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7 Most Popular Russian Female Singers

Russian singer
Polina Gagarina /Youtube.com

In the following article, I am going to talk about some of the most famous women on the music scene, both Russian and international ones. 

Some of those stars are part of the immortal category, some are on the rise, but what they all have in common is one unique dedication to singing. 

For these ladies, singing is not just work, it is a way of life.

Best Russian Female Singers

1. Zemfira

Zemfira is a Russian rock singer and musician. 

Her interest in music started around the time she was 4. That was also the time she wrote her first song. 

Whilst young, her brother widened her horizons with popular rock music, and the singer listened to songs from bands such as Black Sabbath, Queen, Led Zeppelin. 

Following this experience, she began to listen to different genres, and you could see how these revelations one after another influenced her songs. 

Her debut album is called Zemfira and was released in May of 1999. 

It contains 14 songs, while the album’s genre is considered to be pop-rock. 

Her most recent performance was in the summer of 2020, in St. Petersburg. 

2. Nyusha

Undoubtedly one of the most popular Russian pop singers. 

Born as Anna Shurochkina, she later decided to legally change her name to Nyusha. Her career as a Russian female singer started when she was 11. 

Even though this Russian artist is relatively young, she already has eight number-one singles in Russia. 

She is a multiple-time award winner at the MTV Europe Music Awards [1]; she won it for the first time in 2011 and repeated the success in the year 2014. 

The first award was related to her debut studio album, for which she also received the Best Russian act award.

3. Alla Pugacheva

Alla Pugacheva is a famous Russian music performer and singer. Her music career began at the age of 16 with the rock song Robot.

After her first song, in the following years, she traveled throughout the country in order to search and find her music style, and also to finesse it. 

She has participated as a singer in many European song contests. By that time, Alla and her songs also appeared in many Russian movies. 

Her career was obviously taking off. 

In the year of 1991, she received recognition as the Best singer in Russia, by Russian President Mikhail Gorbachev. 

Alla Pugacheva is the most prominent music singer in Russian history and has more than 500 songs.

Her albums are also published all around the world. 

4. t.A.T.u

t.A.T.u was a worldly recognized duo consisting of two Russian female singers, Lena Katina and Julia Volkova. The duo had hit songs such as “All the things she said” and “All about us”. 

“All the things she said” was part of their second studio album called 200 km/h in the Wrong Lane. The video for this particular song evoked a lot of criticisms since it depicted themes like lesbianism.

The theory behind the name is that it is either tattoo like the English word, or in Russian, ta lyubit tu or short Ta Tu, which means She loves her, or this girl loves that girl. 

Lena Katina

She was born in a family that adored music. Her father, Sergej, was a famous musician. He introduced her to the world of melodies when she was only 12. 

Therefore, it is somehow logical for Lena to have embraced a career in music. 

Although the peak of her popularity during her t.A.T.u years never reoccurred to date, Lena Katina has a fairly successful career as an independent singer.

She continued to be very interesting for the public eye, both as a singer and a human rights activist. In the period between 2009 and 2011, she released several unforgettable hits such as Never Forget, Melody, and Shot.

In this period, the career of the singer was mostly focused on the USA music market.

It is important to mention that in the meantime, she managed to finish her bachelor’s in psychology, get married, and have a son by the name of Alexander. 

She is still working as a professional singer, in the country she was born in. 

Julia Volkova

Julia was somewhat less fortunate than Lena, in the post t.A.T.u years. 

In the beginning, she also tried to proceed with a solo career as a singer but soon after experienced some health issues which made that quest impossible. 

She suffered from cancer of the thyroid gland. Although she managed to beat cancer, it had long-standing repercussions, particularly on her vocal abilities. 

However, she is also married and has two daughters. 

She is 36 by now, she looks particularly good and seems to enjoy the post-rockstar life. 

5. Polina Gagarina

Another one on the list of famous Russian pop female singers is Polina Gagarina. 

As a singer, she is best known for her appearance at the Eurovision contest in 2015, where she came up second with the pop song called A Million Voices

Her personal story is deeply interwoven with Greece. Although of Russian origin, the pop singer spent most of her youth in this beautiful Balkan country. 

Her mother was a ballet dancer. 

After the sudden death of her father, she moved with the rest of the family to  Russia. 

However, that lasted only for a short period, as the singer and her family liked their life in Greece better. They moved back again, settling in the capital of Greece, Athens. 

She has two children and was married twice.

Nowadays, she lives in the city of Saratov, the administrative center of the Saratov area in the Russian Federation, together with her second husband and the love of her life: the famous Russian photographer Dmytri Iskhakov.

6. Marina Verenikina 

Marina Verenikina or professionally known as Marina V is among the most famous Russian female singers and Russian musicians. 

Born in Moscow, the singer spent most of her life living in the United States of America [2]. 

She comes from a pretty interesting background, with her mother being a psychologist and her father a nuclear physicist.

Marina has never been too fond of Moscow. Like every other pop singer at the time, she liked The Beatles better than the Russian classical music and its conservative teachers. 

Therefore, the only goal in mind she had was to move to America, as soon as possible. 

It wasn’t all rosy after she got what she wanted, too. She suffered from severe depression in the first years in America. Luckily, she managed to find her way back through her songs. 

This Russian singer’s most recent work is called “In V Minor”, and is her 12th studio album to date. This album, as she comments, is about love and loss. 

Symbolically, it contains 12 songs in total. 

The Bottom Line

I hope you’ve enjoyed this article about some of the most famous Russian female singers.

If you are interested in learning more about Russia, its culture and art be sure to check out this article about the best Russian shows on Netflix.

Sources
  1. https://www.mtvema.com/en-adriatic
  2. https://www.britannica.com/place/United-States

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