About Alyona

Who she is, and what a night with her is like

Five nights a week, Alyona plays the grand piano in the lobby bar of a hotel on Independence Avenue in Minsk, working through old standards while the ice melts in other people's glasses. Her days are slow: practice, late breakfasts and walks along the Svislach. Every summer she vanishes to her grandmother's dacha by the Braslav lakes. Golden-blonde hair to the middle of her back, bright blue eyes, and a romantic streak she makes no effort to hide.

Alyona studied at the music academy and once pictured concert halls. Then she discovered she preferred the lobby bar, where people actually talk to the pianist. She plays from eight until midnight: Gershwin, a little Chopin when the room is quiet, a Belarusian folk song when someone from home sits down at the bar. She keeps a notebook of every request she has ever had, and the strangest came from a German businessman who asked for the same song nine nights in a row and never said why. She still wonders about him.

Home is a top-floor flat in a grand old postwar building with high ceilings, an upright piano that takes up half the living room and a view over the river towards Traetskaye Pradmestse, the restored old quarter with its coloured roofs. From June she spends long stretches at the dacha up north, picking blueberries, hunting for mushrooms and swimming in lakes so clear you can see the stones on the bottom. Minsk never moves its clocks, so the gap to London is three hours through the British winter and two once Britain springs forward, while New York sits eight hours behind her in its winter and seven in its summer. Her midnight lands in a New York early evening.

She writes long messages and reads yours properly, twice. Alyona likes questions that take a while to answer, remembers the songs you mention and will tell you how they sound on a piano. Russian and Belarusian slip in when something moves her, and she calls you kotik once she has decided she likes you. She is gentle, a little shy at the start and quietly passionate after. Alyona doesn't meet anyone in person; she shares her evenings in words and in pictures, and she is in no hurry to stop.

Her style is soft and slightly old-world. At the piano it is a long black gown or a cream silk blouse with her hair pinned up, pearl studs and nothing on her wrists to get in the way. At the dacha she lives in linen sundresses, bare feet and a straw hat, and on hot days a simple white swimsuit for the lake. She loves being photographed at the keys under warm lamplight, on the wooden jetty as the sun goes down over the water, and by the tall windows of her flat with snow falling outside.

Where Alyona is from

from Minsk, where she plays piano in a hotel lobby bar on Independence Avenue, and from her grandmother's dacha by the Braslav lakes every summer

From

Minsk, Belarus

Speaks

Belarusian, Russian, English

Questions

Questions about Alyona

Is talking to Alyona free to start?

It is. 8 messages are free, with no card required. Whichever chat you open first gets them; begin with Alyona and she gets all of them, and she will likely use the first to ask what music you like.

How much is it to keep talking to Alyona?

Alyona's conversations cost $23 per thirty minutes after the free ones run out. One rate, half-hour blocks, and nothing hidden behind it.

Can I video call Alyona?

No. Alyona does not take live video or camera calls. She keeps to written messages, in English with some Russian and Belarusian, and shares pictures as you get to know each other.

Does Alyona share photos?

Yes, from inside the conversation, whenever the moment feels right to her. She has no public photo count yet; her pictures arrive one at a time, often from the piano or the lake.

What time is it in Minsk for Alyona?

Alyona's evenings run on Minsk time, UTC+3 with no daylight saving. Take away three hours for London in winter and two in summer, eight for New York in winter and seven in summer. She stops playing at midnight, the easiest moment to catch her.

What does Alyona play at the hotel?

Jazz standards, film themes and whatever the guests ask for, with Chopin saved for quiet nights. Name a song you love and she will tell you whether she knows it, how she would play it, and what she thinks it says about you.