Andrei Shirman (Андрей Ширман), also known as “Smash”, is a successful Russian electronic and house DJ. He performs in Russian and English, generally favoring English and occasionally mixing the languages in one song. Shirman was born May 23, 1982 in Perm, Russia.Both of his parents had a love for music. His father was a jazz […]

Leonid Rudenko (Леонид Анатольевич Руденко) is a Russian DJ, musician, and producer who records electronic music in Russian and English. Rudenko was born in Moscow, Russia and started mixing music at the age of ten. Self-taught, he began his career as a DJ in 1997 by mixing techno, house, trance, and ambient music. His first […]

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 […]

Shahzoda (Шахзода; real name Zilola Bahodirovna Musayeva, as it is spelled in Uzbek) is an Uzbek singer and actress. Shahzoda grew up in Fergana, in the Uzbek SSR. She was interested in music from her childhood, but has no musical education—she studied management at the International State University of Kyiv, but left the university to […]

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). […]