Ruslana (Руслана; full name Руслана Степанівна Лижичко in Ukrainian) is a wildly popular Ukrainian singer. She is typically known by her first name only. Born in 1973 in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, she studied classical music from the time that she was four years old and graduated from the Lviv Conservatory, where she studied […]
DDT (ДДТ) is a Russian rock band founded in Ufa, in the Bashkir Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, in 1980. The group’s name is taken from the insecticide DDT (though among several erroneous interpretations of the band’s name is “Добрый день, товарищи!”—“Good day, comrades!”). The band was formed in 1979 and they soon recorded a home […]
Anna Sedokova (in Ukrainian Анна Володимирівна Сєдокова) is a Russian-Ukrainian singer from Kyiv and a former member of the pop group VIA Gra. Sedokova was involved in music and dance from a very young age, participating in a Ukrainian folk group from the time she was six. She studied piano at music school and then […]
Bulat Okudzhava (1924–1997) (Булат Окуджава) was a Georgian-Armenian Russian-speaking poet and singer-songwriter, and one of the founders of Russia’s bardic tradition. Okudzhava’s parents both worked for the Communist Party, but they were arrested during the Stalinist purges of 1937, and he was raised by other relatives. He started writing poetry as a child. He volunteered […]
MakSim (real name Marina Abrosimova Maksimova; МакSим / Марина Абросимова) is a Russian singer, author, and producer. Her stage name was given to her by her brother, Maksim—it was her nickname growing up, and she carried it over to her musical career. It is derived from her patronymic, a Russian naming tradition in which the […]
Maksim Leonidov (Максим Леонидов) is a Russian singer originally from St. Petersburg. Best known for leading the popular Soviet band Secret (Секрет), he has also led a solo career in Israel and Russia. Leonidov’s parents both worked in theater, and he grew up surrounded by theater and music. He attended music school in St. Petersburg, […]
Melnitsa (Мельница; translates as Windmill) is a Celtic folk rock group from Russia. Founded by Natalia O’Shea, whose stage name is Hellawes, the group’s current members are Aleksey Orlov (electric violin, violin, mandolin), Aleksey Kozhanov (bass guitar, acoustic guitar), Dmitriy Frolov (drums), Sergey Vishnyakov (electric guitar, acoustic guitar, backup vocals), Dmitriy Kargin (flute), and O’Shea […]
Natalia O’Shea (Наталья Андреевна О’Шей) performs self-composed Celtic folk rock in Russian. She has released music as part of the popular folk band Melnitsa (Мельница) and as a solo artist under her stage name Hellawes (Хелависа). She is also a linguist and a specialist in Celtic languages. Hellawes studied piano at music school, but her […]
Elena Pogrebizhskaya (Елена Погребижская), is a Russian singer, documentary filmmaker, and writer. Pogrebizhskaya was born in northwest Russia but has spent most of her life in Moscow. Her musical education consisted of music school and singing in a church choir. She started out as a television journalist, but in 2001 she began to concentrate on […]
Battle for Sevastopol (Битва за Севастополь in Russian; Незламна (The Enduring) in Ukrainian) is based on true events. It tells the story of Soviet Ukrainian Lyudmila Pavlichenko, a university student who was drafted into the Red Army after the German invasion of the USSR during World War II. As a member of the 25th Rifle […]
Alsou is a Russian singer of Bashkir and Tatar descent. Born in Tatarstan, the USSR, in 1983, she has lived in Siberia, Moscow, New York, and London and holds dual Russian and British citizenship. Professionally, she is known only by her first name. Her full name is Alsou Ralifovna Abramova. Her father, Ralif Rafilovich Safin, […]
MTV Russia is just like MTV everywhere else—except that it plays some Russian stuff, too. They used to have a program called “Русская 10-тка” (“Russian 10”) devoted to the best Russian-language pop currently on the market, but that program has since morphed into another program called “Rus_Chart.” Once a month, SRAS provides a snapshot of […]
