'The USA is the best country in the world for ease of life': how an immigrant from Donetsk became a Cirque du Soleil artist

I got into gymnastics at the age of 5. Why did you get there? Before I was 4 years old, I had already broken my arm twice and my parents realized that the boy was active and this energy needed to be channeled somewhere. I was sent to the nearest sports school, which turned out to be a gymnastics school. In general, gymnastics is a very extensive sport, and to become a master of sports, you need to train for 10 years, at least 7 hours a day. That’s how my childhood and youth passed, he says. Voice of America Alexey Kononov, gymnast and artist of "Cirque du Soleil" from Donetsk.

Photo: video frame "Voices of America"

When we were 12 years old, we started going to the Olympic base and got into the Ukrainian national team. And my youth was already spent largely at the base near Kiev. At some point, I became the champion of Ukraine in the team, the silver medalist of Ukraine on the horizontal bar. But I am a fairly tall guy - this was not taken into account when I was sent to gymnastics. Gymnastics loves small heights, and I am 184 centimeters. I don’t know whether it was related to growth or not, at some point I realized that I would no longer fight for an Olympic medal. Gymnasts' number one goal is to win the Olympic Games. I myself gave up this dream at the age of 19.

Photo: video frame "Voices of America"

Fortunately, gymnasts have another area where they can realize their skills, talents and training volume (I trained in the “plowing” mode for 15 years) - this is Cirque du Soleil. I knew about it: many guys from Donetsk and Ukraine went there. This is a kind of oasis for us. I sent my resume there and left in 2009.

I believe that the USA is the best country in the world that I have seen in terms of ease of life. America took it all. Everything here is done to ensure that the person enjoys the experience, to make the person feel comfortable. There are big roads here, there are many shops, they are always open. It amazed me how in such a successful country, where people earn a lot, prices for things are lower than here in Ukraine.

Photo: video frame "Voices of America"

One could say that we have a nomadic life - but this description is in a negative way. I would say that we have a really cool lifestyle: we travel the world, the company provides us with everything we need, we don’t care about anything except going on stage and giving the best results possible, showing our skills. The company takes care of everything else, and in this mode, in such an oasis, in such a team, you travel around the world and at the same time earn money. This is not a nomadic life, this is a thrill!

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Photo: video frame "Voices of America"

I perform in the show “Alegria” - this is a show at Cirque du Soleil that has become a signature show. This is a trend, and if I say that Cirque du Soleil became known thanks to this show, maybe I will not be mistaken. This show has toured the world three times and has been running for 19 years, with 14 million people watching. We traveled all over America, all over Europe, I visited up to 100 cities and about 45 countries. My family is with me, Cirque du Soleil helps with this: the happier I am, the happier the audience will be. How can you be happy without a family? It's almost impossible!

Photo: video frame "Voices of America"

We chose this style, it has its disadvantages, but I see only advantages. The child goes to an American school, speaks English - for me these are advantages, he constantly meets new people: I think this is a cool skill that will be useful in life. Someone will say: oh, how does a child go to a new school every time? For me, these are new opportunities that I give to the child.

Photo: video frame "Voices of America"

When we came to America, at first there was a wow effect. This is America! Of course, everything was impressive. But when you live in the rhythm of “every week is a new city,” at first it’s wow, then it’s, well, ok, normal, and after two years the challenge began. You begin to understand: I’m tired, these are hotels, these are always new beds, pillows, new water... If you haven’t figured yourself out and don’t understand what you want, as I had then, then you can start whining and stop enjoying of all this. But this is just a question in my head.

Photo: video frame "Voices of America"

At that moment I was tired and did not yet have a clear vision of what I wanted. And I thought that I wanted to go home, that this nomadic life was imposed on me. When such thoughts began, I immediately received a small injury and quickly went home. Up to this point, I had prepared for everything - I bought an apartment, renovated it, bought a car. I created the infrastructure and thought that I would develop at home and build a career.

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Photo: video frame "Voices of America"

But life made adjustments: what happened in Donetsk happened, and in 2014 I left there, taking with me almost only panties and socks. The last time I was in Donetsk was in the summer of 2018, my parents live there. If you ask how they live there, I won’t answer, because you have to ask them. If you ask me if I liked it, I didn’t like it.

When in 2018 I received an offer to return to Cirque du Soleil, over these 4 years I had already understood myself well, understood what I wanted, understood my values, understood what I can give to people, how I can be most effective for of this world. I all agreed that it was worth seizing this opportunity again - and in 2018 I found myself here again.

Photo: video frame "Voices of America"

There is probably no longer a dream, but a goal - creating your own gymnastics brand. My expertise is gymnastics. I devoted 20 years to honest competitive activity in gymnastics, plus what I am doing now at Cirque du Soleil is the same gymnastics, but on a different level. There are not loads, but overloads, and the shows are 10 a week, each of them is like a small competition for me, because there is a high level of responsibility. I continue to do gymnastics, and in this I can be useful to people.

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