Nadia Dorofeeva, known on stage as DOROFEEVA, is best known to many television viewers not for a single song but for a red chair. Since 2021 she has been a coach on Holos Krainy, the Ukrainian version of The Voice, and before that she coached the children’s version of the show as part of a duo. Her coaching record is unusually clear: a win in her first adult season, a disrupted second season shaped by war, and a runner-up finish in a third season staged outside Ukraine.
Holos Krainy, whose Ukrainian title means The Voice of the Country, premiered on the 1+1 network on 22 May 2011. It is part of the international The Voice format created by Dutch television producer John de Mol Jr., and it was the second international adaptation of the programme after the American version. Coaches listen to blind auditions with their backs turned, press a button to turn for a singer they want, build a team, and then guide those singers through battles, knockouts and live shows decided, in the end, by the public. A coach’s job, therefore, is not only to choose voices but to choose songs, to shape performances week after week, and to keep a team together under the pressure of elimination. Dorofeeva’s three adult seasons show different sides of that job, and they are best understood season by season. Some images in this article are AI-generated illustrations, not photographs of Dorofeeva; they are labelled as such. Source: Wikipedia records that Holos Krainy premiered on 1+1 on 22 May 2011 and that Dorofeeva coached in seasons 11, 12 and 13.
Why a Pop Star Was Put in the Chair
Nadiia Volodymyrivna Dorofieieva was born on 21 April 1990 in Simferopol. Before Holos Krainy, she had spent a decade as one half of the pop duo Vremya i Steklo, formed in Kyiv in 2010 by producer Oleksii Potapenko, known as Potap, and producer Iryna Horova, alongside Oleksii Zavhorodnii, known as Positiff. The duo’s best-known songs included “Imya 505”, “Pesnya 404”, “Navernoepotomuchto”, “Na Stile”, “Troll”, “TOP”, “E, Boy” and “Dim”. The project ended in 2020, after which Dorofeeva and Positiff began solo careers. Dorofeeva’s first solo song under the name DOROFEEVA, “gorit”, was released on 20 November 2020.
That background matters for her coaching for two reasons. First, she arrived at Holos Krainy as a working performer who had spent years in a duo, which meant she understood harmony, stage partnership and the discipline of performing as part of a group, not only as a solo singer. Second, she had already coached on television before her adult Holos Krainy debut, on the children’s version of the show. She was therefore not a first-time television coach in 2021, even though season 11 was her first season in the adult chair. Her early career also included singing and dance competitions in her youth, a finalist place on the television project Chance, and several years performing in the group M.Ch.S. before Vremya i Steklo. Those experiences gave her a performer’s view of auditions, which is different from a purely technical view: she had been the person auditioning, as well as the person later choosing.
Her solo work after 2020, including the EP “dofamin” in spring 2021 and the album “Sensi” in 2022, and her switch to performing in Ukrainian after the Russian invasion of Ukraine began, are background here, not the focus. They explain why, by the time she returned for season 13 in 2023, she was coaching in a changed musical landscape, in which Ukrainian-language repertoire and songs about home, endurance and identity carried a different weight than they had in 2021.
First Steps as a Coach: Holos Dity
Dorofeeva’s first coaching role on a Voice show was not on Holos Krainy but on Holos Dity, The Voice Kids. In autumn 2017, after taking part in the Ukrainian version of Dancing with the Stars on 1+1, she became a coach on Holos Dity together with Positiff, as the duo Vremya i Steklo. The children’s show used three coaches rather than four, and the duo occupied one chair together, which meant that Dorofeeva’s early coaching was collaborative: decisions about repertoire, staging and advice were shared with her duo partner, and the team was a joint team.
The duo coached Holos Dity in season 4 in 2017 and season 5 in 2019. In season 4, the coaches were Natalia Mohylevska, Vremya i Steklo and Monatik, and the winner was Daneliya Tuleshova from Monatik’s team. Vremya i Steklo’s finalists that season included Alexander Minyonok and Yana Gornaya. In season 5, the coaches were Jamala, Vremya i Steklo and Dzidzio, and the winner was Oleksandr Zazarashvili from the Vremya i Steklo team, with Karina Stolaba and Maksym Komisarchuk also listed among that team’s finalists. That win is the earliest coaching victory in Dorofeeva’s television record, and it predates her adult Holos Krainy win by two years.
The children’s coaching experience is relevant to the adult show because it taught a different kind of coaching. With younger singers, the emphasis is on protection, confidence and age-appropriate repertoire, rather than on the competitive tactics of battles and steals that dominate the adult format. Dorofeeva’s later adult coaching, with its attention to song choice and to singers’ confidence on stage, can be seen as building on that earlier work, even though the formats are different. It also meant that, when she took the adult chair in 2021, viewers already knew her as a coach, not only as a singer, and the transition felt like a promotion within the same television family rather than a new departure.
Joining Holos Krainy: Season 11 in 2021
Dorofeeva joined Holos Krainy as a coach in season 11, which ran from 24 January to 25 April 2021. The other coaches that season were Tina Karol, Oleh Vynnyk and Monatik. The show was presented, as in later seasons, within the 1+1 stable, and it aired on Sunday evenings. Dorofeeva was the only coach in that line-up who had come to the adult show directly from a duo background and from children’s coaching, and her team reflected a wide range of voices rather than a single style.
Her season 11 team included Serhiy Lazanovskyi, Illya Nikolaenko, Iryna Ebralidze, Illya Reznikov and Andriy Naumenko among the artists listed for her team. Lazanovskyi became the defining singer of her season. In the superfinal, he performed the song “Ludi” by Bumbox, in the episode broadcast on 25 April 2021, and he was named the winner of season 11 by the public, giving Dorofeeva her first win as an adult Holos Krainy coach in her debut season. The other finalists that season were Yulia Tymochko from Tina Karol’s team, Tyoma Pauchek from Monatik’s team, and Serhiy Neychev from Oleh Vynnyk’s team, which shows that Dorofeeva’s win came against strong teams from experienced coaches, not in a weak year.
Winning in a debut season is rare in The Voice format, where returning coaches usually have an advantage in team-building and in understanding the show’s rhythm. Dorofeeva’s win, therefore, established her immediately as a serious coach rather than as a celebrity guest in the chair. It also set a pattern that would repeat: her teams tended to include singers who could carry a song on their own, rather than singers who depended on production or staging to make an impression. Lazanovskyi’s final performance, built around a well-known Ukrainian song performed with directness, is a good example of that approach.
Season 12: A Season Interrupted by War
Season 12, which premiered on 23 January 2022, was Dorofeeva’s second season as an adult coach, and it was the season in which she was the only coach returning from the previous season. The other coaches were Svyatoslav Vakarchuk, returning after a five-season break, Potap, returning after a two-season break, and first-time coach Olya Polyakova. A fifth coaching element was added for the first time: the duo Oleksandra Zaritska and Andriy Matsola coached the “Second Chance” team, drawn from contestants who had failed to advance in the main competition, with that stage broadcast exclusively on the show’s official YouTube channel.
Dorofeeva’s season 12 team was larger than in later seasons, because each coach was expected to complete a team of sixteen artists in the blind auditions, except for the Second Chance coaches, who were to choose fourteen. Her team included Oleksandr Sviridenko, Davyd Maskysa, Olena Chukalenko, Aliye Khadzhabadinova, Nataliya Buryk, Oksana Pozyvay, Nataliya Mykolayenko, Oleksandr Oleshchuk, Mariya Sur, Anastasiya Posna, Yevheniya Tananayeva, Narek Amiryan and Yevhen Bichasnyy, among others, with some artists later moving to other teams or to the Second Chance team under the season’s rules. Sviridenko, who had auditioned with “O Mamo” at the age of twenty, became her most prominent finalist, reaching the live finale and performing “Vesna” in the later rounds.
The season was then interrupted by events outside television. Following the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the season was suspended after only six episodes had been broadcast. The show returned on 2 October 2022 on a new channel, TET, because 1+1 was broadcasting emergency news about the war. Episodes seven to eleven had initially been recorded before 24 February 2022, and because of that, all Russian-language dialogue in those episodes was replaced by a voiceover translation in Ukrainian. The show also added material of contestants empowering and inspiring people through music, and material in memory of soldiers at the frontline.
That context changed what coaching meant in season 12. The coaches’ advisor for Team Dorofeeva in the knockouts was Kola, a season 11 contestant, while other teams had Fahot for Team Svyatoslav, Michelle Andrade for Team Potap, and Artem Pyvovarov for Team Olya. The knockouts themselves followed a format in which each team had nine artists, each coach had four seats for artists to advance to the live show, and the seated artists could be switched as later performers sang. At the end of the knockouts, the Second Chance coaches saved four artists, and the public voted for one artist, Pavlo Tyutyunnyk from Team Svyatoslav, to join the Second Chance team for the live finale.
The season ended on 20 November 2022, when Mariya Kvitka was named the winner by the public, marking the first and only win for a Second Chance team in the show’s history, under coaches Oleksandra Zaritska and Andriy Matsola. The runner-up was Vasyl Palyukh. Dorofeeva did not win season 12, but her presence as the sole returning coach, and her team’s progress to the live finale in a season that had been suspended for eight months and then completed under wartime conditions, is part of why season 12 is remembered differently from a normal season. The coaching record for that year cannot be read as a simple win or loss; it is a record of a show that continued at all.
Season 13: The European Season in Poland
Season 13, which ran from 3 September to 29 October 2023, was Dorofeeva’s third adult season, and it was the season in which she was again the only returning coach from the previous season. The other coaches were three debuting coaches: Julia Sanina, Artem Pyvovarov and Ivan Klymenko. The “Second Chance” coaches from season 12 were removed for season 13. The show was hosted by Yuriy Horbunov and Kateryna Osadcha, and it aired on 1+1 Ukraine on Sunday evenings at nine o’clock.
Season 13 is also called the European Season, because it was the first season in the entire The Voice franchise to be held across Europe, due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The show introduced a custom-designed train to Poland, and the competition was held on the set of The Voice of Poland. That staging decision affected coaching in practical ways: teams were working away from home, in a borrowed studio, with a production built around travel and displacement, and the songs chosen often reflected that context, with Ukrainian repertoire, songs about Kyiv and home, and international songs performed in a Ukrainian frame.
Each coach in season 13 needed to recruit ten artists in the blind auditions, giving forty contestants in total. Dorofeeva’s team was made up of Yuriy Horodets’kyy, Mairamik Avoian, Roman Panchenko, Edhar Yenokian, Kateryna Stefaniuk, Yuliia Belei, Liudmyla Kozyreva and Marek Mokhnach as a duo, Lada Tyvonchuk, Anna Denysova and Oleksandra Lishchuk. Horodets’kyy, aged twenty-five at audition, sang “Yak tebe ne liubyty, Kyieve mii!” in his blind audition, a song about Kyiv that set the tone for his later performances. Avoian, aged eighteen at audition, sang “Stand Up”. Panchenko, aged twenty-seven, sang “A Sky Full of Stars”. Yenokian, aged twenty-five and a member of the band DOBRYVA, sang the original song “Svitlo ye chy nema”.
In the battles, coaches divided their contestants into groups to sing together, with only four contestants from each team advancing to the cross battles, and with no steals for the first time since season 2. Coaches’ advisors helped them decide who advanced; the advisors were Kalush Orchestra for Team Ivan, Max Barskih for Team Dorofeeva, Kola for Team Pyvovarov, and Jerry Heil for Team Julia. For Team Dorofeeva, the battle winners included Edhar Yenokian with “Makeba”, Roman Panchenko with “What Was I Made For?”, Yuriy Horodets’kyy with “Hey, sokoly”, and Mairamik Avoian with “How Will I Know”. Those four songs show the range Dorofeeva was willing to trust: a contemporary pop song, a film ballad, a traditional-sounding song, and a classic dance-pop song, all within one team.
Season 13 Cross Battles and the Final
The cross battles in season 13 paired one contestant from one team against a contestant from another team, with both artists singing to win the audience vote. The winner of each cross battle moved to the final, while the other artist was eliminated, and it was not guaranteed that all coaches would be represented in the finale, although in the end all four coaches were represented. Dorofeeva’s artists performed strongly in this round. Roman Panchenko won his cross battle against Yelyzaveta Shaforost with “Formidable”, taking 63 percent of the vote to her 37 percent. Mairamik Avoian won her cross battle against Veronika Kovalenko with “In deinen Armen”, taking 51 percent to 49 percent, one of the closest results of the round. Yuriy Horodets’kyy won his cross battle against Izabella Ivashchenko with “Brattia Ukraintsi”, taking 71 percent to 29 percent. Edhar Yenokian, by contrast, lost his cross battle to Halyna Pechenizhs’ka, who sang “What’s Love Got to Do with It”, with Yenokian’s “Kokhayu, ale ne zovsim” taking 46 percent to her 54 percent.
The live final, the only live episode of season 13, took place on 29 October 2023 and was divided into three rounds. In the first round, eight artists performed and the top four, regardless of team, advanced to the superfinal by public vote. In round two, the remaining four sang a duet with their coach, and the public voted for the top two. In round three, the remaining two sang for the audience’s vote to determine the winner. Dorofeeva had three artists in the eight-person final: Mairamik Avoian, Yuriy Horodets’kyy and Roman Panchenko. Avoian opened the final with “Euphoria”, the Eurovision 2012 winning song, and was eliminated in round one. Panchenko sang “Obiymy” and was also eliminated in round one. Horodets’kyy sang “Misto spyt” and advanced by public vote to the next round.
In the end, Mykhailo Panchyshyn, known as Ptashkin, from Artem Pyvovarov’s team, was named the winner by the public on 29 October 2023, marking Pyvovarov’s first win as a coach. Yuriy Horodets’kyy from Dorofeeva’s team was the runner-up. The other finalists were Anastasiya Chaban from Ivan Klymenko’s team and Khrystyna Starykova from Julia Sanina’s team. For Dorofeeva, season 13 therefore ended as a runner-up season, after a win in season 11 and a disrupted season 12. Taken together, her adult coaching record to that point was one win, one season completed under wartime disruption without a win, and one runner-up finish, with a team that had reached the final in every season she coached.
What Dorofeeva’s Coaching Record Shows
A coach’s record is more than a list of winners, and Dorofeeva’s three adult seasons illustrate three different coaching challenges. In season 11, the challenge was to build a winning team in a debut season against experienced coaches, and she did so with Lazanovskyi. In season 12, the challenge was continuity: to keep a team together through suspension, a channel change, and a format that added a Second Chance team, and to bring a finalist through to a live finale staged in wartime conditions. In season 13, the challenge was to coach in a new country, on a borrowed set, with three new rival coaches, and to take three artists to an eight-person final, with one reaching the final two.
Across those seasons, certain patterns are visible in the documented record. Dorofeeva’s teams have included solo singers, a duo in season 13, and singers from a wide age range, from eighteen-year-old Avoian in season 13 to older performers in earlier seasons. Her song choices have ranged from Ukrainian songs about Kyiv and home to international pop, ballads and dance songs, which suggests a coaching approach that starts from the singer’s voice and story rather than from a fixed genre. Her advisors, too, have varied: Kola for season 12 and Max Barskih for season 13, both performers with their own experience of the show or of Ukrainian pop, rather than a single permanent advisor.
It is also worth noting what Dorofeeva’s coaching does not show. She has not, in the verified record, coached a season in which her team failed to reach the final, and she has not been a coach who wins only with one type of singer. Lazanovskyi, Sviridenko and Horodets’kyy are different singers, with different repertoires, and they reached different stages, which makes the record harder to reduce to a single formula. That variety is, in itself, a coaching result: a coach who can take different voices to the final is doing different work in each season, even if the chair and the format look the same from the outside.
The Chair, the Format and the Viewer’s Guide
For a viewer new to Holos Krainy, Dorofeeva’s seasons are a useful guide to how the show works, because they cover the main stages in order. The blind auditions are the selection stage, where coaches turn for voices they cannot see. The battles are the first elimination within teams, where singers perform together and coaches choose who advances. The knockouts, in season 12, and the cross battles, in season 13, are the stages where teams are reduced further and where audience voting begins to decide who reaches the live shows. The live final is the only stage in seasons 12 and 13 where the public alone decides the winner, through successive rounds that reduce the field from eight to four to two to one.
Dorofeeva’s role within that format has been consistent: she is a coach who turns for singers she believes in, builds a team of varied voices, and stays with them through battles and live shows. The hosts of her seasons, Yuriy Horbunov and Kateryna Osadcha in seasons 12 and 13, and the changing rival coaches around her, provide the frame, but the coaching work itself is in the choices that are visible on screen: which song a singer is given, which battle pairing is chosen, and which performance is trusted in a live final. Those choices are documented in the season records, and they are the evidence on which any assessment of her coaching should rest, rather than on general claims about her personality or popularity.
For readers who want to follow the show further, the most useful next step is to watch the final performances from each of Dorofeeva’s seasons in order: Lazanovskyi’s “Ludi” from season 11, Sviridenko’s “Vesna” from season 12, and Horodets’kyy’s “Misto spyt” and his runner-up performance from season 13. Those three performances, taken together, show the range of her coaching better than any single season summary, because they are the moments when a coach’s work is most visible: a singer, a song, and a live audience vote.
Coaching After Season 13: What the Record Leaves Open
Dorofeeva’s verified adult coaching record ends, in the sources used for this article, with season 13 in October 2023. That ending is not a retirement announcement, and it should not be read as one. It is simply the last season for which a complete, verified team list, battle record and final result could be assembled. A coach’s absence from a later line-up, or presence in one, is a claim that needs its own verification, with dates, rival coaches and a final result. Readers who follow Holos Krainy will know that line-ups change, that coaches return after breaks, and that a season without a particular coach does not erase the seasons that came before it.
What remains, regardless of any later season, is a coaching arc that is unusually complete on its own terms. It begins with children’s coaching as part of a duo, moves to a debut adult win, passes through a season that was interrupted by war and completed under changed conditions, and ends, for now, with a European season staged in another country and a runner-up finish. Each stage tested a different part of coaching: selection in season 11, continuity in season 12, and adaptation in season 13. A future season, if Dorofeeva returns to the chair, would be judged against that arc, not against a single win. A coach who has already won, lost a disrupted season with dignity, and taken three singers to an eight-person final has a record that does not depend on one more result to be meaningful.
For the viewer, the most durable part of that record is also the simplest: the singers. Lazanovskyi, Sviridenko, Horodets’kyy, Avoian, Panchenko and Zazarashvili are names that can be followed beyond the show, and their performances are the evidence that coaching happened. Television formats change, channels change, and even the country in which a season is filmed can change, as season 13 showed. The work of choosing a song, preparing a singer for a battle, and trusting that singer in a live final remains the same, and it is that work, documented season by season above, that makes Dorofeeva a television coach in her own right, rather than only a singer who once sat in a red chair.
Frequently Asked Questions
Which Holos Krainy seasons did Dorofeeva coach?
She coached seasons 11, 12 and 13 of the adult show. Season 11 ran from January to April 2021, season 12 from January to November 2022 with a suspension in between, and season 13 from September to October 2023.
Did Dorofeeva win Holos Krainy as a coach?
Yes, in her debut adult season. In season 11, her singer Serhiy Lazanovskyi won the superfinal on 25 April 2021, performing “Ludi” by Bumbox.
Who was Dorofeeva’s runner-up in season 13?
Yuriy Horodets’kyy from her team was the runner-up in season 13. The winner that season was Mykhailo Panchyshyn from Artem Pyvovarov’s team, announced on 29 October 2023.
Did Dorofeeva coach Holos Dity?
Yes, as part of the duo Vremya i Steklo with Positiff. The duo coached Holos Dity in season 4 in 2017 and season 5 in 2019, and their team won season 5 with Oleksandr Zazarashvili.
Who was in Dorofeeva’s season 12 team?
Her season 12 team included Oleksandr Sviridenko, Davyd Maskysa, Olena Chukalenko, Aliye Khadzhabadinova, Nataliya Buryk and Mariya Sur, among others. Sviridenko reached the live finale, performing “Vesna”.
Why was season 13 called the European Season?
Because it was the first season in the whole The Voice franchise to be held across Europe, due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The competition was held on the set of The Voice of Poland, after a custom-designed train journey to Poland.
Was Dorofeeva the only returning coach in seasons 12 and 13?
Yes, in both seasons she was the only coach returning from the previous season. In season 12 the other coaches were Svyatoslav Vakarchuk, Potap and Olya Polyakova, plus the Second Chance duo. In season 13 the other coaches were Julia Sanina, Artem Pyvovarov and Ivan Klymenko, all debuting.