Irina Dorofeeva (Ірына Дарафеева in Belarusian, Ирина Дорофеева in Russian) is one of Belarus’s most well-known singers and, as of recently, a political figure Dorofeeva got her musical start at age 12, when she became the soloist of a youth vocal-instrumental ensemble, Rainbow (Радуга), in Mogilev, the Belarusian city where she grew up. Over her early teenage […]
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 […]
Golos (The Voice, Russian: Голос) is a Russian reality talent competition. Running since October 2012, the show is one of Channel One’s most popular programs. Golos is the Russian version of the international talent competition The Voice, which began as The Voice of Holland and now has versions in various countries. The winners of the first […]
Grazhdanskaya Oborona (Гражданская Оборона; translates as “civil defense”), also known as GrOb (ГрОб, “coffin” in Russian), was one of Russia’s earliest and most influential punk bands. Their earlier work is very minimalist, lo-fi punk rock, while the group began to verge toward noise rock and finally shoegaze in the 1990s. The band’s frontman, the poet […]
Krovostok (Кровосток) is a Russian hip-hop group from Moscow. Formed in 2003, Krovostok consists of Shilo (Шило, stage name of Anton Chernyak, Антон Черняк) on vocals, producer Feldman (Фельдман, stage name of Dmitri Fain, Дмитрий Файн), and beatmaker and backing vocalist Fantomas 2000 (Фантомас 2000). The band is know for their liberal use of profanity […]
Last Tanks in Paris (Последние Танки в Париже, or П. Т. В. П.) is a Russian post-punk band originally from Vyborg, near Saint Petersburg. The band plays a style of music heavily influenced by bands like Joy Division, and has come to be known for their outspoken political views. They have taken a strong stance […]
Brothers Grim (Братья Грим—spelled differently from the original Brothers Grimm; грим means stage or film makeup in Russian, but that might be coincidence) is a Russian soft rock group. It was founded in 1998 by the brothers/twins Grim—actually Konstantin (Kostya) and Boris (Borya) Burdaev (Констаинтин/Костя Бурдаев; Борис/Боря Бурдаев), who went by Konstantin Grim and Boris […]
Zveri (Звери; “beasts”) is a Russian rock group formed in 2001, one of the biggest and best-known to emerge in Russia in the twenty-first century. Its founder was Roman Bilyk (Роман Билык), who goes by the name Roma Zver (Рома Зверь). Zver grew up in Taganrog and attended a construction and economics institute nearby before […]
Dzhango (Джанго) is the stage name of Aleksey Viktorovich Poddubniy (Алексей Викторович Поддубный), a Ukrainian and Russian pop, rock, and folk composer, vocalist, and leader of a band of the same name. The band Dzhango became especially well-known in Russian and Ukraine after their track “Cold Spring” (“Холодная весна”) was featured on the soundtrack of […]
