Nastia marched through 2016 with an unstoppable sense of positivity

It’s a sunny May afternoon and the spectacular open-air terrace of Closer, Ukraine’s equivalent of Berghain, is packed for Nastia. Having organised the 32-hour festival, Strichka, held on the weekend of her 29th birthday, she’s surrounded by friends from Anthea to Margaret Dygas, and plays with an unstoppable sense of positivity that cascades through the rest of 2016.

“My festival was the best party for me,” she says. “It was the first time in my life I stayed up from 10pm on Saturday to 6am on Monday!”

Gaining 100,000 extra Likes on Facebook, this was Nastia’s year – and social media proved instrumental. Her first live stream from Caprice Festival swelled to four million views, although it also revealed the ugly sexism successful female DJs can face. “There were so many other DJs, mainly men, playing in the same conditions,” she explains, referring to a trick of light that meant the CDJs looked like they were turned off. “Yet I was the only one accused of faking it.”