Отава Ё is a folk music group founded in St. Petersburg, Russia. This popular folk fusion group started in 2003 as the side project of two bands – Reelroad and Tales of the Forest. The two members of Reelroad, Alexey Belkin and Alexei Skosyrev, paired up with two members of Tales of the Forest, Dmitry […]

So far, no other art form has contributed more significantly to my Russian language journey than music. Listening to Russian lyrics strengthens my listening comprehension; translating Russian songs deepens my vocabulary and broadens my understanding of Russian culture; and singing Russian songs helps me practice pronunciation and enunciation. It has also brought my language learning […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

Olga Arefyeva (Ольга Арефьева) is a Russian singer, published poet, dancer, theater actress, and educator. Born in a small town (Verkhnyaya Salda/Верхняя Салда) outside of Sverdlovsk (now Yekaterinburg) in 1964, she—along with her band, The Ark (Ковчег)—has released a staggering 18 albums since the early 1990s and composed more than 400 original songs. She is […]

IOWA is an indie-pop group from Mogilev, Belarus, who sing in Russian. A relatively young band, they have only released one album since their inception in 2009, Export (2014; no Russian or Belarusian title). The band’s moniker contains several references, namely the US state, an American acronym—Idiots Out Wandering About—and an album by the metal […]

Venya D’rkin (Веня Д’ркин; originally Aleksandr Litvinov, Александр Литвинов) was a Ukrainian (Russian-speaking) poet, songwriter, musician, artist, and storyteller, and one of the later generation of bards. He had a much more informal, unpolished image than some other recent musicians, showing his truly countercultural ethos. D’rkin grew up in a small mining town near Luhansk. […]

Kirill Komarov (Кирилл Комаров) is a Russian rock and experimental musician, one of the stranger and more interesting of recent times. From St. Petersburg, he studied Turkish philology at the Eastern Department of Leningrad State University, after which he began translating Turkish poetry and also writing his own original verses. He started writing the songs […]