Karaganda native advances to battle round at Russian Voice contest

Karaganda native Olga Veldyaksova has successfully passed the first stage of the Russian Golos singing contest, the Russian version of world renowned The Voice, Tengrinews reports.

For the blind auditions stage, the 25-year-old Kazakh singer, who performs under the stage name of Olivia Crash, chose the song of the Ukrainian popular singer Alyosha called Sweet People.

As a result, she got into the team of Russian popular singer Grigoriy Leps, as he was the only one to press the button and rotate his chair to Olivia.

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"No one else turned? Am I the only one? Well, then walk my way. Olivia Crash, it was very clear and loud," Grigoriy Leps said after she finished signing.

Another coach - Russian rapper Basta - also praised the performance: "It was very beautiful and powerful.".

Olivia was born in Karaganda in central Kazakhstan, but she has been living in Moscow for several years already. She has been into music since she was 14. 

Olivia performs mostly R&B, Soul, Disco, Funk and House.

The next stage for Olivia will be the battle round, during which coaches pit their singers against each other in battles. The participants will perform a song of the coach's choice at the same time in a boxing ring-styled stage. At the end of the day, coaches face the hard decision to make - to choose the only one out of two team members that will be given a chance to progress to the next stage of live shows, whereas another one will be eliminated from the competition. 

By Assel Satubaldina