Lolita Milyavskaya

Lolita Milyavskaya was born in 1963 in Mukachevo

Lolita was born on 14 November 1963 in Mukachevo, in the Ukrainian SSR. Her father, Mark Gorelik, was a Jewish actor and stage director, and her mother, Alla Nikiforova, was a jazz singer. Her parents divorced in 1974, her father moved to Israel, and she moved with her mother to Kyiv.

In 1981 she entered the Tambov branch of the Moscow State Institute of Culture, where she met her first husband, Alexander Belyaev. She graduated in 1985.

In 1984 she moved to Odesa, where she worked at the Philharmonic and formed Cabaret Duo Akademiya with Alexander Tsekalo. The two moved to Moscow in 1987 and later hosted the morning television programs Morning Mail and Good Morning, Country! Her marriage to Tsekalo ended in 1998, the year her daughter Eva was born.

She began a solo career in 2000 with the song Flowers, and released an album of the same name in 2001. In 2007 she released two albums and won a TEFI award for her talk show on Channel One. In 2017 she launched a line of handbags.

In 2017 Ukraine barred her from entry for 3 years after she performed in Crimea in 2015. In January 2023 Ukraine imposed sanctions on her over her support for the Russian invasion.