Artur Pirozhkov (Артур Пирожков) is a stage name—one of many—for entertainer Aleksandr Vladimirovich Revva (Александр Владимирович Ревва). Of Estonian ancestry, his family immigrated to Donetsk, Ukraine, where their last name was eventually Slavicized to Revva (from Erwa). His father, a renowned mathematician and professor in Donetsk, and his mother separated when he was fairly young. He […]

Sogdiana (real name Oksana Nechitaylo, Оксана Нечитайло) is a Russian-Uzbek pop singer. She sings in Uzbek, Russian, and Chechen, though most often in Uzbek. Sogdiana’s family is Chechen, but she grew up in Uzbekistan—she was born in 1984 in Tashkent. She studied the piano in school and studied at a conservatory at the same time, […]

Sevara Nazarxon (or Севара Назархан) is an extremely popular contemporary Uzbek singer and composer. She sings both pop and Uzbek folk music, in Uzbek, Russian, and English, and her usual style combines both pop and folk. She is one of the most, if not definitely the most, successful and popular singers in the history of […]

Mikhail Boyarskiy (Михаил Сергеевич Боярский) is a Soviet and Russian actor and singer. Best known for his work on historical action-adventure films, Boyarsky rose to nationwide fame for his role of d’Artagnan in the 1978 Soviet adaptation of Alexandre Dumas’s The Three Musketeers. He is also well known as a singer and became an Honored Artist […]

Larisa Dolina (Лариса Александровна Долина) is a celebrated Russian jazz singer, pop singer, and actress. In 1998 she was named a Folk Artist of Russia, and she is also a three-time recipient of the Russian National Ovation (Овация) prize. Dolina was born in 1955 in Baku, Azerbaijan, into a European family. By age three she […]

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 […]

Alla Pugachova (Алла Пугачёва) is a classic Russian pop artist, actress and competition judge, and was arguably the most successful Soviet performer from the 1970s until the Soviet collapse. Pugachova was born April 15, 1949 in Moscow, Russia. At the age of 5, her parents enrolled her in music school. By the time she had […]

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 […]