Grazhdanskaya Oborona
Grazhdanskaya Oborona or GrOb (Russian Гражданская Оборона, ГрОб to German militia or civil defense ) was one of the first and most internationally renowned Russian punk bands. A native of Siberia group was the first successful Soviet punk band and so inspired hundreds of other bands. To confusion and fierce controversy within the scene of erratic ideological course of the founder and frontman Yegor Letov added.
The Soviet dissident Yegor Letov ( Егор Летов ) founded the band in December 1984 at the height of Soviet underground music. Bands such as Aquarium, Maschina Wremeni ( Машина времени ) and cinema enjoyed great success. With the Soviet punk underground, however, had not made any experience. GrOb could fill this niche and since then earn a large following. The band inspired hundreds of other punk bands across the Soviet Union and later Russia.
Grob's sound was deeper of distorted guitars, simple bass lines, a rudimentary percussion and Letows and impressive vocals. Since the late 1980s, the band experimented with elements of the Industrial.
Until the collapse of the Soviet Union, the band was seen as anti-Soviet. Letov expressed in his lyrics often against militarism, dictatorship, the Soviet state and the war in Afghanistan - the band had corresponding problems with censorship. Most of the Soviet period spent Letov and the other band members hidden from friends and played the tapes to kitchens and basements in. The listeners ranged shots further on tape. The tapes were played, and so was an audio samizdat. However, they made some live performances, as the first rock festival in Novosibirsk in 1987, which were promptly as sensation.
Although the band was considered to be anti-communist, to Letow described himself as a " true communist" and has maintained the claim even to the last change his views. His ideological convictions were since the band's inception but always contradictory, if not opposite to each other directly, which resulted on the part of fans and the scene again and again to confusion. The copywriter anti-militarist and anti- nationalist texts entered into a long period of his life, together with the National Bolshevik Party ( Национал - большевистская партия ) on whose party flag quite deliberately reminiscent of the swastika flag. In 1998, Letov, dissatisfied with their policy, from the party and later distanced himself from any political orientation. Recently ( 2006), he describes himself as a " Christian world. "
In the years 2004 and 2005 published GrOb each album: 2004 Dolgaja Stschastliwaja Zhizn, ( Долгая Счастливая Жизнь ) and 2005 Reanimazija ( Реанимация )
Yegor Letov died on 19 February 2008 in his hometown of Omsk at a respiratory insufficiency as a result of alcohol poisoning.