Gaitana (Ґайтана; real name Ґайта-Лурдес Ессамі, or Gaita-Lurdes Essami, which means “strong and great” in the Lingala language) is a Ukrainian/Congolese jazz, funk, soul, and pop singer. Her biggest fame may have come from representing Ukraine at Eurovision in 2012, but she also has a slew of successful albums to her name and is one of Ukraine’s most […]
Svetlana Loboda (Світлана Лобода) is a contemporary Ukrainian pop singer. Though she sings mainly in Russian, most of her career has taken place in Ukraine, and she is widely esteemed in her country. She was named a Distinguished Artist of Ukraine in 2013. Loboda grew up in Kyiv, where her parents encouraged her musical leanings […]
DakhaBrakha (ДахаБраха) is a contemporary Ukrainian folk- and world-music quartet. They actually call themselves an “ethno-chaos group.” Its current members are Marko Halanevych (Марко Галаневич), Iryna Kovalenko (Ірина Коваленко), Olena Tsibulska (Олена Цибульська), and Nina Garenetska (Ніна Гаренецька). All sing and play a variety of traditional folk instruments. Unlike many other Ukrainian bands, they are very much […]
Ani Lorak (Ани Лорак; real name Karolina Kuyek, Кароліна Куєк) is a multitalented Ukrainian pop singer. Lorak isn’t shy about her contributions to Ukrainian pop culture—her website describes her as “a singer who was fated to become the nation’s idol.” Born in Bukovina, Lorak wanted to be a singer from the time she was four years […]
Controversial, bizarre, and talented, there is no one quite like Ukrainian singer/comedian/actor/drag queen Verka Serduchka (Верка Сердючка). Serduchka is the drag persona of Andriy Danylko (Андрій Данилко) and frequently performs and sings at concerts and in films. Danylko himself is a wide-ranging actor, composer, singer, and performer who was born in Poltava, Ukraine, to rural roots. […]
Igor Rasteryaev (Игорь Растеряев) is a Russian singer, poet, musician, and actor. He is something of a newer generation of bard—he didn’t come of age until after the collapse of the Soviet Union, so he didn’t partake in the underground activities that are usual for bards, but his musical style itself fits in well to […]
Shadowboxing 3: The Final Round (Бой с тенью 3: Последний раунд—the name sounds quite dramatic in Russian, but the actual meaning is less exciting) is a 2011 Russian action/drama film, the third and last in the Shadowboxing franchise. The series started with 2005’s Shadowboxing and continued with 2007’s Shadowboxing 2: Revanche (Реванш). In real life […]
Nilufar Usmonova is a popular contemporary Uzbek pop singer. She is perhaps best known as the daughter of legendary Uzbek singer Yulduz Usmonova; another of her major achievements (if it can be called that) is that she has never fallen out of favor with the Uzbek authorities, as is common for Uzbek pop singers. Usmonova […]
Bravo (Браво) is a classic Russian rock band formed in the 1980s. Like the popular Soviet band Secret, its style and image was inspired by Western rock, including the Beatles. Evgeniy Khavtan (Евгений Хавтан) founded Bravo in 1983, when he was a student at the Moscow Institute of Railway Engineers. The first configuration of the […]
Grigory Leps (Григорий Лепс) is a Russian singer best known for his contributions to shanson (a genre of Russian music that often tells stories about the criminal underworld). Leps is from Sochi and started playing music when he was young, which initially competed with soccer in his affections—but luckily for us, music won. He studied […]
Maciej Maleńczuk is a Polish singer and songwriter who has been active in a wide variety of bands in many different styles—rock, jazz, dance pop—since the 1980s. Maleńczuk grew up in Wojcieszów, Poland, where he attended a sports school and was apparently a far from stellar student. He spent more time listening to American rock […]
Bartosz (Bartas) Szymoniak is a Polish solo singer. For many years he was also the vocalist for Sztywny Pal Azji, a Polish classic rock band that has been around since the mid-1980s. Szymoniak was born in Kalisz, Poland, toward the tail end of the Communist era. He has become a musical figure with a range of […]
