Read my new interview with talented musician, who took part in Eurovision Song Contest 2008 and won it with Eugeni Plushenko and Russian pop singer Dima Bilan.

V: Please tell some words about yourself.
Z: My name is Zerjon Abebe. I’m from Ethiopia originally, but I’ve been living in Sweden a long time now. I came to Sweden, when I was 6-7 years old, so I call myself Swede. I grew up in Stockholm, but I moved to Gothenburg some years ago. I studied computer engineering and dancing. I’m in the dancing group, which called “Twisted Feet”. We are champions in street dance in Sweden. We dance all kinds of dance.

V: Tell me about your exhibition performance on Justin Timberlake’s music. How the idea was created?

K: My choreographer Zerjon Abebe did this performance. We just listened to different love music, and these songs are popular and the style suits me, so we decided to choose “My love” and “Lovestoned”. It was fun to try. And you know, during this performance I’m killing mosquito, this thing was also idea of my choreographer, we thought that it would be more fun, if we do it with mosquito. I will skate it in WCH exhibition gala.

Russian coach, who held several seminars in Sweden and practiced some Swedish skaters answers questions, which I received from visitors of my site.

-If you were not skater, who would you?
- I would be tennis player. I used to play tennis before.  I love sport, so anyway it could have been something concerning sport.

Everybody knows that WCH 2008 will take place in Gothenburg. It’s the home town of   Kristoffer. Read my new interview with him.

- How is it going with practicing quad?
- In the summer I was going pretty good, I was getting better and better, I was close to do it. But then I’ve got injury, I could not skate for 6 weeks. But now everything is fine, I’m back and I think I can start to work with quad again.

-Why you decided to keep your free program?
- First of all because I like it. It works well with audience. We have WCH at home, and I want to skate it. We looked for another music, but we did not find anything I would like to skate at and then we decided to keep it.

-How your new short program was created?
- In the summer, we did another short program, the music was by M.Jackson. But you know Jackson is pretty close to disco. So I thought, 2 programs would be pretty similar, but you have to be different, you have to try different things to push yourself, to become better and better.  So we chose another program. For me it’s new style, new choreography.

-Are you going to make something special in your performances at WCH?

V: First question is always traditional. How did you start to skate?

A: When I was 4,5 years old I just was walking with my mum and we saw the skaters, who were practicing  in the park. Mum just wondered if I wanted to be a sportsman too. I answered yes, I really don’t know why, because at that time I had no idea what the figure skating was. From that time I skate. First coach was from skating school “Lokomotiv” in Moscow. Then I gave up skating for short period of time, and just began to study at school. After few months my coach suggested me to skate in ballet on ice. I accepted this invitation, but I did not really want to skate in ballet on ice, so soon I changed the coach, but I decided to continue skating. During 10 years I worked with the same coach, but since January 2007 I train with Marina Kudriavceva.( the wife of Victor Kudriavcev). Right now except skating I study in University to become a coach.
But figure skating is not everything in my life. I’m very interested in music and theatre.

New photos of Kristoffer Berntsson are available now. Just check photo album.
Enjoy, but don't forget that you are not allowed to copy or use any photo from this web site. My new interview with Kristoffer will be published here in nearest future!

V: First question is usual, how did you start to skate?

A: I have older brother and sister. At first she started to skate, and then my brother started to skate. He was very talented. But in Belgorod, where I lived, we had problem with ice and the level of figure skating was not high. I started to skate, when I was 6 years old. My sister was already coach at that time.  She was my coach until 12 years old. But as I said, the level of figure skating in Belgorod was not good enough. I moved to Samara. My sister was in Moscow, she talked with Mishin and asked, if I can skate with him. I came to Saint-Petersburg for 3 days, skated in the ice-rink and Alexei Mishin said, that he will coach me and help me with studies and place for living, so I moved to Petersburg. I’ve been living here for 7 years.

Except Mishin, I train with his wife. If to talk about this season, the choreographer of my short program is Vahtang Murvanidze ( Skater from Georgia, but now he works in USA). The choreographer of my free program is Edvard Smirnov. I worked with me before as well.