Other Russia - Modern Culture

Culture against violence in Belarus

Sat, 15 Aug 2020 15:30:00 +0000

Lawlessness of the Belarusian police has sparked outrage in social media as well, with bloggers, artists, musicians and celebrities expressing their support to the citizens of Belarus and demanding justice from the government.

Demonstrations and rallies have been held across Belarus over the disputed results of the country's presidential election. The police pushed back with a brutal crackdown even on peaceful protesters, many of which were detained, beaten and charged with administrative violations. The UN has condemned the use of violence by authorities, and many musicians and artists known in Russia also support the Belarusians, with some of them urging Minsk to stop and put an end to state-sponsored brutality.

Oleg Savchenko, a Belarusian musician more known by his stage name LSP, dedicated a long post on Instagram to the ongoing protests saying how proud he is of the people of his homeland and that he prays for every protester.

'I'm proud of the child who carries a flower to a riot policeman who probably beat up someone's father yesterday. I'm proud of women who advocate for our common interests, knowing that nowadays gender no longer matters for tolerant batons of law enforcement officers.

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I pray every night, as soon as the next arrests and beatings begin, that this night would be the last. I pray that those who orchestrate this hell would come to their senses and stop the genocide of their own people'.

Ilya Pruskin, from Little Big, also reacted to what's going on:

'I can't sleep well the last two days seeing what's going on in the streets of Belarus. It's not happening somewhere or to somebody... These are our friends, family, brothers and sisters. They're suffering attempted murder, they're being tortured, they're receiving shots at their windows, they're having their property ruined and they're thrown in jail! I've seen hundreds of videos where a crowd of them beats with batons an almost lifeless body, where they kick in the back those who are on their knees with their hands behind their heads, fire rubber bullets at teenagers at a bus stop, make a city 'safari' shooting at people from car windows. And it is done by battalions of 'people' in uniform. Militia, police, OMON [police special forces] and regular army is not a proper name for them. The army and the rest can't behave like this, because they swore an oath of loyalty to the people and won't follow criminal orders!

I'm sure there are guards of law and order in this beautiful country! Decent men and women who have nothing to do with these punitive squads!...'

The precursor of these events was the song 'Change', by the group Gryaz (Mud, in English). The musicians dedicated it to the events in Belarus. In the song, the hero refers to the 'batya' —or 'daddy', in English, the epithet attributed to Lukashenko— who rules the country, 'doesn't sleep during the day or at night', but then changes the love of the people for the ratings numbers and war.

'And let the ratings numbers drop behind, we want to feel that your love for us hasn't diminished. They don't want war, because that's us. They don't want to live in the ruins of the country. They want to get up and say the word 'Change!'', the song says.

Denis Astapov, the frontman of the band Gryaz, thinks that such songs can't change anything but they help people to understand that 'they are not alone'.

"We don't want war, we want to be heard, we want to live in our country and not to be afraid for ourselves and our loved ones", says Denis in an interview with Colta.ru.

The Belarusians also received support from Diana Arbenina, the frontwoman of the rock band Night Snipers. She recorded a video message asking people to 'stay alive'. Although the singer doesn't live in Belarus, she was born there and many of her relatives live in this country.

Likewise, the pop group IOWA released the song 'Dream' dedicated to the current situation in Belarus. The caption under the clip says: 'Lack of freedom = unhappiness. Unhappy people can't build the future, can't dream, can't raise children in freedom, can't expand their perception and say: 'I know the price of my word'. Having the right to choose is not a privilege, it is a norm'.

More than 120 musicians, poets and stage workers have signed an open letter in support of the Belarusians. It denounces rigged elections and violations recorded during the voting — 'stolen votes and the impossibility to be heard, something that we, people who come on stage, understand and maybe should understand better than others'. The letter calls on the law enforcement officers, journalists and the rest of the society to unite with Belarus and support the citizens, who now stand on the streets or lie on the asphalt, shriveling and covering their heads from batons. 'We condemn and strongly oppose police violence against our own people and grieve for the victims of these monstrous actions'. The letter has already been signed by members of DDT, Noize MC, IC3PEAK, Shortparis, SPBCh (Samoe Bolshoe Prostoe Chislo), Tequilajazzz, Monetochka, Grechka, Boris Grebenschikov, PTVP, Aigel, Voskreseniye, Thomas Mraz, famous actors and directors, and many others.

'We invite every colleague who wants to join us to do so. Your signatures are the hope for the visibility for the victims and the impossibility of concealing crimes committed against them'.

Author: Kristina Chernykh

Editor and translator: Alina Kulachkova

Buerak

Sat, 08 Aug 2020 13:35:00 +0000

Buerak is a romantic post-punk band from Siberia with absurdly ironic lyrics playing simple and honest music that would have sounded appropriate both at a disco in Manchester in the 80's, and at a semi-underground concert in some Leningrad community center in the early 90's.

The lyrics are ironic, mundane, and absurd. According to the artists, the similarity with the songs of the 80's is not accidental, because “all Russian music repeats itself”, and now the audience is waiting for something " straightforward, tough".

They look simple and modest, like awkward teenagers at a school event, then like "village fashionistas": worn shoes, a bright t-shirt and a leather jacket, then in black and emphatically formal. In the photo for the album, the guys pose with a houseplant against the background of old curtains. The other shows them in the kitchen. In an interview with “Flow”, the artists admitted that they record songs in the garage.

Authenticity and unwillingness to look serious is also present in the lyrics: the rhyme is simple, to remember it from the first time and play it in the yard on the guitar - no problem. Acute social (”Proletariat“) and everyday (”Friend") topics, humor and absurdity (”Root") fit well into Russian life far from the capital:

“There is a lot of free time

Factories aren't functioning, it doesn't matter at all

Every day I want to rest

From the fact that there's too much free time”"

The song "Proletariat" describes the life of a person who does not read books, but works at a factory every day from dawn to dusk. Every day he honestly gouges stones and does not look for easy ways to get rich — and now he looks around and sees that those who steal, they are doing great, one got rich, the other made it to the top. But he tells himself that it's a shame to live like this, and he stays where he is.

In Siberia, it is often found that even representatives of some progressive youth — they are not representatives of progressive youth here at all. This is the moral. And those who are already adults, 25-30 years old guys, they are already ossified, at best they play some music on Fridays, and at worst they are just ordinary people. They work, go to the factory at six in the morning with a black bag, in a black tracksuit. This is a very valuable research experience for the group. It is important to note that the group is not inside this, it is as if they were watching it all from the outside.

"You are all here — a crime!" — prison poetics generates not only a sincere chanson, but also quite ironic postpunk. Novosibirsk group "Buerak" made a name on sketches from the life of declassified elements originally from the fictional Ust-Chilim.

The albums feature the Ust-Chilim character, the through-and-through hero of the songs of "Buerak", an inhabitant of a fictional Siberian town who moved to the metropolis. Who does not change during his stay in the big city - he beats an intellectual in the first song or rides a taxi, to the driver of which he expresses sympathy as a representative of the working class.

Buerak originated as a protest against the approach of making pseudo-intellectual postpunk. They wanted to bring an element of absurdity, like the group "Zvuki Mu" at the time. It is obvious that one expressive Peter Mamonov is much better than all the trendy groups.

According to "Afisha" magazine, Buerak is one of the main groups of the so-called "new Russian wave".

Kirill Serebrennikov

Wed, 29 Jul 2020 19:32:00 +0000

Why do we need art: for pleasure and experience or for politics and criticism? Political issue and criticism of the current big league – taboo in Russia, but are main topics in art of Kirill Serebrennikov. He is a follower of Bertolt Brecht in terms of pictorial techniques and the belief that the theater should mention the topical and present day Q.

The name of the participant of the Venice and Cannes Film Festivals, the artistic director of the Moscow theater "Gogol-Center" and the commander of the French Order of Arts and Letters in Russia is often associated with the scandal surrounding the criminal case of budget embezzlement. But it is such a pity to know only this about him.

Serebrennikov's career began in the 90s. Debut was in the theater of his homeown Rostov-on-Don, after cooperation with Moscow and St. Petersburg: the Bolshoi and Mariinsky Theaters, the Moscow Art Theater named after A. P. Chekhov, "Sovremennik". Let's look into his style through the example of the recent play "Executioner, Executioner, Dance, Dance".

This drama criticizes the justice system, or rather those who are involved in it. People are just a part of a large machine that does not fulfill their will. The protagonist, the executioner, refuses to acknowledge his responsibility for the murders. But what is it like to live for such a person, knowing that the sentenced person can be innocent?

The adaptation of the text of the play by Martin McDonagh takes place not only at the level of language, time and geography, but also in detail. An unnamed English newspaper becomes Vedomosti, the heroes eat fish instead of nuts for beer, a carpet hangs on the wall of the room. In Russia, of course, there are no English pubs, but there are eateries that cook cheap shawarma. Details not only decorate the action, they recreate Russian life with all its peculiarities. Details are one of Serebrennikov's favorite tricks both in the theater and in the cinema.

One more work of him is “Summer", the movie about the vanguard of the rock movement of the 80s in Leningrad (present-day St. Petersburg), a time when Western culture penetrates into Russia. Jeans, music, speech. This is where details come into play. They slowly explain what a communal apartment is, how young people lived on the threshold of perestroika, when censorship and dictatorship seem to exist, but it is becoming softer and more invisible. The film is one-piece. Several times we see unexpected musical inserts, in which a skeptic character necessarily appears who breaks the fourth wall.

The more acutely social film “The Student” directed by Serebrennikov and based on Marius von Mayenburg's play Märtyrer. The movie amazes no longer in details, but in meaning. First staged at the Gogol Center Theater, then filmed. Theatrical conventions do not interfere with cinematography. Through school life, the director shows the versatility and contradictions of the country. Serebrennikov speaks with the viewer in the language of allegories, art, gradually revealing the idea of the picture. Totalitarianism, hypocrisy, anti-Semitism - the author is not afraid of sensitive topics.

Serebrennikov's works are precise but not straightforward; they speak to an intelligent viewer who can fully unlock the idea both in a play or a film. His works are full of a share of arthouse, they are full of details, you can observe both philosophy and politics. At the same time, the director, creating pictures of European quality, enriches them with Russian flavor and typical Russian character.

IC3PEAK

Wed, 29 Jul 2020 19:30:00 +0000

They live in the forest, create music about death and periodically suffer from political persecution. Nobody knows who they are to each other - brother and sister? Just friends? And why do they wear these weird black clothes? Ic3peak group members do NOT give answers to these questions, but they do create modern Russian art right now.

What makes this duo so incredibly important for Russian culture now?

Many years ago IC3PEAK began their journey into the unknown world with songs in English. Only in 2017 they released the Russian-language album "Сладкая Жизнь“ (Sweet Life). This moment was a tremendous coup, which attracted large part of the Russian-speaking audience. The trick is that the musicians succeed only among abroad fans. BTW, hundreds (!) of people come to their concerts in France, Brazil and China and sing along the songs in Russian, without real understanding of the language.

First and foremost, IC3PEAK is unique group. by their appearance, socio-political mindset and, above all, creative capacity. They DO create a completely unique phenomenon!

Ic3peak choose non-trivial themes for their songs: they often talk about death and try to comprehend how any single moment is important for our lives. They raise the topic of domestic violence (clip “Plak-plak”), because they believe that we need to talk about this in order to somehow change the situation. The album "Сказка" (Fairytale) contains songs on social themes. In the song "Смерти Больше Нет" (Death No More) Kreslina sings from the perspective of a riot squad militiaman, facing the Lubyanka jail-headquarters of the FSB (Federal Security Service). The song features the lyrics "Together with others you will be twisted in the square" and "I go outside to caress a cat while a cop car runs it over".

Political unrest also does not pass them by. Ic3Peak believe that power in our country often acts on its own without taking into account the opinion of average Russian resident. Musicians are trying to speak about the crucial topics on the way they know how: by songs and clips.

Ic3Peak. Let’s go and listen 🎶

Shortparis

Wed, 29 Jul 2020 19:13:00 +0000

Shortparis are well on their way to deserved international acclaim and already being heralded as “the best Russian live act”.

Hailing from St. Petersburg and led by charismatic frontman Nikolay Komiagin, the band continues to build a reputation for its jaw-dropping ritualistic performances and dark, electronic soundscapes, as “irrational, spastic dance grooves” converge with “post-punk, experimental noise and acoustic chanson” to form a musical aesthetic that is one of a kind.

Performing in Russian, French and English, Shortparis are nothing short of a revelation as they aim to provide a fitting soundtrack to their everyday lives, a sound that mirrors St. Petersburg as it was and is. “You know, I constantly dream of coming across bands like Shortparis yet so rarely do,” writes John Doran of The Quietus. “Ambitious, bombastic, incredibly pretentious, erotic, thrilling, impossible to pin down, vaguely deviant, fun to dance to and full of revolutionary potential. Sure, if you listen hard enough you can hear them laughing but you would be a fool to make the mistake of presuming that they’re joking.”

Their music videos are almost equally intense and leave room for interpretation. Take the companion visuals to “Страшно” (Strashno / transl. “Scary”) for instance. The lyrics reflect a current state of anxiety as the visuals try to reveal a sort of ongoing hysteria. Only hours after filming at a school, someone called the police about possible terrorist activities: “Our music video is trying to manifest the state of some part of our generation. It is provocative and refers to some social tragedies, which are not reflected in our visual culture. Taboos and fears are opened up: no matter what is written in Arabic letters, ‘love’ or ‘friendship’, it must be terrorism, bald heads must mean nazis, and so on. But after all this play with meanings, only anxiety stays and it grows.”

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