Radio Pioneer Seva Kaplan Tells Kaykov TV What Remains After Success, and Why He Admires Bukharian Family Life

Seva Kaplan, the founder of the Russian-language radio station Narodnaya Volna and a longtime figure in Russian-language broadcasting in America, told Kaykov TV host Roman Kaykov that he admires the Bukharian Jewish community because it remains “a community in the fullest sense,” according to an adaptation of the interview published by the Bukharian Jewish Link on Oct. 21, 2026. The full interview premiered on Kaykov TV on Oct. 12.

Video: Kaykov TV on YouTube.

Kaykov opened with a premise that every person has two biographies, one public and one known only to those closest to them, and asked what remains when titles and accomplishments disappear. Kaplan said he keeps discovering himself as circumstances change. “Every time, for me, it is a new mirror in which I see that my reflection changes,” he said. “If that hasn’t happened, it means I’ve stopped developing.”

From Moscow to American radio

Kaplan grew up in Moscow in a family of conservatory-trained pianists; his father, Arnold Kaplan, was a concert pianist. When he arrived in America in 1988, he repaired televisions at a hotel before an acquaintance connected to Radio Liberty/Radio Free Europe offered him a broadcasting job on condition he learn the work within six months, the BJL adaptation said. After the New York operation closed, he delivered sandwiches and did simultaneous translation before winning a hosting position, and by 1997 he launched his own operation, at times sleeping about two hours a night.

Asked what success means to him, he said: “It’s when you fall asleep quickly.” He described money as a tool rather than an end in itself.

On the Bukharian community

Turning to family, Kaplan said he admires the Bukharian community for its family and extended family, self-respect, culture, heritage and desire to remember those who came before, according to the adaptation. He said Bukharian Jews survived difficult conditions in Central Asia and developed lessons in continuity that others can learn from, and contrasted that with his own childhood, when much of his family’s story went unspoken.

His father was Jewish and his mother ethnically Russian, he said, yet when asked her nationality his mother would answer, “I am Jewish,” because she wanted to stand with a people that had suffered so much. Kaplan was in Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, and traveled the country speaking with Israelis afterward.

He recently became a grandfather, and his son played Kaplan’s recordings of Russian romances to his four-day-old granddaughter. “Now that is legacy, Roman,” Kaplan said. Asked what he would tell his younger self, he gave four instructions: learn foreign languages, study music, play sports and learn how to defend yourself.

Sources: Bukharian Jewish Link, “Seva Kaplan: What Remains When Success Is Gone?” (Oct. 21, 2026); Kaykov TV, full interview on YouTube (in Russian).