my grandmother, a cleaner, saved for them.
Fortunately, Anya’s mother had enough love and courage not to try to change nature. “Now many mothers of children like me are discussing growth hormones on the Internet, which they give to their children without a doctor’s prescription, without being interested in the consequences,” Anya says with horror. - So they try to correct their “grief”, as they call it, and think that the children will immediately become normal. It happens that hormones have a strange effect: arms or legs grow, but the rest does not. Children are now given the Ilizarov apparatus at the age of three, although previously it was required by law at twelve. Yesterday we went on a boat ride with a friend to whom we installed it. She herself cannot enter the ship - her legs do not bend, the tendons are all strained. The bones stretch from the apparatus, but the tendons do not. How can you break healthy bones? Children spend five years in the hospital with the device. And after that, there is no question of a normal childhood: swimming, cycling.
Children need support from birth, not cosmetic enhancements
Moreover, they lengthen it for the sake of a difference of 10 centimeters. All this is instead of instilling in the child that he is the best, that he can do anything. Children need support from birth, not cosmetic enhancements.”
And then Anya began adolescence and the first disappointments. “In 2001, when there were no social networks, the fashionable feature was telephone pranks. That’s how I met a young man, his name was Kim. We talked for a week and he made an appointment with me. And I understand that I can’t go because I didn’t explain what I look like. I just said that I was short, and he replied: “Nothing, it’s so interesting to be with you!” I shared it with my mother, and she supported me: she took me to the store and bought me high-heeled boots for 700 rubles. I put them on under a floor-length checkered blue dress and went. We were supposed to meet in the subway. I waited for Kim on the platform for 45 minutes. I saw him from afar, behind a pillar, and recognized him from the description of his clothes. When I came home, he called me and said that he could no longer see me. And I cried - I was ashamed in front of my mother that she bought me boots,” Anna tells this story and cries again. Because mom is no longer there.
She was not hired to work in her specialty, as a librarian. At the district reading room they asked: “How will you reach the shelves?” Then my mother said that the elite school, where the children of actors and politicians study, needed a teacher on duty.
“I come to school and line up all the children in the corridor, 300 people, and say: “Hello. From today I am working with you. My name is Anya,” the girl recalls. Now grown-up students invite her to weddings, come to the salon to get tattoos, or see her in clubs.
During the day she watched children at school, and at night she worked as an animator and acted in films. After a while, the school administration began to force Anna out of work: “I smiled a lot. I came to school as if it were a holiday, like a red carpet - they didn’t like it.”
Anna Kast
Photo: Natalya Bulkina for TD 
Anna Kast
Photo: Natalya Bulkina for TDIn 2009, Anna got her first tattoo with her then-boyfriend Pasha. A few days later, she received a call from the salon and was invited to film the theatrical and erotic project Neverporn based on Andersen’s fairy tale “The Naked King”: “I was interested in filming for them - this is art. You need to be careful with eroticism, especially in our situation, you can’t overdo it. There must be a talented photographer so that it is not messy. So that the trolls don’t say: “Finally, we’ve filmed the dwarfs!”
A week later, she was chosen as the queen of the international tattoo festival, although she had practically no tattoos. She made a second one on it: an image of a black and white cassette with recordings of Toto Cutugno, Michael Jackson and Paul McCartney, which her father once gave to her mother. On the third day of the competition, she released a stream of fire from her mouth from the stage - she learned this backstage, five minutes before the performance. And so she won. Then everything started to happen very quickly: a tour with theatrical productions by the Neverporn team in Germany and Holland.
In her eighth year of work at school, friends suggested that Anna work as an administrator in a tattoo parlor. “Thanks to them, my fear of leaving school disappeared. Even though I was earning seven thousand there, I was still scared to quit.” The girl took a vacation and worked in the studio for a month. I was disappointed and three days later I decided to open my own tattoo salon, KastHome. It took another week to make repairs and recruit clients.
In 2013, Anna, together with another little girl Olympia, created the rave group Little Big. They became famous for their provocative and satirical videos about life in Russia. Anna says that she came up with the group in order to draw public attention to the existence of little people in Russia, and to inspire the little ones themselves. “I take every opportunity of an interview or appearance on TV to declare that we exist, that we are not some kind of fairy-tale invention out of the woods. Little Big for me is a social activity, a reminder of myself.” The group gathered stadiums of thousands in Russia and Europe: France, Hungary, Spain, Switzerland and Italy.
Anna often compares the living conditions of little people in Europe and Russia and posts real-life examples on her page. She wants to prove to society that there is nothing wrong with being unusual: “In Russia there are very few pairs of little and little. Because they are afraid to draw attention to their unusualness, they want to blend into the crowd with someone “normal.”
But abroad this is normal: a couple - two small children and a child. There their future is thought out. All social services are paid for, they live like the rich. They hardly work, they just hang out. But here there is no such thing. You are born this way, you receive a pension of eight thousand, and how you establish yourself in society depends only on you.”
Abroad this is normal: two little ones and a child. All social services are paid for, they live like the rich
Anya established herself in society. She left the group, but her popularity has not gone away: “Now I don’t take the subway, I’m afraid. Because people constantly take pictures with me everywhere and say hello. Little Big fans, police officers - everyone. Recently I went to temple. A couple of days later, an unfamiliar boy wrote to me that he saw me confessing and even crying. There is no peace even in the temple.”
Of course, there is a kind of coquetry in this. But Anya also has to deal with hostility, from all sides: « Little people discuss me and my pages on social networks a lot. They don't understand me, they think I disgrace them. I show myself in images, and they think that I am a buffoon. The fact that I am an animator and earn money from this, and this is difficult in our situation, does not interest them. And they don’t have a single photo on their personal pages, I don’t understand this. When the state and society are against people, they unite in their small groups of similar people and say: “Yes, we are unhappy. Okay, we’ll live as is.”
Anna Kast
Photo: Natalya Bulkina for TDOrdinary women also condemn me: “How can this be? She's not like everyone else. Why is she so outspoken? Why can't we do this? This is not normal." They write to me: “Aren’t you ashamed? This is a disgrace.” They will never say it's because I'm small. Why don't they write this to others? I offend them because I am different and I am brave. According to the standards, I should live within four walls, remain silent and enjoy my pension.”
Thank you for reading to the end!
Every day we write about the most important issues in our country. We are confident that they can only be overcome by talking about what is really happening. That's why we send correspondents on business trips, publish reports and interviews, photo stories and expert opinions. We raise money for many funds - and do not take any percentage of it for our work.
But “Such Things” themselves exist thanks to donations. And we ask you to make a monthly donation to support the project. Any help, especially if it is regular, helps us work. Fifty, one hundred, five hundred rubles is our opportunity to plan work.
Please sign up for any donation to us. Thank you.
Would you like us to send the best texts of “Things Like This” to your email? Subscribe