The 44th Cold War Spaces lunchtime talk with Karin Bijsterveld, Professor of Science, Technology, and Modern Culture at Maastricht University, The Netherlands, and Joes Segal, the Wende's Chief Curator and Director of Programming.

Audio Space: Voice Identification and the Stasi

The 45th Cold War Spaces lunchtime talk with J.W. Mohnhaupt, German journalist and author of "The Zookeepers’ War," and Joes Segal, the Wende's Chief Curator and Director of Programming.

Animal Space: The Cold War of the Berlin Zoos

The 46th Cold War Spaces lunchtime talk with Rose Dosti, author, former Los Angeles Times staff writer and columnist, journalism instructor at UCLA and the University of Tirana (Albania), and founder and president of the Albanian Human Rights Project, and Joes Segal, the Wende's Chief Curator and Director of Programming.

Internment Space: Political Prisoners in Cold War Albania

The 47th Cold War Spaces lunchtime talk with Stuart Schrader, Associate Research Professor of Africana Studies; Associate Director of the Program in Racism, Immigration, and Citizenship at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore; and author of "Badges Without Borders: How Global Counterinsurgency Transformed American Policing," and Joes Segal, the Wende's Chief Curator and Director of Programming.

Counterinsurgency Space: American Policing at Home and Abroad

The 48th Cold War Spaces lunchtime talk with Deborah Kaple, Research Scholar and Lecturer in the Sociology Department at Princeton University, and Joes Segal, the Wende's Chief Curator and Director of Programming.

Socialist Friendship Space: Soviet Advisors in Communist China

The 49th Cold War Spaces lunchtime talk with Ksenia Nouril, Art Historian and Jensen Bryan Curator at the Print Center, Philadelphia, and Joes Segal, the Wende's Chief Curator and Director of Programming.

Dreamworld Space: Soviet Intersections Between Art and Science

The 50th Cold War Spaces lunchtime talk with Guillaume Serina, French-American historian, journalist, and publicist, and Joes Segal, the Wende’s Chief Curator and Director of Programming.

Nuclear-Free Space: Reagan, Gorbachev, and a World Without the Bomb

The 51st Cold War Spaces lunchtime talk with Kathleen Reinhardt, Curator of Contemporary Art, Albertinum, State Art Collections Dresden, Germany, and Joes Segal, the Wende's Chief Curator and Director of Programming.

Contentious Space: Exhibiting East German Art in Reunified Germany

he 52nd Cold War Spaces lunchtime talk with Justinian Jampol, Founder and Executive Director of the Wende Museum, and Joes Segal, the Wende's Chief Curator and Director of Programming.

Multi-Colored Space: Toward a Layered History of the Cold War

The 53rd and final Cold War Spaces lunchtime talk with Maya Balakirsky Katz, Associate Professor of Jewish Art at Bar-Ilan University, Ramat Gan, Israel, and Joes Segal, the Wende's Chief Curator and Director of Programming.

Animation Space: Multinationalism and the Soviet Animation Industry

This mix was created by Max Gordy (aka model[]space) as an opening DJ set to the March 15, 2025 performance "Tropic Off Limits" by the group Moving Assemblage, all part of the Wende Museum's experimental music series, FRAMEWORKS. According to Gordy, "This mix traverses the sonic ruins of the Cold War, through the scattered memories of unrealized futures that have haunted post-industrial cities since the fall of the Berlin Wall. Taking inspiration from the concept of the 'palimpsest' and the global roots of dub techno music, it traces how physical and sonic landscapes are continuously overwritten, yet not completely erased, with different eras and geographies bleeding across and into each other."

A Ghost Never Dies: model[]space Mix | FRAMEWORKS

Tere Perestroika

Suburban Blues

Strange Drunk Boy

Special Reason

Money

Freedom Calls

At the Dacha

Any consideration of female singers during the Soviet period would be incomplete without Alla Pugacheva (b.1949), a prodigious talent both artistically and politically, given her ability to walk the thin line between official acceptance and creative freedom.

Ten years before her 1975 breakthrough at a Soviet musical festival in Bulgaria, she recorded this gentle work, “Robot,” in which the achievements of socialist science are implicitly celebrated, yet––sings Pugacheva––there’s no need to mirror the “invention of the century” in a loveless relationship.

Alla Pugacheva: "Robot" (1965)

Larisa Mondrus: "Maybe No, Maybe Yes" (1964)

Larisa Mondrus was born in Kazakhstan, yet her early life after WWII was linked with Latvia. For millions of Soviets, she was most clearly associated with Union-wide TV shows on New Year’s Eve. That Baltic jollity was countered by real-world drama; Mondrus refused to sing propagandistic material and was thus banned from touring other nations of the USSR. Soon unable to perform solo, was given “permission” to leave for Israel. Her large audiences in East Germany, nonetheless, led her to choose Munich as home. With an émigré’s repertoire in German, Latvian, Russian, English, and Hebrew, she would eventually be able tour the small country in which she began––but not until the 1990s.

Larisa Mondrus: "Maybe No, Maybe Yes" (1964)

Nina Brodskaya, “First Love” (1978)

Born in 1947 and raised in the Russian capital by musical parents, Nina Brodskaya was blessed in her early career. She began performing with one of the nation’s premier jazz ensembles while still a teenager. In her mid-twenties, her voice appeared in numerous feature films and cartoons that are enjoyed by Russian families to this day. In fact, the state had released forty vinyl recordings by Brodskaya before the late 1970s, when this song, “First Love” was published. It asks two lovers to “cherish and not scare away” their early affections. The lyrics quickly describe the passage from teenage romance to a pensionable age, reflecting the downplay of youth culture in the 1970s in favor of less fickle themes. Perhaps with a similar loss of adolescent hope, Brodskaya herself––being of Jewish heritage––left the USSR in 1979 for America, where she lives to this day.

Nina Brodskaya, “First Love” (1978)

Olga Voronets, “Tis Not the Wind that Bends the Branch” (1974)

Olga Voronets became a People’s Artist of the USSR in 1974, at the height of the Cold War. Her songs and biography, however, were far removed from anything geopolitical. She was born in 1926 in provincial Smolensk, which meant her student years coincided with World War Two. Once on stage, she was not allowed to dedicate herself entirely to a folk repertoire until the late 1960s, after which she would become a staple on national television, inspiring audiences both domestically and internationally. Her song here is typical: spun from a poem of the 1840s, it describes the miserable fate of a villager who cannot wait for life to end. Antique tales of consolation were, for millions of citizens, more powerful than endless state-sponsored celebration. A cynic might suggest that related fatalism has political use, fostering an acceptance of hardship, but for most audiences these nineteenth-century folk songs spoke to something older and more alluring than ideology. The past looked better than the future, especially during the Stagnation.

Olga Voronets, “Tis Not the Wind that Bends the Branch” (1974)

Roza Rymbaeva, “Epiphany"(Ozarenie, 1978)

The noun “ozarenie” comes from the verb to illuminate––and indeed there’s a reference here to some well-lit windows at night. As nocturnal “trains come and go once more,” an absent lover must ––surely!––arrive someday, somehow. Hope becomes instead the sober epiphany of a fatalist, alone on the tracks. 

The vocalist is Roza Rymbaeva, born in a Kazakh train station to railway workers in 1957. A gifted singer at school, she cut her teeth on so-called “civic” songs, celebrating the union-wide heroism of WWII. “Ozarenie” was a collaboration with poet Robert Rozhdestvensky, whose story of a love that *must* come true could easily transfer to politics––in a decade when wide-eyed belief in socialist progress was fading fast. Private fantasy, however, was more appealing than dispiriting social facts.

And yet in 1978 when this song was published, Rymbaeva was the third most popular woman in Soviet popular music. She reached those lofty heights by foregrounding love at the expense of dogma. If society's dreams were unlikely now to come true, perhaps a private dream could. So thought a lonely woman above the noiseless tracks of a distant station.

Roza Rymbaeva, “Epiphany"(Ozarenie, 1978)

Sofia Rotaru: “Bonfire” (1981)

Here we have one of the two most famous women in Soviet popular music of the twentieth century; the other would be Alla Pugacheva. And indeed, their names are endlessly referenced together, usually in terms of a creative rivalry. Pugacheva is Russian, whereas Rotaru has Romanian roots and was born in Ukraine. Dissatisfied with political songs as a child, she sought an artistic outlet in folk tradition. Her passion began to coincide with the modishness of folk-rock outfits across the USSR in the early 1970s, so she was already a star by the time of official commissions for the Moscow Olympics in 1980. A year later she would publish this track––“Bonfire”––with the band Time Machine (Mashina Vremeni) in a feature film designed to match Pugacheva’s media presence. 

Both Rotaru and her collaborators from the fledgling world of rock would take a fairly detached view of civic change in the 1980s, preferring instead the philosophical musings of “Bonfire.” Wise is the man who cares for his flame, far from social chaos: “Every so often there’s an eccentric––someone who does everything wrong. Yet his bonfire will reach the skies…” 

There was much to reccomend a well-considered retreat.

1981

Sofia Rotaru: “Bonfire” (1981)

Irina Allegrova (1952-): "Voice of a Child" 1985

One of the instantly recognizable voices of Russian “light entertainment” or èstrada. On stage, Allegrova sings of women wronged by destiny or the opposite sex––who nonetheless endure, head held high. Hence the tobacco-infused gruffness. 

She was born in the southern port of Rostov-na-Donu, a child of Armenian background who would soon move with her parents to Azerbaijan, where the family would be regularly visited at home by the leading lights of Soviet music. 

Accepted into Baku Conservatory as a girl, Allegrova launched a musical career that would have her touring the USSR throughout the ‘70s. By the following decade, when state subsidies waned with worrying speed, she was obliged to perform in restaurants and bars. A stable livelihood was seemingly collapsing. And yet an equally rapid upswing began on a wave of commercial rock music, namely in the band Elektroklub that would operate until the end of the ‘80s. 

Perhaps as a result of this topsy-turvy career, it is here––finally, in the 1990s––that she begins not only an enduringly successful solo career, but also forges the persona of a sensual, dignified woman made wise by others’ failure. Middle age suits her very well indeed. This song from 1985, “Voice of a Child,” predates any such worldliness. Not to mention the famous vocal chords…

1985

Irina Allegrova (1952-): "Voice of a Child" 1985

Kombinatsiya (founded 1988): “Two Slices of Sausage” (1990)

One of these Wende posts concerns the Saint Petersburg all-female band Kolibri, who specialized in unemotional, fashionable commentary on mainstream pop. Launched in the same year––1988––Kombinatsiya were another ensemble consisting entirely of women, yet embodying the commercialism that Kolibri parodied and/or disparaged. The two outfits mirror one another.

Founded in the provincial city of Saratov, the group chose a double entendre for their name. Not only does it refer to the quintet’s alleged “combination” of musical styles and/or members; it also refers to women’s lingerie, as in the French combinaison. Backwater musicians needed to fight for attention in a tough market with no regional media––yet. The need for Moscow’s limelight called for desperate measures.

The group’s primary success, however, came not though titillation, but instead wit. Early on, the women began to sing of various failings in post-Soviet society, specifically from a female point of view. Among them were empty shops, the woeful habits of small-town men, and the likelihood of a dead-end marriage or a wretched job. Despite the huge stylistic differences between Kombinatsiia and Kolibri, the most famous song of both concerns the pros and cons of marrying an American––and then fleeing Russia forever. Behind the apparent jollity some sobering concerns are shared.

Within months of the USSR collapsing, the group’s best-known member had quit to start a (successful) solo career. Wishful plans for a US tour fell through, while the band’s manager was accused of professional harassment and a fruitless––in fact, never-ending––search for new female voices began. It was all downhill from here. Several men and women associated with the band expired, died in accidents, or were murdered. 

Somehow, despite these tragedies and an infuriatingly fickle lineup, Kobinatsiya still appear at retro-parties and remain a telling document of the early 1990s, both musically and professionally.

1990

Kombinatsiya (founded 1988): “Two Slices of Sausage” (1990)

Zemfira Ramazanova (b. 1976): “Impressions” (Live, 2011)

Ramazanova performs under her first name. She is often referred to as the most influential woman in post-Soviet rock. Her roots as ethnic Volga Tatar and Bashkir in Tatarstan have helped to shape the mythology of an outsider several times over. All of which suits her chosen genre very well. Dismissive of journalistic attention, she cultivates a wanton aloofness that both attracts disenfranchised rock audiences and infuriates conventional media. 

While Zemfira would spend her first two decades in Ufa, the late 1990s afforded her a chance to move. Within a year she was lauded as “the breakthrough voice of a generation” and the presumed mouthpiece of post-Soviet youth, for whom society offered no clear value system under the leadership of Boris Yeltsin. 

For Russian citizens less interested in contemporary music, Zemfira’s name is tied to that of Renata Litvinova, the actress and director with whom she has enjoyed long-standing private and professional relationships. They continue to be something of a power couple today, exercising considerable influence over both modern rock music and cinema.

Zemfira

Zemfira Ramazanova (b. 1976): “Impressions” (Live, 2011)

Svetlana Geiman (aka Linda, b. 1977): "Northern Wind" (Live, 2018)

The 1990s, among many commercial changes in Russian popular music, witnessed the rise of producers. Free of politics, yet now reliant upon cash flows, a producer could shape the sound of a young performer in dramatically new ways––sometimes using technical expertise garnered in Soviet sound studios. One of the most successful producer/performer collaborations of the late 1990s was between Maxim Fadeev and Svetlana Geiman, a then-unknown singer from Kazakhstan. 

Geiman’s grandmother had been exiled to Kazakhstan in 1941; her grandfather was executed by Stalin’s decree four years earlier. The demise of Soviet power in the 1980s allowed the family to move gradually back to Russia, specifically to the nation’s version of Detroit––Togliatti. As Geiman’s father met with increasing success in post-Soviet banking, the family moved again, this time to Moscow. 

Svetlana entered an elite music school and entered state-run competitions, where she was eventually introduced to Fadeev and would soon begin recording under the name Linda, in honor of her exiled grandmother. 

Max Fadeev was intent on erasing the maximum number of clichés from Russian popular song. Hence the debut collaboration between himself and Linda in 1994, “Songs of Tibetan Lamas.” Although its insistence upon audible forms of some imagined “Orient” may seem rather studied today, the LP would mark a dramatic move from conservatism towards studio wizardry in the 1990s. 

As mentioned, though, studio time was always dependent upon cash, and Russian music magazines of the time were full of rumors that Geiman’s father had bankrolled the project from start to finish. Fadeev and Geiman thus began another trend in popular song, albeit unwillingly: the cynical post-Soviet conviction that lots of money and a good producer can compensate for minimal talent. 

Recent years have witnessed a comeback by Linda, as in this 2018 radio performance of an early hit, stripped down to absolute basics in the name of self-respect and a newly found self-reliance.

Svetlana Geiman (aka Linda, b. 1977): "Northern Wind" (Live, 2018)

During the Soviet years, folk music was used for a number of suspect political ends. They included a pro-Russian agenda in a multi-ethnic empire and the cultivation of bowdlerized norms. An idyllic past was fastidiously imagined––to the benefit of modern conservatism. Nothing should change; a perfect fantasy was frozen in time. 

After 1991, the reimagining of folk traditions––in the plural––was considerable. One of the most prominent alternatives to Soviet kitsch was the band known as Melnitsa (“Windmill”), itself fronted by Natalya Nikolaeva. 

Born and raised in Moscow, she has long used her considerable expertise on the harp, together with ethnographic and philological scholarship, to discern linkages between Slavic and Celtic folk songs. Folk-rock, in fact would become a significant genre in the 2000s, both online and at multiple festivals, were a rural heritage was an appealing alternative to urban grime or injustice.

In the 1990s, Nikolaeva published an initial series of recordings that set classic English-language verse to music. Using the stage-name Hellawes, she would soon include Russian poets of the Silver Age. Here begins the interface of Western and Eastern folksong that defines her catalog to this day. In fact, Nikolaeva would marry an Irish diplomat and take his name, O’Shea, dovetailing Celtic and Slavic narratives even more. Poetry and actuality became one and the same.

In the early 2000s, these two projects ran side by side––Hellawes and Melnitsa––performing on a relatively small scale in clubs around Moscow. By the middle of the decade, as folk rock became a more recognized movement, increased radio play and recognition followed. National tours, once a year, even became a financially beneficial enterprise as increasing numbers of Russians wanted to forget a local present and spend more time in a distant past. That same allure continues in 2020.

Natalya Nikolaeva (Melnitsa): "Farewell" (Live, Avtoradio 2019)

The Ukrainian ensemble known as Onuka is fronted by Natalya Zhizhchenko, known previously for her work in Tomato Jaws and Kooqla. Those two earlier bands, informed by the extrovert romance of post-Soviet dance floors and introversion of twee dollhouses, have little to do with the folktronica of Onuka. Here Zhizhchenko makes expert use of native wind and percussive instruments in an all-female trio that can expand to eleven colleagues or, as here, a full-blown orchestra for gala performances. Zhizhchenko is the granddaughter of a respected Ukrainian craftsman who dedicated his life to keeping these same traditions alive. 

Another family connection, demonstrated by this recording, comes from Onuka’s recent “Vidlik” EP, dedicated to the victims of Chernobyl. Zhizhchenko’s father was one of the first men dispatched to the scene after the disaster that scarred Europe for years. Any harmony between the Ukrainian countryside and domestic culture was ruined by late Soviet science. The music of Onuka hopes to repair that damage.

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