Igor Krutoy (Игорь Яковлевич Крутой) is a Ukrainian-born Russian composer, music producer, and promoter. He has been named a People’s Artist of Russia (Народный артист России) in 1996 and a People’s Artist of Ukraine (Народный артист Украина) in 2011. He publishes bands under his eponymously titled label. Born in 1954 in the city of Gaivoron […]

Yulia Rutskaya (Юлия Руцкая) is a Russian-Kyrgyz pop singer, television host, and model who sings in Russian, Belarusian, and Kyrgyz. Originally from Vitebsk, Belarus, her family moved to Kyrgyzstan when she was five. She is a member of the significant Belarusian diaspora in Kyrgyzstan and has embraced her Kyrgyz side, singing in Kyrgyz at least […]

Lolita Milyavskaya (Лолита Милявская) is a Russian-Ukrainian pop singer and TV host. She often goes by her first name alone. Lolita was born in Mukachevo, Ukraine. Her mother was a singer, and her father was her producer and concert director as well as an orchestra conductor. Lolita began singing informally when she was 10 but […]

Polina Gagarina (Полина Гагарина) is a Russian singer and Russia’s entry into the 2015 Eurovision Song Contest, where she placed second in a difficult, politically charged atmosphere. Gagarina was interested in music from her childhood, often giving loud, heartfelt performances to her parents. The turning point for her was hearing Whitney Houston perform on TV; […]

Pavel Volya (Павел Воля) entered showbusiness as a DJ for the Russian radio station Hit-FM and a VJ on the music channel МУЗ-ТВ (MUZ-TV). In 2003 he became well-known as a regular on the Russian sketch-comedy show Comedy Club, before landing numerous smaller acting roles in movies and TV, most notably the 2009 comedy A […]

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 […]

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, […]

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. […]

Dima Bilan was born in Karachay-Cherkessia, a republic in Russia’s Caucasus region. He entered a specialty musical school in the fifth grade, where he studied primarily the accordion. He also took part in several youth contests in Karachay-Cherkessia and in Moscow. He entered the prestigious Gnessin Musical Academy in 2000. He met his future producer, […]