The Hatters – Russian Gypsy Folk Rock

The Hatters are a gypsy-folk rock band that was started in St. Petersburg, Russia in 2016. The five main members of the band include: Yuri Muzychenko, Pavel Lichadeev, Alexander “Kikir” Anisimov, Dmitry Vecherinin, and Anna Muzychenko. The group of musicians officially formed their band in 2016 when they released their first song, “Russian Style” online. […]

Auktyon / АукцЫон

Auktyon (stylized as АукцЫон) is a long-lived Russian alternative rock band formed in 1978. There are nine current members in the band, including Lenya Fedorov (vocals, guitar), Viktor Bondarik (bass), Kolya Rubanov (saxophone), Misha Kolovsky (tuba), Dima Ozersky (keyboards), Vladimir Volkov (double bass), Yuri Parfenov (trumpet), Boris Shaveynikov (drums), and Oleg Garkusha (everything else). All […]

Sources to Research Russian Rock

The brief list of online resources has been compiled for those interested in understanding late-Soviet music movements, particularly for rock and punk movements of Leningrad.   I. Resources in English   A. Lecture on Russian punk In the above virtual lecture, Brandeis University PhD candidate and writer Alexander Herbert explores themes detailed in his book […]

Rock Music’s Rise in Late-Soviet Russia

Starting in the late 1970s, Leningrad’s rock scene introduced a new wave of western culture to the Soviet public. For some, this wave was a dangerous cultural phenomenon that went against Party norms, but by Perestroika, Soviet rock was well established and had captivated and inspired young listeners. It also created a new sphere of […]

Siberia’s Perestroika Punk Generation

Late-Soviet Siberia fell in love with punk. While rock bands like Kino and Alisa were making waves in Leningrad, the major industrial and scientific centers of Central Russia produced an underground punk genre that grasped audiences in the USSR and post-soviet diaspora. The cities of Tyumen, Omsk, and Novosibirsk were the centers of this movement. […]

Alyans / Альянс

Alyans (which, from the Russian, translates to “Alliance”) started out as a New Wave, synth-pop band from Moscow, Russia that played and recorded in the musical underground from 1981 to 1984 in the Soviet Union. In 1984 the Soviet Union began to persecute underground rock bands who they believed were too closely influenced by the style and music […]

Mike Naumenko / Майк Науменко

Naumenko was a Soviet rock and blues-rock musician, singer-songwriter, and leader of the Zoopark rock group. Born in Leningrad, Russian SFSR, Naumenko attended a school with an intensive English-language program where he began to develop an interest in translating from English to Russian. At the age of 8, he heard The Beatles for the first […]

Tantsy Minus Rooftop Concert in St. Petersburg

SRAS bought us concert tickets as part of our cultural program. It was an exciting opportunity to see modern Russian popular culture. I had never been to a rock concert before, and I especially had no idea what to expect of one in Russia. Our eager guide, Alina, told us that we’d be going to […]

Noll / Ноль

Noll (“Ноль,” meaning “Zero” in Russian) is a Soviet and Russian rock group founded by accordionist “Uncle” Fedor Chistyakov (“Дядя” Фёдор Чистяков), Alexei Nikolaev (Алексей Николаев) and Anatoly Platonov (Анатолий Платонов) in the fall of 1985. The group first appeared at the Leningrad Rock Club with songs from their first album, Music of Fighting Flies […]

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