A Johnny Depp Lookalike Works At School Near Minsk

He teaches children to play the balalaika.

In September, a video got viral on Belarusian TikTok: a teacher performed the once popular hit Despacito at a school assembly and collected thousands of enthusiastic comments on the social network. Users admired the talented teacher and compared him to Johnny Depp. The teacher turned out to be a virtuoso balalaika player from a rural school — 44-year-old Dzmitry Strezh. Tochka.by writes about him.

An unusual school

The school in the agro-town of Novy Dvor is not quite ordinary, with an aesthetic bias. Here, absolutely all students after the main lessons are engaged in creativity: music, choreography, modeling, drawing.

Headmaster Dzmitry Tryfanau says with some pride: engagement in the musical direction is 100%.

“All our children are engaged not only in their studies, but also in aesthetics. We have many free clubs. There are 14 interest groups alone,” says the director.

There is always music during breaks here. Instruments sound from every class. On Thursdays, there are musical breaks: everyone goes down to the foyer, music plays, children and teachers dance. On Wednesdays, there are breaks with Belarusian motifs: folk songs, dances, costumes.

“The children really like it. We have a small but very friendly school — only 208 children,” says Alena Tsitova, Vice-Headmistress for educational work, conducting a tour.

And in such a school, in addition to subject teachers, there are many creative teachers. They are the ones who got the children interested in music.

Almost became a bass guitarist

Dzmitry Strezh has been working at the Novy Dvor school for 15 years.

He became a music teacher at the age of 24, right after graduating from the conservatory. The balalaika is an atypical instrument and, it seems, could hardly gather crowds of people wanting to play it. Dzmitry, however, has no end of students.

“The balalaika is an instrument that seems to apologize for its existence by its very appearance,” the teacher jokes.

Many years ago, he chose this instrument by chance. When he came to the audition, the teachers asked: what do you want to play?

“And I didn’t even know what instruments there were. And I didn’t know anything about the balalaika. It’s just that on that day I saw a cartoon — the characters were playing the balalaika. I was confused and chose it. The teachers, of course, were happy, because there are always few people interested in this instrument, the teachers don’t have enough workload,” Dzmitry recalls.

Now his students proudly carry the balalaika on their shoulders and brag to their peers about playing an unusual instrument. But then, every trip to the music school for little Dzmitry was accompanied by a bunch of ridicule.

“You walk through the courtyards, children are hanging out there, and here you are, with this balalaika. “I had to stand up for my honor and fight back somewhere, and somewhere keep quiet,” says the teacher.

The success of the young balalaika player was noticed immediately. He quickly began to participate in competitions, winning prizes. He played so hard that his fingers were bleeding. But he continued to study hard.

He immediately decided on his future profession — he would be a musician. Dzmitry decided to go to a music school, then to a conservatory. But then he almost betrayed his favorite instrument by nearly becoming a bass guitarist.

From a musician to a pizza delivery man

The teachers at both the school and the conservatory, Dzmitry recalls, were wonderful. They worked with him, as they say, “without breaking the apparatus” — they did not retrain, did not transplant, did not reconstruct his playing on the balalaika.

But at some point, Dzmitry became interested in the bass guitar — such a youthful binge of rock music. The balalaika is not serious, after all. He even wanted to quit the conservatory and transfer to the pop department at the University of Culture.

“Well, I liked a girl once, she was also a musician. When she found out that I was a balalaika player, she was skeptical about it: she said it was “not very boyish”. However, I managed to convince her later, took her to a couple of concerts. She eventually became my wife,” Dzmitry laughs.

After the conservatory, he was assigned to work at a regular school with an aesthetic focus. Then, Dzmitry admits, it was hard.

“The kids were like aliens from another planet for me. How to find an approach to them, what to interest them in, how to put together a group for such an atypical instrument? Now I understand them, since I have my own children, I feel their mood, fatigue, I can win them over, interest them. But then all this was like a dark forest for me,” says Dzmitry.

At the same time, he worked at the Philharmonic: like every musician, he did odd jobs and corporate events, performed. He even went around Europe to earn some money as a street musician — in their circle, this is called “going to the rocks”. Dzmitry lived, as he says, “with the wind in the head”, earned something here and there.

But when he had his own family, there was not enough money: a musician is not a money-making profession.

“I went to deliver pizza. And I felt what money was. It was 10 times more than I was earning then. But I had to work all day from morning until evening. I also left half a job at school. I lasted a year in this mode,” Dzmitry recalls.

The turning point happened when he got a call from the Novy Dvor school. They persuaded him to come to work there, and promised a good workload and a decent salary.

Since then, he has been working there with children, teaching them to play an unusual instrument.

“Korol i Shut” on the balalaika

Before he came, the Novy Dvor school did not have a balalaika class. And now there is even a waiting list for this instrument.

The children simply adore the teacher. They ask to teach new melodies — recently they played the soundtrack from the Pirates of the Caribbean, learned some songs of the “Korol I Shut” band. They say that you can “bang out” anything on the balalaika.

“Of course, the instrument is so unpopular, it will not give such a wave as the guitar. But you can also do cool things with it, reveal. First you teach the children something modern, and then you can learn serious things. Do you know Beethoven? And this, and that? This is how you get them to know the classics — and the child is interested,” the teacher shares secrets.

Dzmitry has a simple attitude to his sudden popularity: he says that children are the hardest spectators, it is difficult to please them. He was no less nervous at the assembly than at the concert.

He is glad that the video on TikTok was liked by the viewers: after all, this once again shows that the balalaika is not such a simple instrument.

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