A Fierce And Furious Russian Punkster In New York

Veteran rocker Max Pokrovskiy, leader of the popular Russian pop-punk rock band Nogu Svelo!, used to fill large concert halls and arenas in Russia. He’s maintained a loyal fan-base ever since his first major hit song, “Haru Mamburu,” came out in the 1990s. For over three decades, he’s been writing new hits, playing concerts, festivals, experimenting with new ways of making music, and producing music videos.

Now, having left Russia in 2016, repelled by the autocratic takeover that’s unfolded under Russian president Vladimir Putin, Pokrovskiy lives in Bushwick, in New York City, where he writes anti-war songs and records video messages that would earn him years in a Russian prison cell had he done it over there instead of the basement studio of his Brooklyn home.

Like many Russians, he left his home country after Russian president Vladimir Putin and his government began tightening the screws on freedom of expression over the past decade. In the six years since he moved to New York, Pokrovskiy’s already been banned from playing concerts in his homeland for his open support of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny when, in 2021, his multi-city Siberian tour was canceled by order of Russian governmental authorities. Pokrovskiy––whose mother is Ukrainian––is an outspoken critic of Russia’s war on Ukraine and, as he puts it, has become ‘a beacon for those Russians who have not been entirely brainwashed by the Kremlin propaganda.’

Nogu Svelo!’s latest song and animated video – “The Anthem Of The Doomed” or “Goida Orki!” – was created in collaboration with famous Russian animator Oleg Kuvayev, author of the popular Russian adult cartoon series, Masyanya. It by far supersedes everything Pokrovskiy has done so far to express his harsh criticism of what his homeland, Russia, has become, and decries the war crimes Putin’s regime is committing in Ukraine.

The Anthem Of The Doomed, which attracted almost two million views within days of its release on YouTube, unforgivingly criticizes today’s Russia. The animated video portrays the Russian military as an army of zombies and ruthless, semi-human creatures. Pokrovskiy and Kuvayev take a fierce jab at Russian society, which they portray as brainwashed by Kremlin propaganda, as well as propagandists themselves, who have the blood of innocent Ukrainian civilians on their hands. The slogan, “Goida!”, was used by a public figure in Russia during a large-scale propagandist gathering in Moscow’s Red Square this past fall, when Putin announced the illegal annexation of a number of Ukraine’s regions in the East.

This song is only the latest in Nogu Svelo!’s anti-war and anti-Putin body of work this year, which includes half-a-dozen new songs explicitly slating the Kremlin’s actions in Ukraine and supporting Ukraine’s efforts to push the Russian invaders out.

“Since the war started on February 24, we’ve been doing nothing but anti-war songs,” says Pokrovskiy, 52, in between sessions in his Bushwick music studio. “For that we receive, of course, a lot of hate from Russians, but the most important thing––we found ourselves.”

Pokrovskiy feels that part of his audience now are those Russians who feel different from the majority that are brainwashed by years of non-stop Kremlin propaganda and support Russia’s attempt to take over Ukraine. He says they write to him: “I am in my home, I feel alone, I feel crazy, I feel insane because everyone else here – they do not understand me. They do support this war, Russia’s war in Ukraine. Thank God, I am not alone.” Many ask: is there somebody else who understands me? And then they find the music of Nogu Svelo!

The song and video “Ukraine” has attracted more than 5.6 million views since June, and Prokrovsky’s song “I’m Afraid” was supported by a music video, shot in Moscow in February 2022, during Pokrovskiy’s last visit to Russia, right before Russian forces attacked Ukraine. His defiance of the Kremlin’s policies and actions runs through many of his other most recent songs, and Pokrovskiy openly posts anti-Putin messages on his social media channels.

Starting this summer, Pokrovskiy has been actively touring the US, as well as a number of European countries with large concentrations of Nogu Svelo!’s audience. He swiftly went from being an artist simply critical of the Russian regime to a fierce, feisty, anti-war songwriter and performer, attracting Russian-speaking audiences from Russia, Belarus and other former-Soviet countries in search of like-minded people––those shocked by Russia’s attack on Ukraine and by the state of Russian politics and daily life in general.

This past September, Prokrovskiy’s show at New York’s The Cutting Room venue was a striking performance; far different from his previous fun-dancy, lighthearted displays. His new political songs––accompanied by visuals of the Russian war in Ukraine, footage of militia in Russia, and protesters in Belarus fighting with the police––turned the event into an almost solemn, grieving act.

Audience members brought Ukrainian flags, wore Ukrainian shirts and banded around slogans like ‘Donetsk is Ukraine.’ Some Belarusians brought Belarussian flags, as people there also suffer from an autocratic regime that’s allied with the Kremlin and complicit in its attack on Ukraine. Nogu Svelo! gathers those Russian-speaking people from post-Soviet countries who may not strongly identify with Ukrainian performers but who look for an outlet and a place to express their outrage with Putin’s crimes.

Staying on the right side of history during Russia’s spiral into autocracy, speaking out against human rights abuses and the Kremlin’s oppressive actions against its own people has been part of Nogu Svelo!’s journey for years. “Back in the days, I attended Khodorkovsky and YUKOS court hearings in Russia when Medvedev was the president,” Pokrovskiy says.

However, Pokrovskiy’s controversial stance didn’t come back to bite him until 2020 when he openly supported Navalny, an opposition leader whose popularity and relentless criticism of the Kremlin struck fear into Putin and his cadre. Navalny was poisoned by Russian intelligence operatives in August of 2020, survived and was imprisoned shortly after returning to Russia in January, 2021. “We supported Alexei Navalny on our social media in January, 2021, and our Siberian tour in 2021 was canceled right away,” Pokrovskiy says.

“After I converted the basement of my house into a studio, and COVID started, it coincided with the new level of worsening of the regime in Russia,” he says. In his arsenal he has the song “The Silence of the Lambs,” inspired by the uprising in Belarus in 2020.

After Russia launched its all-out war on Ukraine, Pokrovskiy moved the members of his family who had remained in Russia to other locations. “My mom, who is 78, left with our son,” he says. “They are outside of Russia now and they are waiting for mom’s visa. My son is our band’s manager.” Pokrovskiy’s father passed away this fall, and Pokrovskiy couldn’t attend his funeral in Russia.

The February 24th attack on Ukraine created an even wider split among Russian cultural elites, forcing them to choose sides. Some Russian celebrities, like hip-hop artists Oxxxymiron and Noize MC, or old guard rock musicians Borys Grebenschukov, Yuri Shevchuk, Andrey Makarevich, are openly anti-Putin and speak out against the war in Ukraine.

Other seasoned rock musicians––Garik Sukachev, Sergey Shnurov, Yulia Chicherina, Igor Sklyar, and Oleg Garkusha, who used to rebel against the Soviet regime before it fell apart––side with the Kremlin and denounce Ukraine. “They converted, they flipped,” says Pokrovskiy. “We are not united, we’re not united at all in our profession, in the music industry.”

As for Russian society overall, Pokrovskiy says, “they still support the war, they still don’t know what’s going on. They are brainwashed enormously.” He has an idea that he thinks could help a little. “I say, ‘listen, there is one thing we can do: for the entire nation not to turn on TV when the propaganda broadcast starts… Right now we need to stop the war. Stop killing people.”

Since he and Nogu Svelo! found their voice in this bloody time of war, Pokrovskiy declares that his mission is “to be a buoy on top of the water for those who are emerging. For those who were deeply underwater and surfaced and need a signal. We signal: ‘hey, we are here.’”

The Anthem Of The Doomed by Nogu Svelo!, Max Pokrovskiy and Oleg Kuvayev.