t.A.T.u. (, , ) are a Russian pop duo consisting of Lena Katina and Julia Volkova. The two started out as part of the children's musical group Neposedy before being managed by producer and director Ivan Shapovalov and signing with Russian record label Neformat. t.A.T.u.'s debut album 200 Po Vstrechnoy (2001) was a commercial success in Eastern Europe, and that resulted in the duo signing with Interscope Records to release its English-language counterpart, 200 km/h in the Wrong Lane (2002). The album was certified platinum by the IFPI for one million copies sold in Europe and became the first album by a foreign group to reach number one in Japan. It was also certified gold in the United States and the United Kingdom, and included the international hits "All the Things She Said" and "Not Gonna Get Us". The duo represented Russia in the Eurovision Song Contest 2003 with the song "Ne ver, ne boysya", finishing third.
t.A.T.u. released their second international album, Dangerous and Moving, alongside its Russian equivalent, Lyudi Invalidy, in 2005, with the group reaching moderate success after parting ways with Shapovalov. The former was promoted with the international hit "All About Us". The duo ventured into other projects, such as creating their own production company T.A. Music and promoting the film inspired by their story, You and I (2008). Their last pair of albums, Vesyolye Ulybki and Waste Management, followed in 2008 and 2009 respectively. t.A.T.u. officially broke up in 2011, with Katina and Volkova pursuing solo careers. In subsequent years, they have reunited several times to perform, most notably at the opening ceremony of the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi. In 2025, t.A.T.u. became active again as a duo.
History
1999: Formation
Before production of t.A.T.u. began, the pair were in a group named Neposedy. Both Lena Katina and Julia Volkova were part of the band, along with future Russian artists such as Sergey Lazarev and Vlad Topalov. Katina was also in a band named Avenue between 1994 and 1997. It was reported that Volkova was ejected from Neposedy amid claims she was misbehaving and disrupting other members in the group, along with being accused of smoking, swearing and drinking. However, Neposedy denied the claims and said that Volkova aged out of the group.
t.A.T.u. were formed in 1999 by Ivan Shapovalov and his friend and business partner Aleksandr Voytinskiy, who developed plans to create a musical project in Russia. With this idea in mind, Shapovalov and Voitinskiy organized auditions in Moscow in early 1999 for teenage female vocalists. By the end of auditioning, the partners narrowed their search down to ten girls, including Katina and Volkova. Katina and Volkova knew each other before the auditions. Both girls stood out among the others because of their appearance and vocal experience, but the producers decided to start with 14-year-old Katina, who sang "It Must Have Been Love" by Roxette. Katina began recording demos, including "Yugoslavia", a protest song about the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia.t. A. T. u.: «Мы и сейчас иногда целуемся!» // OK, № 20 (133), 2009 After the demos were cut, Shapovalov insisted that another girl be added to the project. Thus, in late 1999, 14-year-old Julia Volkova was added to the group to complete the duo. She also started recording not long after Katina's "Yugoslavia" demo was finished.
According to Katina, Shapovalov was inspired to create the duo after the release of the Swedish film Show Me Love which focused on the romance between two school girls. After completing the duo, the producers decided on the name "Тату" (Tatu). Sounding like the English word "tattoo", it is also a shortened version of the Russian phrase "Та любит ту" (ta lyubit tu), meaning "This [girl] loves that [girl]".
2000–2002: 200 Po Vstrechnoy
Over the next year, Katina and Volkova recorded songs with their producers. Voitinskiy left the project, stating that he was unwilling to support one built around scandals, and Shapovalov signed Elena Kiper as co-producer and co-writer for their debut album.
The first single was completed in 2000, titled "Ya Soshla S Uma" (later released in English as "All the Things She Said"), which was officially issued as a CD maxi single in December of that year. The song describes the turmoil in a girl's soul because she is in love with another girl, but is afraid, as society frowns upon this. She asks her parents for forgiveness. Elena Kiper has been credited with the song, explaining that the idea came to her when she fell asleep at her dentist's office and had a dream in which she kissed another woman. She woke up saying out loud, "Я сошла с ума!" (Ya soshla s uma, meaning "I've lost my mind"). Ivan Shapovalov is said to have added the second phrase of the chorus, "Мне нужна она" (Mne nuzhna ona, meaning "I need her"). The song remained at the top of the Russian charts for over four months, and the music video won the MTV Video Music Award among the Russian nominees of 2001, marking the group's first nomination and win at the ceremony.
In May 2001, the duo signed with Universal Music Russia for the release of their first album, 200 Po Vstrechnoy. It was issued on 21 May 2001, gaining considerable success in Eastern European markets. It went on to reach platinum status in Europe, with over one million copies certified by International Federation of the Phonographic Industry — an achievement never before attained by any artist from the Eastern countries. Their second single, "Nas Ne Dogonyat", came out the same day as the album, and it was only released in music video form rather than as an official CD single, although a promotional conjoined "Ya Soshla s Uma/Nas Ne Dagonyat" was released in Poland. This was followed by the third single "30 Minut" in September, only available as a music video. A new edition of the album was reissued on 15 February 2002, featuring, in addition to the original tracks, the song "Klouny" and two previously unreleased remixes. In its first week alone, the reissue sold more than 60,000 copies. The original Russian album was eventually released in Japan in September 2003.
The lyrics of their songs, the related music videos, and their on-stage kisses performed during their shows suggested a romantic and homosexual relationship between the two girls. On several occasions, during interviews, they claimed that the relationship was real, offering details about their sex life, but more often the singers preferred to dodge questions about their sexual preferences, stating that they did not like labels.
The group went on tour in 2001, performing routines that were described as 'precise' and included scenes in which the girls had to strip. The tour appeared in countries including Germany, Bulgaria, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, and Israel, ending in 2002. In early summer 2002, the duo released the new single "Prostye Dvizheniya", which was not part of the duo's debut album. The music video was censored in Russia due to the depiction of Volkova, who was seventeen at the time, in an extended masturbation scene in a bathtub.
2002–2003: 200 km/h in the Wrong Lane and Eurovision
In early 2002, the duo signed with American record label Interscope Records for the release of an English-language version of their debut album. The American music executive Jimmy Iovine asked the English producer Trevor Horn to create adaptations of Tatu's songs. Horn wrote new lyrics for "All the Things She Said" and "Not Gonna Get Us" and coached the duo to sing them in English. He also rerecorded the instruments, as he did not have access to the original multitracks. He described Shapovalov as "awful" and removed him from the sessions after he made the girls cry. Horn said later: "There's no shortcut, you can't bully people." The group was "controlled" by Shapovalov and it was reported that he was "strict" during the process of making the album.
In July 2002, Blender praised the group by saying "We have seen the future of rock & roll ... to say you've never seen or heard anything quite like it is a colossal understatement."t.A.T.u. heralded as "the future of rock & roll" . This is an archive to the original. Time of publication: 10 July 2002. The following month, for the release of their first English-language album, Tatu decided to go by t.A.T.u., using uppercase letters and periods to distinguish themselves from an already existing Australian band, Tatu.
The English version of the album was released in October 2002 in Europe as 200 km/h in the Wrong Lane, and it went on to sell over five million copies worldwide. The first single from the album was "All the Things She Said" which was released in late summer 2002. The song peaked at the top spot in countries such as Australia, Denmark, Germany, Ireland, Italy, New Zealand, Norway, Spain, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. The music video caused controversy worldwide, due to the members, who were both 15 at the time of the video's production, kissing behind a fence. Some believed the video promoted lesbianism and pedophilia and some branded the group's music as "paedophilic pop". Numerous live performances were also subject to censorship, particularly because of the kisses the two members exchanged on stage.
In the United States and Canada the album was released on 10 December 2002. The same month t.A.T.u. were heralded by The Face magazine as "The hottest popstars in the world right now." While promoting the album in America, they performed wearing T-shirts with a pacifist slogan, used as a protest against the Iraq War, causing controversy. On 25 February 2003 the women mocked NBC's insistence that they neither kiss nor comment on the Iraq War by performing "All the Things She Said" in white "T-shirts that bore the Russian language message Khuy Voyne! (Fuck the war!) across the front", and by kissing during their performance. The following day, they performed on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, known for its uncensored style, but the two girls wore different T-shirts with the word 'Censored' and even covered their faces with their hands during the kiss in the performance, as a form of protest. They still wrote the term on Jimmy Kimmel's hand.
The next single "Not Gonna Get Us" was released in early 2003. Though not as popular as their debut single, it managed to have success in most record charts. The song also reached number one on the US Billboard Dance Club Songs, becoming the duo's only number-one single on the US component charts. The group then released their third single "30 Minutes", which premiered only in Europe. A music video followed after the release. The fourth single, "How Soon Is Now?", was a cover of the song by the Smiths and came out in May 2003. The same month, Shapovalov was arrested after arranging filming for the group's music video "Show Me Love" in Moscow's Red Square despite his application for filming being refused. Shapovalov also attempted to film near London's Big Ben and various other locations. The footage that was recorded was later used for a music video for the song "Show Me Love",Archived at Ghostarchive and the Wayback Machine: despite the song not being released in any country other than Poland.