Slavic

Born in Dąbrowa Górnicza, Southern Poland, Dawid Podsiadło was the winner of Poland’s second X Factor contest. In 2010, he created an alternative rock band with his friends called Curly Heads in their hometown of Dąbrowa Górnicza. At first, the band only performed for each other, constantly practicing every moment they could get; then they […]

Fyodor Bondarchuk is one of Russia’s best-known film industry professionals, known for his acting, directing, and producing. Most of his films are action films – and many are sponsored, in part, by the Russian state. Born to famous Soviet actress Irina Skobtseva and Academy Award winner Sergei Bondarchuk, Fyodor Bondarchuk (Фёдор Сергeевич Бондарчyк) grew up […]

Yandex (Russian: Яндекс) is often known as “Russia’s Google.” However, while it started as a mere search engine, it has expanded into much more than that. Arkadiy Volozh founded the company in 1999. At the time, he paid thousands of dollars for a four gigabyte (4 GB) hard drive to start the company’s public operations. […]

Nargiz Zakirova (Наргиз Закирова; or Nargiz Zokirova in Uzbek) is an Uzbek-American singer who sings mostly in Russian. Better known by her stage name, Nargiz, Zakirova made her big break after winning the Russian music contest Voice (Голос). She is known for her strong voice, striking appearance (with a shaved head and powerful body covered […]

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 […]

Салют-7, or Salyut-7, was released in Russia on October 12, 2017. It became one of Russia’s highest grossing films of that year, eventually bringing in $13.4 million USD. Salyut-7 is based on true events that happened in 1985 when the Salyut-7 unmanned Soviet space station, in orbit close to Earth, abruptly stopped responding to commands from […]

Последний богатырь, or The Last Bogatyr, was released in Russia on October 16, 2017. Co-produced by Disney and a Russian studio called “Yellow, Black, and White,” The Last Bogatyr quickly became a box office success. Just one month after its release, the film had already made $28.8 million USD, replacing Stalingrad (2013) as the highest-grossing domestic […]

Nikolai Baskov is a prominent Russian tenor known for his opera and pop music stylings. According to his website, Baskov is also the only cross-over artist in Russia, shifting from opera music to pop. He first gained renown in the late 1990s through singing competitions in Russia and abroad. He joined the Bolshoi Theater musical […]