Diskoteka Avariya (Дискотека Авария; “Disco Accident” or “‘Disco Crash’”) is a Russian rock group formed in 1988 in Ivanovo, an economically depressed city near Moscow. The original members of Diskoteka Avariya were Aleksey Ryzhov and Nikolai Timofeev, who met while studying at a local engineering university. They were joined several years later by Oleg Zhukov. […]

Dan Balan is a Moldovan singer who records music in Romanian, Russian, and English. Balan was born in Chișinău, Moldova’s capital. His father, Mihai Balan, was a Moldovan diplomat and is now the head of Moldova’s security service. Balan’s interest in music arose when he was a child. He received his first accordion when he […]

Nyusha (Нюша)  is a popular Russian singer from Moscow. Born Nyusha Vladimirovna Shurochkina (Нюша Владимировна Шурочкина) to a family of musicians, her musical career started early, when at the age of five she recorded a song called “Song of a Big Bear” (“Песенку большой медведицы”). She now goes by her first name only. She did […]

Oksana Pochepa (Оксана Почепа) is a Russian singer who has gone by the name Akula (Акула; “shark”) for much of her musical career. She was born in Rostov-on-the-Don and started playing music as a child, performing with children’s musical ensembles. She started attending music school when she was nine, supported by her father, who wanted […]

Sergey Lazarev (Сергей Лазарев) is a Russian singer who represented Russia in the 2016 Eurovision Song Contest. Sergey Lazarev’s music career started when he was eight, when he began to sing in children’s musical groups and act in musical theater. He joined the children’s music group Neposedy (Непоседы; “fidgety people”), where he met Vlad Topalov, […]

Eva Pol’na (Ева Леонидовна Польна) is a Russian singer and songwriter from St. Petersburg. Pol’na started singing and dancing when she was young, but did not start to focus on music until later. She got a degree in library science and information management and afterward attended art school in St. Petersburg. Her music career started […]

Vera Brezhneva (Vera Viktorovna Kiperman, Вера Брежнева / Вера Викторовна Киперман) is a Russian-speaking Ukrainian singer from Dnipropetrovsk oblast. While she was growing up, she acted in local productions at a youth theater. She enrolled in an engineering college after finishing school, but when the group VIA Gra was auditioning for new members in 2002, […]

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 […]

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 […]