One of the biggest names in Russian rock music – perhaps the greatest – is now classified as a “foreign agent” in his home country, a designation that has smeared Boris Grebenshkov as an anti-patriot , even a traitor. There is an amusing shrug at such accusations. “Ah, I’m always on the list!” he said with a smile. “In the ’70s I was on the no-go list. In the ’80s I was there. It didn’t matter.”
Grebenshikov, 69, is best known in the Russian-speaking world as the leader of the band Aquarium. They were the pioneers of rock music that emerged in the Soviet Union in the 1970s. Originally a semi-secret version of Western hippie music (particularly avant-garde and folk rock), bands like Aquarium captured the popular imagination in the 1980s as harbingers of the new Russia. They were like the Pied Pipers of the Reformation Era. But with the return of authoritarianism, Grebenshkov once again clashed with officialdom.
Moscow’s Justice Ministry declared him a foreign agent in June for “making speeches abroad for the purpose of providing financial aid to Ukraine” and criticizing Russia’s war against its neighbor. Grebenshkov used to live in St. Petersburg and had not been to Russia for more than a year and a half. The prospects of doing so are slim. “It can be a little dangerous,” he admits.
Since 2019, he lives in London with his wife Irina. He conducts video calls in English from his apartment in Earls Court (a face-to-face meeting had to be canceled after I contracted Covid). Contrary to his dignified status, Grebenshikov’s attitude was warm and casual. He has laugh lines rather than frown lines on his face, although at times his features lose their luster and their expression becomes serious.
One such occasion was when he was talking about the war in Ukraine. He has many friends there. “They don’t understand why they are being bombed,” he said. “I don’t think it’s even a gross injustice, but an insult to humanity. A war for no reason whatsoever.”
his new project Heal the sky Funds are being raised for Ukraine’s largest children’s hospital. This is a collection of songs by Western musicians, including Jackson Browne, Marianne Faithful, and Richard Thompson. Grebenshkov has also appeared, including on a song with Dave Stewart, Stevie Nicks and Ukrainian singer Serhiy Babkin.
BG (as fans know him) curated the compilation, which will be released on Bandcamp later this month. Many of the participants were known to him personally: in 1989 he collaborated with former Eurythmics member Stewart on an English-language album. On their new album “War Hymn,” Grebenshikov sings in Russian: “The day will come when the war will become a dream/The light in the sky will return/But this is where my home once was The place/it is no longer there.”
The lines were inspired by photos of bombed-out buildings, including a friend’s childhood home in Kherson. “This is no longer a house, but a hole. I saw in Ukraine an entire theater destroyed – we performed in it,” he stressed. “I know these places very well.”
Before the war, Glebenshkov frequently toured Ukraine as a solo performer and as an aquarist. “Sometimes the reaction to our band in Ukraine was even more enthusiastic and loving than in Russia. It was just amazing,” he recalls. But he can’t see himself playing there now. “Half of Ukrainians think, ‘Oh, a good Russian is a dead Russian.'” I get a lot of emails like this. “
Other prominent Russian musicians also raised their voices against the war. Pop singer Alla Pugacheva is one of the best-selling artists in Russian history and currently lives in Israel. Last year, she spoke out against the invasion, challenging authorities to put her on a list of “foreign agents.” Others, however, either keep a low profile or actively cooperate with the Kremlin and its “Z”-themed propaganda.
Russia’s last aquarium concert took place in St. Petersburg in February 2022, the night before the invasion. “Some of the guys in my band at the aquarium suddenly became Z Patriots,” Grebenshkov said. “It was like playing at Woodstock and saying, ‘Yeah! Kill and rape the Vietnamese!’ Something just didn’t come together well.” I feel sorry for these people. What can i say? Some people think so, some people don’t. “
He has since quit the band and is currently touring as BG+. London is his base but he insists he does not live there as an immigrant or exile.
“Actually, no. I prefer living and working in London because it suits me better than St. Petersburg. I’ve been working here since 1988,” he said. He was born the year Stalin died, and for decades he was unable to leave Russia. “I spent most of my life behind a wall, and then suddenly I could leave. So it was my choice.”
When I interviewed Grebenshikov in 2015, he had recently been denounced as a fascist sympathizer by a pro-Kremlin TV channel for performing a charity performance on behalf of Ukrainian refugee children. But he doesn’t want to be seen as a political figure. “I wasn’t taking a stand, I was just trying to act normal,” he told me at the time.
Thinking of this, he replied: “Well, it seems that I am relatively wise in 2015. In my position, it is easy to write topical songs. Hundreds of thousands, maybe millions People, immediately react to that and say “I’m with you” or “I’m against you.” But those songs tend to disappear very quickly. I don’t like that! I want my songs to stay!”
He is known for his suggestive, metaphysical writing style. The concept of home recurs in his work, not only as a place of refuge and identity, but also as a place of oppression, a place of escape.
“At this moment, the country where I was born and the country that I love” – he pauses – “is in a very sad, tragic situation. Millions of people are afraid to think, afraid to speak out. We all know silence. It’s like cancer. It eats you from the inside and kills you. That’s what’s happening. So I’m not only trying to figure out how to help the Ukrainians, but I’m also trying to figure out how to help the Russians because they’re in a terrible situation.”
He cited the Socratic concept of eudaemonia, which he translated as a state of mind. “It means knowing when you go through life that you have done everything you can and everything you think is right. That’s what I have been doing with the aquarium for the past 50-plus years. In a world where words cannot be believed, words cannot be believed, A country of anything and everything, we are looking to build an authentic lifestyle. This is home.”
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