What usually happens to Rock Crowns?
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The European Radio for Belarus explores what happens to the main prize of the Rock Coronation musical award – a crystal crown, when it gets to musicians. It has turned out that someone uses it for drinking, while others break it or simply do not remember its fate. Some don’t even recognize this “coronation” and its prizes.
Neuro Dubel frontman Aliaksandr Kulinkovich, the most recent rock king, keeps his crowns at a bookshelf.
“I have a total of ten crowns. At home, I have two big crowns that we have received this year: the 1998 crown and the crowns for albums “Stasi” and “Tanks”. Musicians keep the rest. I think that two got broken”, he said.
NRM’s Lyavon Volski also keeps his prizes at a bookshelf. He doesn’t remember the exact number of crowns. He is not quite sure about their current whereabouts, either.
“Pete (Pavlov) keeps some. Some got lost. I also keep some. There were too many of them: Song of the Year, Texts of the Year, etc. We simply don’t have a permanent venue for rehearsals where we could store all of them. That’s why we just took them around to our homes”.
By the way, Lyavon Volski has recalled that the honorable prizes would sometimes be used for another purpose.
“I remember Mikhalok telling me that when he used to drink a lot – the same applies to Neuro Dubel – the big crown could accommodate two 0.7l bottles of vodka. I think that after the victory of Neuro Dubel they had some events when they drank Champaign or something from this crown. People have different habits these days. Today, it is not trendy to drink from crowns”.
- Did you drink from the crown?
“I don’t think so… It is not convenient. It has sharp edges”.
Aliaksandr Kulinkvich also remembers about that victory when the musicians would drink something far from Champaign.
“When we got the big crown in 1998, we poured vodka. I think it accommodated one liter. We would then pass it around everyone who was present at our dressing room”.
KRAMA’s Ihar Varashkevich, the first rock king, confessed that his main crown is now kept in the house of his keyboardist’s mother in Lahoisk.
When asked whether he had ever drunk from the prestigious prize, Ihar said:
“I don’t remember. It was a long tome ago, 1994. I guess we drank then. I think we drank once but not afterwards, because our prizes were rather virtual ones like “Blues Rock, Traditions and Today and other similar trifles.”
Lyapis Trubetskoy’s leader Syarhey Mikhalok is very skeptical to such awards. He did not say a award to the European Radio for Belarus about how he would test the capacity of Belarus’s main rock music prize.
“I don’t know. All those toy prizes that I received in my life – the third place in a cycling competition; the first place in a school’s song contest; the best fisherman in a scout camp in 1979 – are rather mythical. They do live in my head. Therefore, the Rock Coronation is a contest of clowns. I don’t see any point in it. To cut the story short, I am not interested in this contest. Actually, I do not like monarchy. I am an anarchist. So I don’t understand the essence of this coronation”.
At the two-time rock queen, Kasya Kamotskaya’s home, one can spot the crowns righter after you enter the apartment. They stand on a shelf near the entrance doors.
“There are four of them standing. The rest got broken. It’s okay unless they would be golden… I don’t remember how many I had. They would hand out a lot of them”.
The rock queen confessed to the European Radio for Belarus that she would numerously used them as glasses.
“Definitely, we would drink Champaign from them. Every time we spot them, we immediately start drinking Champaign”.
PALAC’s leader Aleh Khamenka has turned out to keep his crowns in the most careful way. The winner of 5 crowns knows exactly their location and has broken none of them.
“I keep three at my home. The rest are with the musicians. They stand in a cupboard together with glasses and other crystal things. They are in a very good condition, very clean. I also have crystal hedgehogs there and some life trees made of amber. They all fit together very well”.
As we can see, the rockers are “debauched” with the crowns. They either break them or use for drinking or lose them in unknown locations, because they have them the way too many.
Photo: Novoya Gazeta
