Yuri Yulianovich Shevchuk - Soviet and Russian rock musician, singer and songwriter, artist and producer, and the founder and frontman of the DDT band.

Yuri Shevchuk’s creativity hinges on civic-minded and patriotic themes, along with social satire and protest. He has repeatedly and directly expressed his disagreement with the authorities. In particular, the singer stands up against demolition of historical buildings of St.Petersburg and collects information on the monuments of architecture lost in recent years due to commercialism. He is also known as an ardent opponent of modern Russian pops music, who denounces its aggressive soullessness.

Yuri Yulianovich Shevchuk was born on May 16th, 1957 in the Yagodnoe Settlement of the Magadan Region into the family of a military man. Then the family moved to Ufa, where his father was shifted. As a child Yuri developed interest in music and learned to play the bayan (Russian button accordion). After school, however, he entered the Arts&Graphic Faculty of the Ufa Teachers’ Training Institute, upon graduation of which he worked as a teacher in some village schools. Before the band DDT he had time to win a prize at an author's song competition, where he performed with an acoustic group, and for some time played in the band Volny Veter (Free wind).

The history of DDT band started in summer 1980, when Rustem Asanbaev, Gennady Rodin, Vladimir Sigachev, Rustem Karimov and Yuri Shevchuk got together in the local house of culture Avant-guard. The first two homebrew records provided the basis for the album Pig on the Rainbow (1982) which spread around the country and made the band known far beyond Bashkiria. In spring of 1982 DDT became the prize-winner of the competition Zolotoy Grammofon (Gold Gramophone). The second album of DDT - The Compromise (Komromiss) - was recorded in 1983. A year later it was followed by the album Periphery (Periferiya), which provoked persecution of Shevchuk and his band by local authorities, thus making the musicians leave the capital of Bashkiria. A year later Yuri Shevchuk moved to Leningrad, where in January 1987 the DDT with new line-up participated in the rock club’s gig. In spring 1987 the band was a tremendous success with the audience of the 5th Leningrad Rock Festival. In summer next year the band repeated its success at the 6th Festival and toured with shows from Baltic countries to the Pacific Ocean, and the Leningrad branch of the sound-recording company Melodia released a record of DDT’s best songs Ya poluchil etu rol’ (I have received this role) . Then, from the early 1990s the band reduced its concert activity, presenting, instead, thoroughly prepared programs (Cherny pyos Peterburg (Petersburg, the Black Dog), Eto vsyo … (This is all…) ) and regularly releasing studio albums.

On May, 27th, 1993, on the day of St.Petersburg, DDT gave an open gig on the Palace Square for the audience of over a hundred thousand persons.

DDT band was featured in the documentaries I have received this role (Ya poluchil etu rol ’) (1983) directed by A.Melnichenko, Rock (1987) by A.Uchitel, Game with unknown (Igra s neizvestnym) (1988) by P.Soldatenkov and The Quota (Limita) (1989) by E.Golovnya. Yuri Shevchuk played the lead in the feature film Day of the Spirit (Dukhov den) (1991) by Sergei Selyanov.

V.Ivanova