Russian bards

Source: Wikipedia. Pages: 35. Chapters: Vladimir Vysotsky, Mikhail Savoyarov, Alexander Gradsky, Bard, Alexander Rosenbaum, Bulat Okudzhava, Alexei Khvostenko, Vadim Delaunay, Alexander Vertinsky, Andrey Makarevich, Alexander Galich, Sergey Nikitin, Anna Gerasimova, Zhanna Bichevskaya, Elena Kamburova, Viktor Berkovsky, Yuliy Kim, Yuri Vizbor, Boris Golovin, Alexander Dolsky, Alexander Gorodnitsky, Tatyana Nikitina, Evgeny Kliachkin, Alexander Dulov, Alexander Sukhanov, Alexander Mirzayan, Veronika Dolina, Yuri Kukin, Vladimir Lantsberg, Evgeny Agranovich, Artur Gladyshev, Ivasi, Mikhail Scherbakov, Viktor Luferov. Excerpt: Vladimir Semyonovich Vysotsky (Russian: ) (25 January 1938 - 25 July 1980) was an iconic Soviet-Russian singer, songwriter, poet, and actor whose career had an immense and enduring effect on Russian culture. Although best known as a singer-songwriter, he was also a prominent stage and screen actor. His popularity in Soviet Russia was enormous, and he became widely known for his unique singing style and for his lyrics, which featured social and political commentary in often humorous street jargon. His lyrics resonated with millions of Soviet people in every corner of the country; his songs were sung at house parties and amateur concerts. Though his work was largely ignored by the official Soviet cultural establishment, he achieved remarkable fame during his lifetime, and to this day exerts significant influence on many of Russia's popular musicians and actors who wish to emulate his iconic status. Vladimir Vysotsky was born in Moscow at the 3rd Meshchanskaya St. (61/2) maternity hospital. His father, Semyon Vladimirovich (1916-1997), a colonel in the army, was Jewish, originally from Kiev. His mother, Nina Maksimovna, (née Seryogina, 1912-2003) was Russian, and worked as a German language translator. Vysotsky's family lived in a Moscow communal flat in harsh conditions, and had serious financial difficulties. When Vladimir was 10 months old, Nina had to return to her office in the Transcript bureau of the Ministry of Geodesy and Cartography of the USSR (engaged in making German maps available for the Soviet military) so as to help her husband earn their family's living. Vladimir's extraordinary theatrical inclinations became obvious at a very early age, his mother Nina, a theater fan, being an obvious influence. The boy used to recite poems, standing on a chair and "flinging hair backwards, like a real poet", often using in his public speeches expressions he could hardly have heard at home. Once, at the age of two, when he had tired of the family's guests' poetry req