Russian

Dangerous Acts Starring the Unstable Elements of Belarus is a 2014 documentary about the Belarusian Free Theatre, an underground theater and political opposition group in Belarus. It was produced by HBO but is partly in Belarusian. The theater has been operating since 2005. It uses art as a means of resistance, putting on plays that highlight the […]

Max Korzh (Макс Корж) is a contemporary Belarusian rap/hip-hop singer. While most of his music is in Russian, he does have the odd song or video clip that includes some Belarusian. Korzh attended musical school outside Brest, Belarus, and founded his first band, LunClan, with some friends when he was 16. The band, along with his next […]

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 […]

Baltic View is a new project that aims to get films from the Baltics—both documentary and feature—to a wider audience. The project currently consists of 12 films uploaded on the video-sharing site Vimeo. In the founders’ own words, the project “is a pioneering international project presenting films from Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia under one cinema flag.” […]

The Trap (Пастка in Ukrainian, Ловушка in Russian) is a Russian/Ukrainian drama TV series that began airing in 2013. Each episode is about 40 minutes. It is a remake of a popular Armenian TV series, Vorohayt (Ворогайт in Cyrillic). It seems that the show was initially filmed by a Russian–Ukrainian partnership, but political events got in the way in […]

Everlasting (Бессмертник in Russian, Безсмертник in Ukrainian) is a Ukrainian melodrama. It spans four seasons, 100 episodes in total. It finished its run in 2015, and was one of the most popular TV shows in Ukraine while it was running. It is mostly in Russian, with Ukrainian subtitles; the star, Marina Dyakonenko, has acted in […]

In-Laws (Сваты in Russian; Свати in Ukrainian) is a Ukrainian, Russian-language, sitcom that was on the air from 2008 to 2013. There are six seasons, a film (actually, a musical!), and a few special episodes and spin-offs. Supposedly a seventh season is in the works, but it’s not clear when, if ever, it will be released. […]