Валентин Стрыкало Valentin Strykalo (born Yuriy Kaplan, in October 2, 1988, Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine) is a rising star of Ukrainian alternative music scene. Yuriy's fictional character, Valentin Strykalo, was first introduced to public in the dawn of 2008 through a series of vlog-styled humorous videos. He presented himself as a young musician, claiming to be a talented performer and a singer-songwriter from a small village in Zhytomyrskiy region, Ukraine.