Andriy Mykhailovych Danylko (Ukrainian: Андрій Михайлович Данилко) (born 2 October 1973 in Poltava, Ukraine), better known as his drag character Verka Serduchka (Ukrainian: Вєрка Сердючка), is a Ukrainian comedian and pop and dance singer. In the role of Serduchka, he represented Ukraine in the Eurovision Song Contest 2007 and finished in second place. In his career Serduchka has sold over 600,000 records in Ukraine. During school he was studying in the theater studio "Grotesk". After graduation from school he tried to enter a music college and institute, but was rejected. He went to a professional technical college, where studied the profession of "foodstuffs cashier". From 1991 to 1992 he worked as cashier in a shop, and did a few performances. In spring 1992, he demonstrated for the first time two short numbers: "Dining Room" and "Train Conductor". The official date of birth for Verka Serduchka is 8th of March 1993, when "Train conductor" which portraits an ordinary Ukrainian woman working as conductor, was shown at the "Humourina" festival in Poltava. He tried to enter musical college again, but was rejected twice more, thus deciding to start a "performing career", where he performed with his mini-theater, staging Verka Serduchka numbers and performing parodies on well-known Russian stars: Allegrova, Pugachova and Kazachenko. In 1995 he finally entered estrada-circus college, but after studying just for just 2 years out of 5, he left and was accepted into a Institute of Culture. In 1997 he recorded his first songs "Prosto Vera", "Abrikosy". He later produced "Ya rozhdena dlya lyubvi", "Ya vyshla na perron", "Vaza i pion", "Controler", "Po chut-chut", and some records some music videos. He received an invitation to a show of the Ukrainian channel "1+1" called "SV-show" where he again portraited the train conductor Verka Serduchka. Since autumn 1998 the show has been broadcasted simultaneously on Russian channel "TV-6". This show is the one that brought huge popularity to the comical artist. He released music albums as Verka Serduchka "Ha-ra-sho!", "Zheniha hotyela", "The Best. Neizdannoe", "Tralli-valli" and also an instumental album "Posle tebya" as Danilko. He took part in various musicals of Russian/Ukrainian co-production, mostly as Verka Serduchka, but in "Figaro" as Andrey Danilko. Has created a solo musical called "History of Verka Serduchka". He competed in the 2007 Eurovision song contest with his song "Dancing" representing Ukraine and won second.