Vlad and Niki
What is the nationality of Vlad and Niki? Are they American? Learn all there is to know.
Vlad and Niki are widely known as two of the famous child YouTubers at the moment. The pair of children gained popularity by posting videos on the famous video platform, and since then have been one of the most mainstream content creators for children across the world. Due to their worldwide popularity, many people often ask about the children’s nationalities and if they are American or not. As it turns out, they are not American – in fact, they are Russian.
In their videos posted online, the Russian children’s parents play sidekicks in what has described as live-action cartoons in a suburban fantasy land. Vlad, ten, and Niki, eight, are often joined in the videos by their parents Sergey and Victoria Vashketov, who started making videos out of their home in Moscow in 2018. Sergey Vashketov had been a midlevel executive at a food manufacturer, while their mother Victoria, was a former gymnast.
The family, who now live in a $12.5million mansion in Golden Beach, Florida, just outside of Miami, started from humble beginnings. The videos were staged in basic locations like at the kitchen table or in a local park, shooting with smartphones and employing very little, if any editing.
After videos began racking up millions of views on YouTube, Victoria and Sergey saw an opportunity to create a business around them, and they began investing in making more polished videos involving more extravagant locations and toys. The more popular the videos, the more often YouTube’s algorithm recommended their posts to kids. The more success the kids found the more luxurious the toys and videos in the short clips became.
In one video Vlad and Niki are seen snubbing their mom’s Range Rover to ride in their dad’s hot red Ferrari. The channel which features, vlogging, advertising and roleplays now has a film crew of up to five people at a time including scouts, camera operators and people who help secure props. They also have a mobile gaming application design team and assistants who help manage their social media accounts.
To cater for their global viewership, a team of translators have also been employed for their foreign-language channels. Vlad and Niki’s mother, Victoria Vashketov told the Wall Street Journal that the success of the video comes from other children believing that her children are their friends.
‘Kids feel that Vlad and Niki are their friends,’ Victoria explained.
The channel signed a representation deal with Haven Global, an Australian-based licensing agency, to develop new content, consumer products, and licenses for mobile apps under their brand. They have also signed a deal with Playmates Toys, a Hong Kong-based manufacturer, to produce toys under their brand. In 2019, the brothers were reportedly one of the most lucrative YouTubers making an estimated $312,000 per video.
‘You can create a global franchise without a major studio,’ Dan Weinstein, who represents ‘Vlad and Niki’ under the banner of his company Underscore Talent said to WSJ. ‘I think that’s pretty mind-blowing to think about.’
“Luck and timing were important. So too were analytics,” said Mr. Weinstein, who has been advising digital creators like the Vashketovs for more than a decade. YouTube helps creators build their audiences by providing data-driven tools that can analyze how their videos perform and help plan their content. That includes knowing what YouTube audiences are searching for, what the creator’s viewers are searching for, when they are on YouTube, other channels that the audience watches and other data points.
‘Sergey and Victoria are voracious students of YouTube and content creation,’ said Weinstein.
The channel has a looming dilemma as the boy start to grow up, but Vlad already has an eye on the future, telling WSJ that he dreams of following in the footsteps of YouTube’s top creator, MrBeast. Weinstein said he’s also lining up opportunities for Vlad and his brother to get into the music business, hiring producers and songwriters who have worked with both Justin Bieber and Selena Gomez to help put together some original songs.
The Vashketovs said their kids can stop making videos any time they want. ‘Our inspiration really comes from Vlad’s and Niki’s interest,’ said Sergey. ‘If we try to do something that they are not into, it doesn’t look authentic.’ As Vlad gets older, his 3-year-old brother Christian may step in.
Victoria said even though Christian has appeared in several videos already, there are no plans to create a channel for her youngest son. That also goes for the baby girl she gave birth to in September. The family join some of the most popular live-action YouTube kid’s channels in the world ‘Like Nastya’ and ‘Kids Diana Show’ who are among the top rated.
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