# Legacy Code: Russian Rock in my Navidrome
=> /ru/rusrock.gmi 🇷🇺 Read in Russian

Classic stories about Russian rock usually follow a predictable canon: "I remember it like it was yesterday — 1979, I was a student at some Soviet Institute with a long acronym, sent to the 'Bolshevik Calving' collective farm for harvest duty. That's where I first heard some obscure underground band, and I’ve been in love with the genre ever since."

I can’t start my story like that. Wrong age, wrong scenery. My relationship with this music isn’t about smoky underground clubs; it’s a work of digital archaeology.

Most cult bands broke up exactly when I was born. For instance, Nautilus Pompilius ceased to exist in 1997. I never saw them live; I only caught the powerful echo they left behind. 

The same goes for Alisa and Konstantin Kinchev. By some strange coincidence, they started producing utter trash right around the year of my birth. However, everything recorded before that is a monolithic classic that I’ve listened to until the digital files "wore out."

My gateway was my older sister’s stash of audio cassettes. She rarely listened to them, but at five years old, I’d wait until the house was empty, put on the heavy headphones, and dive into a parallel reality. Listening to Zvuki Mu at age five is an experience not for the faint of heart — it’s definitely 16+, if not 18+. Then there was Krematoriy (The Crematory) — a band I basically grew up on, despite their lyrics being strictly "adult content."

And, of course, Nautilus Pompilius — perhaps the only band from this collection I was allowed to listen to openly. Apparently, compared to the raw chaos of Zvuki Mu, they seemed like the height of decency to my parents.

Occasionally, Piknik would appear in my player, but our relationship was complicated. I always felt a desperate lack of "groundedness" in Edmund Shklyarskiy’s music. Following "Uncle Edmund" through the winding, surreal alleys of his mind is an acquired taste. It’s like wandering through a foggy, dreamlike city where people are replaced by hieroglyphs and puppets. It’s fascinating for a moment, but usually, I just got bored. In Russian rock, I looked for something more tangible, even if that "tangible" was strange or forbidden.

And then there is Uncle Edmund himself. I have a theory: modern medicine and therapy have long since pulled him out of the labyrinths where his mind used to wander. Но years of fan expectations and a fixed "mystic" image prevent him from admitting he doesn't visit those places anymore. That’s probably why each new album sounds less convincing. Faith is a powerful thing, but the void left in its absence is just as influential.

In contrast to Piknik’s esoteric wanderings, DDT always felt like a blast of cold, fresh air. While Shklyarskiy traps you in the corridors of his head, Yuri Shevchuk is raw, honest, and — most importantly — grounded. Where Uncle Edmund draws surreal patterns, Uncle Yuri cuts deep with the truth or delivers lyrics that ache in your chest without any unnecessary metaphysics. For me, DDT is about life you can touch with your hands, even if it smells like dusty asphalt. Their album "Eto Vsyo..." (That is All) is pure sincerity — no boredom, no hiding from reality. Sometimes you just need to step out of the "labyrinths of the mind" and onto the street. DDT is that street.

I discovered Kalinov Most later, around age 12 or 13. This coincided with my period of personal "digital resistance." My parents were very religious, and books like those by Carlos Castaneda were strictly forbidden in our house. I was saved by an HP iPAQ 214 PDA — a 12th-birthday gift from my cousin. That was my personal Bat Mitzvah: instead of traditional gifts, I got a window into the world of forbidden literature. While everyone thought I was a "good girl," I was secretly devouring Castaneda on that tiny screen. The music of Dmitry Revyakin (Kalinov Most), with its Siberian shamanism and "pagan" drive, was the perfect soundtrack to the teachings of Don Juan. At twelve, it felt like a key to other worlds that didn't intersect with the official agenda.

I’m not looking for anything new in Russian rock. Time has filtered out the noise. I’ve ended up stuck in the "old" era. It’s not a conscious boycott; it’s just a paradox: I’ve heard the new albums, but their current worldview doesn’t correlate with mine at all. The irony is that my worldview was formed by their *old* songs. They laid the foundation, built my coordinate system, and then moved in a completely different direction. I remained faithful to the meanings they once broadcasted, while the authors themselves became strangers to me. It’s a strange feeling: carrying their "old truth" while they actively disown it.

Analyzing this now, nearly 20 years later, I’ve reached a cynical but logical conclusion. Kalinov Most, Alisa, even Nautilus — who once grandly refused major state awards — were all rebels and anarchists only as long as that stance sold concert tickets. Rebellion was just a successful marketing move. Kinchev was the first to sense the change in the wind and masterfully rebranded. Revyakin took the path to Orthodoxy as soon as it became the new mainstream. For them, it was an image shift; for me, that girl in the headphones, it was a breakdown of my coordinate system. They sold us protest, only to liquidate it once it stopped being profitable.

I cannot imagine such a radical shift in my own views. Perhaps because I haven't changed mine for as long as I can remember. People often talk about "transitions" — from childhood to youth, from youth to adulthood. But does this divide actually exist? In the grand scheme of things: no. Everything I lived for at five years old with those cassettes, or at twelve with that PDA under my pillow — it’s all still with me. My "adult state" is not a rejection of the past, but its continuation. I am the same person with the same values; I just have a bit more computing power and experience now. Transition is just an expansion of possibilities. If the foundation is real, it doesn't require a "rebranding."

Time has filtered out the noise. My playlist might feature new albums from the legends, but only from the likes of Krematoriy, Akvarium, or DDT. They’ve kept their core intact, unbent by the weight of the current climate. It’s a rare quality — to age without losing your face or falling into senility, to stay alive.

And only Uncle Edmund, whom modern medicine has pulled from the labyrinths of his mind, keeps going. Years of fan expectations and a fixed image won't let him honestly admit he doesn't live there anymore. That’s why each album sounds less convincing. Faith is a powerful thing, but the void where it used to be is just as influential.

---
=> /myrnr/ ~/myrnr index

=> / Home