Doctor Zhivago is a 1965 British–Italian romantic drama set in Russia in the years leading up to World War I and the time during World War I and the Russian Civil War. The movie was based on the novel by Boris Pasternak, which was banned in the Soviet Union due to its independent-minded stance on the October […]
Konets Filma (Конец фильма; “end of the film”) is a Russian rock band. Active since 1998, when it was founded by Russian natives of Estonia, it currently includes Evgeny Feklistov (Евгений Феклистов; vocals, acoustic guitar, songwriter), Pyotr Mikov (Пётр Миков; guitar), Aleksey Pleshchunov (Алексей Плещунов; bass guitar), Aleksey Denisov (Алексей Денисов; drums) and Stepan Tokaryan (Степан Токарьян; keyboards, backing […]
Dżem is a Polish band that plays at the border of rock and blues music. It’s considered one of the best-known and most important blues–rock bands, with a prolific history spanning more than thirty different albums. While the band currently has six members, only two of those members, brothers Adam (vocals and guitar) and Benedykt “Beno” (bass […]
Katyn (Katyń) is a Polish historical drama released on September 17, 2007, that depicts the Katyn Massacre of 1940. The story views the events of the massacre through the eyes of the mothers, wives, and daughters of those executed by the NKVD. At the time of the story, it was unclear to the general population of Poland […]
Maanam is a Polish rock band that was active from 1975 to 2008. The name of the band is based on a combination of the names of its two founders, Marek Jackowski and Milo Kurtis, who initially played together as a guitar duo called MaM. At the end of Maanam’s life, the band included Olga Jackowska, otherwise […]
Rezerwat (“reserve”) is a Polish rock band that was founded in Łódź, Poland, in 1982. The band is led by Andrzej Adamiak, a composer, songwriter, producer, singer, and bass player. Most of Rezerwat’s music has been and continues to be written by Adamiak. The current lineup of the band includes Adamiak (bass and vocals), Krzysztof […]
TSA (short for Tajne Stowarzyszenie Abstynentów, or “secret society of abstainers”) is a Polish rock band regarded as precursors of heavy metal in Poland. The band was founded by guitarist Andrzej Nowak and bassist Tomasz “Whatfora” Zatwarnicki. While the band was founded in 1979, it has only been active during distinct periods since—1979 to 1989, […]
Siranush Harutyunyan (Սիրանուշ Հարությունյան) was born in Yerevan, Armenia in 1987 into a family of entertainers. Professionally, she goes by a shortened version of her first name, Sirusho (Սիրուշո). Both Sirusho’s parents hold the title of Honored Artist of Armenia – her mother was one of Armenia’s most popular singers in the 1980s and 1990s, […]
Jamala was born in Osh, Kyrgyzstan, where her ancestors were sent to from Crimea in one of Joseph Stalin’s bloody ethnic deportations. Her father, an ethnic Crimean Tatar, was a choir master. Her mother, an Armenian whose roots trace back to the now-disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh, was a pianist. Jamala’s musical education thus started from […]
Alla Yurievna Perfilova, better known by her stage name, “Valeria,” is from the small town of Atkarsk in the Saratov Oblast in Russia’s southwest. Raised by a family of classical musicians, she studied music her whole life. After graduating high school, Valeria moved to Moscow and entered the prestigious Gnessin Academy of Music in Moscow. […]
A Moscow native, Natalia Illinichna Ionova, better known as Glu’koza, was first a child actress working in television. Among other projects, she shot a few episodes of the still-popular kids’ show Ералаш (Jumble; Yeralash). She was discovered in 2002 by the record producer Maxim Fadeev on the set of the Russian war movie Триумф (Triumph). […]
Sataney Setgalievna “Sati” Kazanova, was born in a small village in Kabardino-Balkaria, which lies in Russia’s Caucuses Mountains, along the border with Georgia. When she was 12, her family moved to the regional capital of Nalchik, where she began to seriously study music. Sati continued her studies in Vocals at Kabardino-Balkaria College of Culture and […]
