Kotov and Starostin / Котов и Старостин

Vstrecha Ryby are a young collective from the industrial city of Chelyabinsk. In moving to Moscow, they take inspiration from the well-respected elder statesmen of Russian rock, Auktsyon. Between them all lies a shared worldview.

The Wild Mint Festival, hosted outside Moscow, is arguably the nation's most important folk music event. One of the headliners this year was Anna Pingina, whose view of "traditional" performance is rather unique...

Russia's most famous and fashionable exponent of folk music, Pelageia, recently said of Anzhela Manukian, vocalist with folktronica kingpins, Volga: "She's an absolutely crazy woman - in the good sense of the word! She's a really cool singer. She represents a widespread situation today... since Ru...

Leonid Fedorov and Sergei Starostin are both well-known in their own right: the former as frontman to rock band Auktsyon and the latter as ethnographer and jazz musician. They have more than seven years experience behind them in collaborative work, too. Both are extremely productive and prone to...

Last week, an album was released by two of Russia's leading lights in the world of folk music.  In particular these are Sergei Starostin and Andrei Kotov, together with Vladimir Volkov (double bass/viola), and Leonid Fedorov, lead singer of rock staples Auktsyon. The CD is a collection o...