Gosha Kartsev

Stylist and TV presenter Gosha Kartsev gave Madonna Moore her first big interview for her YouTube channel. Key citations collected.

About life in Tbilisi

When military special operations started, I had to take my whole family somewhere. Call it whatever you want: we all understand what started it. My family and I packed our bags and set off. We made a list of countries where we could fly fast and reached Georgia with short lines via Uzbekistan. We went through a lot of different emotional stages, encountered Russophobia. Now my family has returned to Vladivostok and I have another year contract for an apartment (renting an apartment was a test), so I decided to spend time there. Moscow is very lively and there is a different emotional atmosphere here. It’s hard for me to think about going back now, but I have to.

About Russian hostility in Georgia

I am generally an apolitical person, but now due to the situation I have become interested in all this. I used to come to Georgia to eat khinkali, drink saperavi and act ugly… Then Natasha Osmann and I made a movie about Georgia and I got a lot of hate in the comments that the Russians shouldn’t be there. Now when I live there, when I communicate with people, I understand what the real problem is. The first 2-3 months were very difficult. Graffiti everywhere and stickers with the inscription: “Citizens of the Russian Federation, you are not welcome here.” All the evils against our President are written in every column. “If you support Putin, don’t come here,” he says in many places. I try not to speak Russian. There are many reasons for their anger. That’s right. It’s a complicated political game, but I’m not good at it.

About leaving Russia

When the special ops started, I was on a yoga tour in the Maldives, meditating, looking at the fish. This helped me get into the panic state normally. I read the news, met the dawn and came to myself through breathing exercises. I understood that my family should be there, only then can I help him. When the words “nuclear weapons” were heard, I told my relatives to pack their bags and fly to me in Moscow. They started canceling flights and I realized we might be behind the curtain and suggested that the family wait.

On midlife crisis and burnout

Last year I had three TV projects. I was terribly exhausted and had a midlife crisis. It’s incredible: you seem to be starting to die. I started asking myself a lot of questions, reconsidering my attitude towards the work I’ve been doing for six years (I freed my school even though it brought 1.5 million rubles a month). I realized that fashion was very confused and I started to go back to my roots.

About the profession of a stylist

At some point, everyone wanted to be a stylist, first and foremost a blogger, and then sell their products. When “infogypsyism” began to dominate the stylist crowd, I realized that it needed to be radically changed. I realized that I was much more talented and could do more than just show off on a banned social network. I never had a goal to get into the frame and on television, I do not want to be Sasha Rogov and broadcast every Saturday. It’s clearly not my job to show a happy lifestyle in an ongoing situation or change clothes with the click of a tik tok video. I want to throw out creative ideas. I want people in the industry to think more about quality, not about likes.

After the interview was published, Gosha wrote a post on Telegram where he shared his impressions:

Gosha Kartsev became famous after starting his own School Gosh, whose main goal was to give everyone the necessary skills and knowledge to start a career in the fashion industry. As a stylist, she has worked with many brands – Salvatore Ferragamo, Tommy Hilfiger, Tiffany & Co., Calvin Klein, Louis Vuitton and others. In 2021, Kartsev became one of the co-hosts of the show “You are a top model” on TNT. She now runs a YouTube channel (324k subscribers) about her life and stylizes the shots.