ABSTRACT
The 60-year-old pop star Alla Pugacheva and her 38-year-old daughter, the singer and actress Kristina Orbakaite, enjoy royal celebrity status in contemporary Russian popular culture. In recent years, post-Soviet media and internet sources dedicated to the glamorous lives of the rich and famous frequently refer to Pugacheva as “the empress,” “her Excellency,” and even “Alla the Great.” In turn, Pugacheva’s daughter, the westernized, stylish Orbakaite, is not only often called the princess of Russian pop music, but was actually introduced with this title to Prince Albert Grimaldi of Monaco (Razzakov 2003: 663). While during the Soviet era the state-run media often broadcast Pugacheva’s concerts at Easter to distract people from attending religious services, nowadays, comfortable in her royal celebrity status, Pugacheva gives Russian Orthodox blessings to crowds of fans during her concerts. In fact, Chris Rojek argues that the decline in organized religion is one of the main reasons for the emergence of the celebrity industry in the West, with the others being the democratization of society and the commodification of everyday life (Rojek 2001: 13). Following in her mother’s footsteps, Orbakaite sends best wishes to her younger-generation fans from “our family,” screaming, “We love you; we live and perform only for you!” (The observations are based on the author’s attendance at Pugacheva and Orbakaite’s concerts such as Pugacheva’s on 23 February 2000 at the Orpheum Theater, and Orbakaite on 13 October 2006 at the John Hancock Hall, both in Boston, USA.) Completing the picture of a royal celebrity family, the media often call Pugacheva’s former male partners/protégés her “ex-favorites,” resuscitating the term historically used to denote former lovers of Russian empresses (Kostina 2006).2
