Sergei Chigrakov (Сергей Чиграков, also called Chizh / Чиж) is a Soviet and Russian singer, songwriter, poet, and guitarist best known as founder and frontman of Chizh & Co (Чиж & Со). He has also participated in Different People (Разные люди), The Colonel and Fellow Soldiers (Полковник и Однополчане), and Shiva (Шива). Born to a […]

Philipp Kirkorov (Филипп Киркоров) is a Russian pop singer, actor, producer, and TV personality that has been nominated by the World Music Awards as the Best-Selling Russian Artist in 1996, 1999, 2004, 2005, and 2008, and is currently the second-highest paid Russian singer with an annual income of $7.4 million in 2017. Born April 30, […]

Valeriy Meladze (Russian: Валерий Меладзе, Georgian: ვალერი ძე მელაძე) is a singer and pianist, Honored Artist of the Russian Federation, and People’s Artist of the Chechen Republic. Born June 23, 1965 in Batumi, now the the second largest city in Georgia, Meladze was considered a disobedient child while his brother and songwriter, Konstantin (Russian: Константин, […]

Lube (Любэ; also recognized as Ljube or Lyube) is a Russian rock band that formed in the Moscovian suburb Lyubertsy (Люберцы) in 1989. Contrary to the sugary-sweet style saturating pop music at the time, producer and songwriter Igor Matviyenko (Игорь Матвиенко) wanted to incorporate elements of rock, Russian folk music, and Soviet military songs with […]

Neuromonakh Feofan (Нейромонах Феофан) is a mysterious and extraordinary product of the Russian club scene. The name “Neuromonakh” is derived from “Neurofunk,” a subgenre of drum and bass, and the Russian word for “monk.” The band sings exclusively in Russian, but mixes contemporary language with obsolete words and Old Church Slavonic to create epic verses […]

Aygul Barieva (Айгуль Бариева in Russian) is a renowned Tatar singer who’s been performing now for more than 20 years. She’s a Distinguished Artist of the Republic of Tatarstan, among many other awards. Most of her repertoire is in the Tatar language, though she occasionally performs in Russian as well. Barieva is from Kazan, the capital of […]

Alina Orlova (real name Alina Orlovskaja, Алина Орловская) is a Lithuanian singer-songwriter in the folk genre. Her unusual, ethereal voice and rich instrumentation backed up by piano have led to her well-deserved popularity in Lithuania. She sings in Lithuanian, Russian (her heritage is part Polish, part Russian), and English. She’s also sometimes considered a daina singer—daina is […]

Irina Dorofeeva (Ірына Дарафеева in Belarusian, Ирина Дорофеева in Russian) is one of Belarus’s most well-known singers and, as of recently, a political figure Dorofeeva got her musical start at age 12, when she became the soloist of a youth vocal-instrumental ensemble, Rainbow (Радуга), in Mogilev, the Belarusian city where she grew up. Over her early teenage […]

Naviband or NAVI (the group alternates between the two names, both written in the Latin alphabet) is a contemporary Belarusian folk/alternative rock band. They sing in both Belarusian and Russian. The group’s leaders have said that they don’t plan in advance whether a song will be in Belarusian or Russian; they just go with what seems […]