Yuri Shevchuk

Yuri Yulianovich Shevchuk (born 16 May 1957) is a Soviet and Russian rock musician and singer/songwriter who leads the rock band DDT, which he founded with Vladimir Sigachev in 1980.

He is best known for his distinctive gravelly voice. His lyrics detail aspects of Russian life with a wry, humanistic sense of humor. He is also famous for opposing pop music culture (especially playback performances) for many years. He is often accredited with being the greatest songwriter in present-day Russia.

Biography

Shevchuk was born in Yagodnoye in Magadan Oblast and raised in Ufa, Bashkir ASSR. Shevchuk was an art teacher before founding DDT. By the time their third album Periferiya (Periphery) was released, Shevchuk had got a high pressure by Soviet censorship.[1] In 1985 he disbanded his group and resettled to St. Petersburg, Russia, with his wife, Elmira. In Saint-Petersburg he assembled a new line-up and became a member of Leningrad Rock Club. In 1989, DDT had performed in Hungary, in 1990 - in USA and Japan for the first time ever. In 1992, Shevchuk lost his wife due to cancer; an album Aktrisa Vesna (Spring the Actress) contained her paintings and was dedicated to her.

In January 1995, during the First Chechen War, Shevchuk went on a peace mission to Chechnya, where he performed 50 concerts for both Russian troops and Chechen citizens alike.

In 1999, Shevchuk visited Yugoslavia with concerts in protection of its integrity, sharply criticized USA for bombing of the sovereign state and shot some reports about destroyed Orthodox churches in the Serbian region of Kosovo for UNESCO.

In the 2000s, Shevchuk was highly critical of what he considered the undemocratic nature of Vladimir Putin's Russia (see: Putinism), and was one of the only public celebrities who aired oppositionist grievances face-to-face with Putin during a now-famous sit-down with cultural figures. On 3 March 2008, he participated in a Dissenters March in Saint Petersburg against the presidential elections in which no real opposition candidates were allowed to run. One of his controversial songs, "Kogda zakonchitsya neft", has the lyrics "When the oil runs dry, our president will die".

On 24 and 26 September 2008, he organized two peace concerts in Moscow and Saint Petersburg in protest of the Russian–Georgian war. The name of the concert, "Don't Shoot", was taken from his song "Ne Strelyai" that he had written in 1980 as a response to the Soviet–Afghan War. Together with his band DDT he performed with Georgian jazz singer Nino Katamadze, Ossetian band Iriston and Ukrainian band Bratya Karamazovy. Parts of the profits from the concerts were given to those who had suffered from the war, both Ossetians and Georgians.

In May 2010, Shevchuk received considerable media attention following a pointed dialogue with Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in which he openly confronted him (on state television) with questions regarding such controversial topics as democracy, freedom of speech, assembly, and freedom of the press in Russia. In a 2017 interview, he admitted that the day after the dialogue he "got a call from United States Congress with an invitation to give some kind of lecture..." and his answer was: "[we] will settle it by ourselves". He also stated that some of his requests were treated and processed by Kremlin administration.