Delphine Alena Botkin was born to Isabelle and Arkady Botkin on March 9th, 1982 in Lille, France. Arkady was a touring Russian musician who plays every instrument from bongo drums, to spoons to violin; "player of many master of none" as he always says. He met Delphine's mother, Isabella, while she was working at a Parisian music cafe in the summer 1978 and while Arkady had only planned to be in Paris for one week, he was so taken with the woman that he stayed until fall, when he could convince her to come traveling around Europe with him, working as his manager while he did freelance, and sometimes impromptu, concerts. After a year and a half of touring the couple moved back to France, this time settling in the northern city of Lille, and Isabella finished her degree in Education, specializing in French, while Arkady brought in money as a music instructor. After Delphine's birth in 1982, the couple decided not to have any more children and pledged all of their resources to their daughter.

Due to her mother's busy teaching schedule, Delphine was raised largely by her stay at home father, and as such was brought up with a great appreciation for music and the arts. She adopted his mantra of playing many instruments and currently is at least proficient on guitar, bass, drums, ukulele and the flute. Similar to most French children, Delphine attended public school and her marks there were neither the best or the worst in the class. A very hands-on student, she sometimes found that she was easily bored with studying, but gravitated heavily to the visual arts. She took up painting when she was in her 8th year and to this day her art is her primary source of income.

When Delphine was sixteen, her mother--who had been applying for teaching positions in the United States for several months--was offered a tenured position teaching French at Colorado University, and after a painstaking decision process that included much protest on Delphine's behalf, she decided to take it. The Botkin family then made the trans-world move to Boulder, Colorado, a suburb of Denver, where Delphine was forced to start all over again as a junior in high school. The move contributed a lot to her personality, which is very guarded and somewhat skeptical because of the way she would be teased for her accent or European customs by the conservative inhabitants of the sleepy suburb.

Ultimately, Delphine found her niche amongst other students interested in the arts, and upon graduation was all set to attend SVA in New York City, until her mother was diagnosed with bone cancer and her whole life was turned on its head. Delphine postponed college and spent the next two years helping her mom through round after round of chemotherapy that left her weakened and in a wheelchair. Now, almost 10 years after the diagnosis, Delphine still lives at home with her parents, taking care of her mother and keeping an eye on her father who is still as spry as ever.

It took her a while, but eventually, Delphine grew to accept the life she had been dealt, content to set up shop in her parents basement and paint pieces for local art shows and buyers until she was an old spinster, that was until a fateful meeting between her father and infamous Ukrainian musician Sergey Prutko threw everything for a loop. Despite Arkady's age and bad knees, he still knew how to rock as well as anyone, and after being introduced to Sergey by a mutual friend, found himself eager to take the younger fellow up on his offer to join his internationally acclaimed band, Zenit. Upon first hearing of the idea, Delphine had to admit she thought it was absurd, especially when she learned her father expected her to join to, and come out on the road with them. "It's a once in a lifetime opportunity, Feeny, you have to get out of here and do something special with your life, before it is gone forever," he'd said, and that was enough to convince her.

And so Delphine's aunt, who'd only moved from France six months prior, agreed to stay with her mother while Arkady and Delphine went out pursue their dreams, the future laid out ahead of them more bright, yet terrifying, than her wildest imagination.

Other Stuff: EST. mostly in the evenings, like random IM's, heads up for a scene.



Credits: Discography