Shiny happy people

ВНИМАНИЕ! The About section of the site is finally up and running. You can get to it by clicking on the button on the top menu bar. Also the Artist list is up and running! It is a list of all the acts featured on RusskiPop, with links to the posts on them.

Blestyashchiye, which roughly translates as “Shining girls”, are one of Russia’s most popular and longest running slut girl groups. Formed in 1995 during the young Russian Federations darkest days and when t.A.T.u. hadn’t even started high school, the group even pre-dates the Spice Girls. Like many Russian pop acts, Blestyashchiye has an ever changing lineup. The band originally consisted of Ol’ga Orlova, Polina Iodis and Varvara Koroleva, with the latter leaving shortly after the release of their debut album There, only there. She was replaced by Zhanna Friske and Irina Lukyanova, turning the trio into a quartet. Two years later however, in 1999, Polina said goodbye, and Kseniya Novikova was drafted in to take her place.

The biggest blow to the band was when front-girl, songwriter, and last remaining founding member Ol’ga fell pregnant and left. She was replaced by Yulia Kovalchuk. In 2003 Irina also had a baby put inside her and hung up her microphone. The band continued as a trio for a short time, until figure-skating champion Anna Semenovich joined the band. In 2003 Zhanna went solo, and is now a huge solo star in Russia. Two years ago she was replaced me Nadya Ruchka. Did you catch all that?

The girls have released eight albums in total, the most recent being Eastern story. For the title track they teamed up with Arash, a Swedish singer popular in Russia (his pronunciation of Russian is quite bad). It is one of my favourite songs at the moment, and is a great listen on a hot, sunny day. The lyrics are also quite amusing: Arash sings "I have three wives, and the fourth will be you", to which the Blestyashchiye girls reply "I already have 5 husbands, I love them all, but you, if you want, will be the sixth."

Download Blestyashchiye & Arash's Eastern story
Download Blestyashchiye's Ya vse letala

p.s., another group on Blestyashchiye's record label is called Bounty. I wonder how they got that name...