Максим Круженков, ВИА ГРА | en

Ленинград is a fourteen-piece ska band from Saint Petersburg, Russia formed in 1997. The band's frontman is Сергей Шнуров (Sergey Shnurov). In 2005, its music was featured in the film Everything Is Illuminated, starring Elijah Wood. The band, and especially its leader, Shnurov, has long been famous for its catchy beats and irrepressibly bad language, somehow managing to be one of the top bands in Russia despite almost never being clean enough to earn radio play and despite its live concerts being banned in Moscow. In 2008 Leningrad disbanded. Its former members run Рубль and Spitfire. The band reunited in...

Vital post-grunge/indie rock act from Krasnodar (somewhere in Russia). They cite Nirvana and the Manics among the influences, distrubute their album ("Chudnenko", 2008) for free and look very tough onstage in glitter make-up and with a blue boa. .

Released in English as Nu Virgos. Girls-band Ukrainian group singing in Russian. Produced by well-known Constantin Meladze (also - brother of famous Russian singer Valery Meladze). Their name means “Viagra” and “The Band “Gra” simultaneous - it’s play on words. Girls look pretty sexy on stage and singing the corresponding songs - this is the one of the keys of their extraordinary popularity both in Russia and Ukraine. Members from November 2013 to present: Миша Романова, Erika Gerceg and Anastasia Kozhevnikova. .

Russian pagan/folk metal band from Naberezhnye Chelny, Tatarstan formed in 2005. At the very beginning the name of the band was changed several times. It was “Raven Blood”, then “Vorog” ( the enemy), and in February of 2007 it finally got it’s name – “GRAI” (meaning the bird’s cry). Gradually the material for the new album has been composing and there were given a few concerts. One of the first band’s appearances took place on the 6th of May in 2006 together with such folk-metal bands as Alkonost, Svarga. On the 2nd of December in 2006 the band participated in...

Гражданская Оборона or ГрОб and Г.О. (Grazhdanskaya Oborona or GrOb and G.O.) was one of the earliest and most famous Russian psychedelic punk bands (and the only one famous Soviet psychedelic rock / punk band). The name of the band can be translated from Russian as "Civil Defence" (abbreviated as "grob", which translates to "coffin"). There are also side projects Егор И Опизденевшие (Egor and Opizdenevshie) and Коммунизм (Communism). The band was created in Omsk, Siberia, by a young Soviet poet and musician, Egor Letov, in December of 1984, who was inspired mostly by 60's American garage rock and Russian...