A Ukrainian busker in Paphos
I don’t always share my obsessions with you, but I thought you might get a kick out of this one. When I was in Cyprus back in 2019, January 26 to be precise, I made this little video of a busker down by Paphos Harbour.
Just listen. His voice is phenomenal.
In his guitar case, alongside the smattering of coins was a sign displaying his social media contact details. Going by his Instagram handle, I guess his name would be Vadim Diyakevich or thereabouts. Recently, I came across this video and photo and decided to try to find his Instagram account. No success.
The Instagram account he provided wasn’t active. I did a search on that Roman alphabet version of his name and found out that he had been a contestant on the Ukrainian X Factor back in 2016. That would have been three years before I saw him playing on the waterfront in Cyprus.
I wish I could understand Ukrainian so that I’d know better what’s happening in this clip of him on X Factor. He has such a sweet voice. Also, everyone seems to be so moved.
I’ve tried to determine how young Vadim did in his season of X-Factor, but this is the only performance of his that I can find. The judges and audience seem impressed by this performance, so I can’t imagine he was voted out after this one song.
Maybe I’d have better luck if I tried running Google with Cyrillic alphabet search terms.
The only other useful piece of information I’ve found about Vadim Diyakevich is a Facebook account. This is the point where I get creepy, I know. I actually scoped out his Facebook page, but it gave me little to go on. The most recent entries—at least the ones visible to public view—are from 2021.
I wonder what happened between 2016 and 2019 to bring Vadim from X Factor Ukraine to Paphos Harbour in Cyprus. I like to imagine he made a small windfall after his X Factor appearance and moved to a nicer climate—that’s what I would do. I also wonder what’s become of him since 2021.
I was so tempted to do a Friend request and ask him how his career is going. How weird would that be? No, I mean it? Would you find that weird?
It’s the final week of my Substack birthday month. Here are a couple more free reads for you.
Not creepy. You’re pursuing a story as any investigative journalist would given the current perilous situation for Ukrainian people. I, for one, want to know what has happened to him.
I'd say go for it! Everything Penelope said!