Egor Letov

Initially, he learned to play the acoustic and bass guitar and the drums, most often he was a drummer and bassist before the appearance of Gr.Ob.

After the emergence of Civil Defense, he also mastered the skill of playing the electric guitar, as in 1986-1987 he recorded as many as 4 albums alone, playing all the instruments and vocals.

After 1990, he also learned to play the synthesizer from Konstantin Ryabinov.

Yegor Letov has always been rude, but at the same time precise, he will not adapt to anyone, and is eternally disappointed in people

He loves animals very much, especially cats, they were literally his lifelong friends, and he believed that many cats would be better than some people

Egor especially loved to travel and be outdoors in his old age.

The general features were: a slender oval face, green eyes, brown hair, a thin build, a height of about 175

Between 1982 and 1985, he was a typical "grimy teenager" with a bun on his head, a sweater, and torn jeans, a feigned rebellious look that befitted his nickname "Dead Yegor"

Between 1985 and 1989, he had an aggressive punk look, with long, straight hair combed to the side, shaved sides, black round glasses, a tattered leather jacket with chains and badges, and jeans with classic sneakers. He also dyed his hair black.

From 1990 to 1994 he became empty and looked like an ordinary guy, a sweater, jeans, sneakers, still long but natural-colored hair, a light beard and square glasses

From 1994 to 1999, he started wearing leather jackets again, looked a bit like a punk again, but without the quirks of the 80s, he cut his hair and it was only shoulder-length, and he was already starting to age by the end of the 90s.

In the 2000s, he already looked 60 years old, with wrinkles, a tired look, and an ever-changing style.
Yesterday he was wearing an oversized T-shirt, today he was wearing a sweater, but one thing remains the same: sneakers. He only took off his glasses when he slept and at concerts (he generally has vision problems).

But then again, his work certainly wasn't for everyone; he pushed away the public with his political views, his directness, and his existence outside the system, its complete condemnation. He began giving interviews and appearing on shows.
And to give concerts even more frequently and globally, throughout Russia, together with Eduard Limonov's National Communist Movement "Russian Breakthrough." The main goal of his concerts and those of other "Siberian punk" bands back then was precisely to promote this movement. But at some point... when Eduard was imprisoned, like everyone else who promoted the Russian Breakthrough except musicians, and this movement was declared extremist, and Yeltsin and his "bloody regime" faded away, it seemed there was no one left to fight. After 1999, Letov, who was already over 40 years old, simply lost the meaning of the senseless struggle against injustice and rebellion. And then began the time of kind Grandpa Letov, who sang his old songs, taught everyone his views, and composed songs about the futility of existence, about a long happy life, about resuscitation and "Why do we dream?" , it was a key stage in his life, and the remaining 9 years, as I said, he was just trying to cling to something so as not to lose everything completely, but the fact that his group had long since become commercial, and his already quite advanced age, given his lifestyle, simply did not allow him to push against everything as before .. He just became a free flow, began to sing about goodness, about peace, about human ailments and thoughts. And during this time he wrote 4 albums, including: "Starfall" "Long Happy Life" "Reanimation" and the last "Why Dream?" in which in almost every song, although indirectly, he summed up everything that he did during the entire Civil Defense .. And in February 2008, a week after his last concert, he left this world at the age of 43, according to the most popular version of alcohol poisoning, suffocated in his sleep .. But perhaps he allowed himself to be taken voluntarily .. After all, "Nothing to Lose"

At the same time, Egor began taking psychoactive substances, inspired by the experience of the members of his favorite foreign group "Love", and in general, all of his music in Egor i Op. was permeated with the atmosphere of "Love", but in his style, he began touring around the world with concerts of Gr.Ob songs, evading KGB majors, and during these trips he learned a lot about Russia and its riches and even for some time practiced shamanism in search of a new self, but also the decisive point that forced him to change so much was the death of his punk girlfriend, and a participant in the civil defense (Gr.Ob.) Yanka Dyagileva in 1990, and it was he who brought her to this, because of him, Yanka drowned in the river, losing the meaning of life, and he understood this perfectly well, and during those terrible 1990-1993 he wrote only 2 albums in Egor i O. together with Kuzya U.O. And Jeff the Chewbacca, but what a bunch! And later, it seems, he finally found himself, and after 1993, he finally revived Gr.Ob., but in a different form. At this time, he met the leader of the National Communism Party, Eduard Limonov, and became a member of this party. He already saw the meaning in the revival of communism, and dedicated all his subsequent songs to his views on the world, and each of his songs was permeated with the atmosphere: "But it's time to do something!? We need to get off our asses and decide the fate of Russia." The sound quality also became normal, and the songs acquired their own special atmosphere and the lyrics became as direct and poetic as possible at the same time. These were the years 1993-1998, at this time Letov staged a global revolution with this revival, and finally he stopped being just an "anarchist" and punk, he became a philosopher, began to delve into metaphysics, literature, and began to act. During this time, he also released only two albums, both at the same time: from 1993 to 1995, he released "Solstice" and its sequel, "The Unbearable Lightness of Being." During this time, Letov also finally came to terms with his popularity to some extent (continued in Part 3 of the "description").

He was a great Soviet musician, poet, philosopher, soloist, anarchist, punk, and multi-instrumentalist of the 80s and 2000s.

Egor was born (originally his name was Igor, but he changed his name to the pseudonym "Egor" at the beginning of his career) in September 1964 in the family of a veteran and general of the World War II, he grew up as an ordinary Soviet boy of those years, he also had an older brother, Sergei Letov (still alive), but only little Letov from his youth began to be fond of foreign music and literature, already from the age of 14 he began to study poetry and wrote about how he saw the world around him, light stories and similar things, at 18 he and his friends formed a reggae-punk group "Posev" that lived from 1982 to 1985, and managed to give birth to 11 small albums, and safely fell apart when Egor, having united with his future colleague of all his life, Konstantin Ryabinov (Kuzya U.O.) in 1985 created a new rock group, to which he would devote his whole life, "Civil Defense", so It was called that. From 1985 to 1990, it was primarily an underground punk band releasing aggressive, raw, and primarily provocative music.
Letov himself changed a lot, and from a wild teenager he turned into an even wilder but purposeful man who found the meaning of life in condemning the Soviet regime and anarchy. In 1990-1993, the group Civil Defense broke up, in Letov's opinion then forever, and he did this because he was afraid that they would make "pop" out of him and did not want to appear in the media. In its place came an even more underground and mysterious group called "Egor and the fucked up ones." They chose this name to scare off the media reaction to this event, because the name was intentionally obscene. Letov himself after the 1990s greatly rethought his life, survived clinical death after the bite of an encephalitis tick, and realized that everything was going to hell, and found a way out in creating psychedelic post-punk with deep metaphysical lyrics and a mystical context. (continued in part 2) "descriptions")