From Ukraine, With Love: Unwrapping Serg Shepard

LOS ANGELES—When Serg Shepard crossed Europe and the Atlantic in 2016—uprooting his life in Ukraine with a fresh start in New York City—the change in surroundings took some getting used to.  “It’s like moving to a different planet,” he says with awe, as if reliving the moment. “When somebody like me moves to West Harlem—where there’s different food, different people, different culture, language, everything—it took me a while to adjust. But I think the most difficult part was food and drinks.” Shepard has come to appreciate the variety of cuisines available in the big city (“any second, you can have anything you want”), but he unapologetically declares his homeland’s food the best in the world. “Everything tastes much better in Ukraine,” he laughs. “Much of it is based in fresh vegetables and fresh meats. Mostly boiled and steamed food rather than fried. It’s kind of similar to Russian cuisine. We have our own kind of dumplings called pierogis, and have different kinds of really cool stews—the most famous is called borscht. We love different cuts of meat, we have our own spices, everything very much based in vegetables. It can be heavy and big portions, but it’s very healthy.” But Shepard was hungering for something more. So when an opportunity arose seven years ago—one that would change the course of his life forever—he couldn’t say no. A Whole New World Moving is nothing new in Shepard’s family—but it was previously born out of necessity. During Holodomor—the genocide of the Ukrainian people in the 1930s under Joseph Stalin’s rule of the Soviet Union—Shepard’s great grandparents fled to nearby Georgia. Many decades later, his parents and older brother moved back during the Georgian Civil War in the early 1990s—which was shortly followed by the collapse of the USSR. “They moved back to Ukraine when my mom was pregnant with me. So my family has been traveling for generations. I grew up in a pretty common—and very poor—Ukrainian family.” And for as long as he can remember, Shepard always knew he was…special. “I was always like ever other little gay boy—I was very theatrical, I was a very creative person. I think I’ve known about myself since childhood, knowing there was something different. I wanted to become a ballet dancer, but my mom didn’t want that. She got me into playing guitar and was like, ‘This is enough for you.’” Then when Shepard got his first cell phone, everything changed. “That was the time when I decided, ‘Okay, I need to get a man,’” he laughs, “because all of a sudden, I got access to communication to people. I think I had a computer, but we didn’t have internet access. So the door opened to new worlds for myself.” But given the time and place of his awakening, that new world also came with a downside. “It was…risky. Back when I was meeting people, we had a few gay bars around the country—there was even a gay bar in my hometown. There was a drag scene, so it was kind of accepting—but in a ‘don’t put it in my face’ kind of way. You couldn’t walk around the streets and hold hands. Now, in Kyiv, you can. But before, you couldn’t do it, because you’d get an aggressive reaction,” Shepard says. “People knew you existed, but didn’t want to be surrounded by you. There was some homophobia, and there was some danger that some people were going to try to do something to you. Later when I was an adult, there were moments when I would always tell my best friend were I was going, just in case something happened—like if I wasn’t back by night or tomorrow, because shit happens to people.” That atmosphere presented a challenge to Shepard, who was starting to embrace his sexuality. “I was very, very horny, so I was fucking my brains out. Everything I thought about was sex, sex, sex. It was crazy,” he says. “I started socializing, meeting people, going to bars, trying to date people—it was fun. It was very different from (New York), because in Ukraine, everything is very much conservative. You’re trying not to be out in public, so people are trying to dedicate themselves to relationships, trying to date somebody instead of trying to hook up with people—it’s easier and safer that way. When you mostly hookup, you go to the bars—that’s how you meet people.” Shepard came out to his friends in high school, and thinks his mother—who had some close friends working at his school—probably knew. “I started being open about myself in high school, and through college. Yeah, there was some bullies, but I had a really good friendship circle. My class, they were kind of protective of me. So if someone tried to say something about me, they would always react. So it was good, I didn’t have a bad experience in school. I was living my life. All my friends knew.” In his late teens, Shepard started dancing in a drag queen show that toured through Ukraine and Russia. Then while working in a cabaret club, he met a guest performer over Christmas who would become his first serious relationship. Four months later at age 19, Shepard moved into his boyfriend’s place in Kyiv, and the two were together for more than three years. In 2016, after breaking up, Shepard worked as a store manager for an Italian boutique when he met an American traveling through the city. They had their first dinner together during the man’s last night in town—but no hookup, which made an impression on the traveler. “He came back to Ukraine to see me again; that’s how we connected. Then I applied for a visa, and I arrived in New York and we got married almost a year later. It was very fast. I never planned to be in New York, I never thought I would be in New York. It all just happened. But I am also the kind of person who would never say ‘no’ to any big opportunity in your life; when something like this presents itself, just do it and see what happens.” They were together for over four years, recently getting divorced. “It didn’t work out. But that’s life.” Now in the Big Apple, Shepard’s life was about to take another big turn. Model Behavior Once in New York, Shepard found the perfect outlet for the theatricality he showed as a child. “I am a big theater geek. I love theater, I love Broadway. When I moved here, I got my theater buddies and I started going to shows a lot, always trying to see every single show. I like musicals the most, of course.” Being such a multicultural city, New York can be very welcoming to newcomers from anywhere in the world. But it also provided Shepard a comfort zone he needed to break free of. “When I first moved to New York, I started making a lot of Ukrainian and Russian friends—it was like my first circle of people. Then I learned after a while that it wasn’t so great for my language skills,” he says. “I needed to be surrounded by English speakers more than Russian speakers; this way, I would learn the language better. And after a while, my circle changed.” At the same time, he was also battling his own negative thoughts. While Shepard was thankful for the friends who embraced him for who he was, he wasn’t always as kind to himself. “I was struggling with my identity—not sexual, but more in a way that I didn’t like myself much. So it was a journey for me to start to appreciating myself for who I am—and the changing point was when I moved to the States.” Shepard had done some modeling in Kyiv, and took it up again—mostly nude—in the first years he moved to New York. He continues to model for photographers and artists, and those experiences led to him “meeting a lot of cool people.” He became good friends with one photographer in particular—Richard Rothstein—who not only shot him frequently, but also pushed the model to become a photographer himself. “He started bringing me to his shoots as like a backstage photographer, and then I started doing my own photoshoots—and that’s when I became a photographer. I never knew or thought I would do porn in my life, but I started meeting a lot of people from the porn industry and making friends with them,” Shepard recalls. “When I was doing nude photoshoots, I had photographers asking me, ‘Why don’t you do OnlyFans?’ And I would always say, ‘Oh, I’m not ready to be on a video yet, only photos.’ And then it slowly transitioned, and I eventually started doing my first OnlyFans videos. I really enjoyed them, working with different collaborators—it was a lot of fun.” He made the leap nearly three years ago, and as Shepard started to collaborate with people who had big followings, his own fanbase quickly grew. “I really enjoyed it. I also learned to edit my videos very fast myself. And doing that, you see yourself all the time—so I started seeing my angles, what I do and don’t like, what I can do in the future. It was a learning process about yourself.” Along the way he befriended Etienne Erik, the owner of Wrestlingmale. Shepard had an interest in fetishes like submission, domination and bondage, and enjoyed the studio’s videos. The two started chatting, and soon the performer was invited to shoot in Florida for his first-ever studio scenes. “I had never wrestled before, so it was all so new. But I had a really great time. My first pairings were with guys who were professional wrestlers, and they knew how to choreograph me. I was also very small compared to them, and they were basically moving me around. It looked like I was doing something, but I was really doing nothing,” he laughs. “It was a lot of fun. One was with Michael Roman, so it was very, very hot. So that’s how I fell in love with (studio porn), and I wanted to do it again and again.” More studio work quickly followed, including with NakedSword, Falcon and Kristen Bjorn. “For NakedSword, it was my first time working for a studio where there’s like a full production shoot for many hours, where you do a photoshoot and you do this and that. It was more structured, and it was very beautiful work. The people were very talented—I was working with director Marc MacNamara, and it was a great experience.” Carnal Temptations Like virtually every gay male who watches porn, Shepard is a big fan of Legrand Wolf. “I would always jerk off to his videos. Eventually, I found his page on Twitter and I reached out to him a few times. And once, he actually texted me back and soon we had a conversation. We discovered we had a lot of mutual interests, and mutual things happened in our lives—he was very excited about my background. It was cool.” Shepard was quickly booked and went to film with Wolf’s Carnal Media in August of 2022. “It was a lot of fun. With them, it’s another different experience. They are creating an environment of community, friendship, family…I don’t know how to describe it. They all take care of you. Cole Blue is cooking for you every night, everyone is asking you what you want. We would watch movies together, hang out in the hot tub, have dinners, socialize. Everybody is very sweet, and I felt that with everyone very fast. They’re a very caring company, and the place where we filmed is gorgeous—a nice house surrounded by forest and lots of beautiful nature.” Shepard made his Carnal debut in a FunSizeBoys scene, soon following it up with another on ScoutBoys—two of the many studios in the Carnal Plus family. “I fell in love with them, and they fell in love with me I guess, very fast. I also had a great connection with Legrand. He is a very sweet person, and I was really happy to work with him. We became really good friends. And months later on a shoot there, he asked me in front of the team if I wanted to be exclusive. I knew it would be a great experience. My name is still building up, it’s great exposure, and they are the best company to work with. I tried to play it like I needed to think about it, but I knew I was going to say ‘yes’ for sure,” Shepard laughs. He quickly learned more about performing in front of a camera and how productions work. That led to more opportunities for growth in other areas as Carnal started to utilize him behind the scenes on the camera crew. Shepard also looks forward to upcoming feature-based projects from the company. “It’s exciting to make feature movies, because it’s more acting—and that’s something I haven’t done before, so it’s really cool,” he says. “Carnal is interested in investing in me as a creator in all aspects, not just being a model, which for me is perfect. I want to do everything and learn a bit more. We always need to think about the next step in our life.” Where the Heart Is Working with Carnal has also afforded Shepard more opportunities to pursue one of his other passions—travel. Whether working on a co-production with Staxxus in the south of Spain or attending award shows domestic and abroad (like the 2023 GayVN Awards in Las Vegas), Shepard has embraced every opportunity. “It’s all very exciting, and I really enjoy all the award shows we go to. Whenever I spend time with them, it’s always something unique, because you’re meeting new models and new people, making new connections. In Spain, we stayed in a beautiful villa in the mountains with a view of the city, had great food and wine, and filmed some gorgeous scenes, so that was a lot of fun. And I had an entire trip after Spain: I went to Italy, so I was traveling for months. Italy is so gorgeous. I loved visiting Tuscany and Venice—I was exposed to a huge amount of art, history, nature, wine, food, gorgeous people.” Domestically, Shepard hopes to soon add New Orleans, San Diego and Palm Springs to his itinerary. But a busy workload has limited some of his other pursuits. “It’s been crazy. I now sometimes think I’m doing too much. Altogether, there’s no free days. Whenever I’m free, I’m always working on something else. I’ve mostly put my own photography business—I take photos of other male models—on hold because I’ve got so many projects I need to work on and edit, and put everything together. But I’m doing work on a book of my photography for the future, and currently planning some exhibits, possibly in Europe. We’ll see what can happen the rest of this year and next year.” While his shoots of other models may be slowing down, Shepard has still spent a lot of time in front of the camera. That includes for fellow Ukrainian Igor Yermakov, who published a book consisting solely of his photos of Shepard—then collaborated with artists, who drew and painted works inspired by those photos for another book. Two more installments with even more images of Shepard are in the works.  “The artists are from all over the world—they have differed backgrounds, histories and culture, and all do their art in different styles. I talked to many of them, and some of them tell me stories of actually having to hide what they’re doing because in the countries in which they live, it’s illegal to do any pornography—especially gay,” Shepard says. “It’s very cool to see so many people involved. Igor has purchased so much art work for his huge collection of me, and the collaboration has also made the national Ukrainian record of book, and it’s also going to be a Guinness record for the largest number of artworks by artists based on shootings of one photographer—and it’s all of me. It’s so insane, and it’s very flattering. It’s so impressive what he did.” That initial photoshoot was back in 2019 in Kyiv—and the last time Shepard visited his homeland was six months before the war started. “I hope the war in Ukraine will finish so I can go back home to visit my family—it’s been a while. Luckily, I got to spend some time with my mother and her best friend from Ukraine when they traveled to Europe; we spent some time in Italy, so at least I saw her, and she had the best time. But I didn’t see my father or anybody else.” Shepard notes that they live in Kharkiv, which is on the east coast of Ukraine—thus spared the absolute worst of the war, for now. Their safety weighs heavily on his mind, every moment of every day. “It’s been hard. After a year and a half, you have to mentally adapt. Right now, my family can do things like go on a barbeque if they want. Even so, there are sirens—and this summer there was a bombing. But they are trying to live a life with as high a quality as they can make of it. Otherwise, if you just sit at home and do nothing, the depression is the worst. But luckily, everybody is alive—all my friends, my family,” he says. “But I know people who have lost homes, lost everything. A lot of my friends had their life changed forever, because a lot of them moved from Ukraine. Some of my friends joined the army, so it’s been crazy. We also lost our summer house—my stepfather was building a little home out of town, and it was destroyed. My high school got damaged, my college got damaged, so it will be very difficult to go back and see all those places that are now in ruins. But I hope the day comes soon where everyone is safe and that I can visit home again. I miss them.”