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Evgenia pays tribute to Nikolai Komyagin, the frontman of the Russian cult band Shortparis. He died recently — tragically and unexpectedly ay 39.

As Evgenia explains, he was a true poet — and a total artist. With his music and videos, he did something that no one else had done yet. He captured on a pure emotional level the feeling of Russia with its failed utopian past and its violent present and all the ideals and the people that got ground up and spit in the two revolutions — the Bolshevik one and the Market Bolshevik one it had in less than a century. Ironically, the last big thing Shortparis made was the soundtrack to Limonov’s biopic, Limonov: The Ballad.

—IBWR

PS: Evgenia recently wrote about Limonov’s prophetic view of Russian politics.

PPS: The song in the intro/outro is Apple Orchard (Яблонный сад).