Vopli Vidopliassova ( ), also shortened to VV (), is a Ukrainian rock band. It was created in 1986 in Kyiv, in the Ukrainian SSR of the Soviet Union (present-day Ukraine). The leader of the band is singer Oleh Skrypka. Vopli Vidopliasova are the founders of Ukrainian rock-n-roll style and neo-ethnic rock. They first sang Ukrainian rock outside Ukraine. Their influences include folk, patriotic songs, punk, hard rock, heavy metal and, most recently, electronic music. Their song Den Narodzhennia is featured in the Russian crime films Brother and Brother 2 by director Aleksei Balabanov. Band member Oleh Skrypka has also produced several solo albums. In 2009, their record label, Kraina Mriy, released all their albums for free as a Christmas present. A lot of their early material (1986-1996) is in Drop C tuning. History The band was formed in 1986 by guitarist Yuri Zdorenko and bassist Oleksandr Pipa, who had played in the band SOS since 1984. It took its name from Vidopliassov, a character from The Village of Stepanchikovo. The band had their first performance at the Kyiv rock club on 30 October 1987, with vocalist and accordionist Oleh Skrypka and drummer Serhiy Sakhno. The name of the new group was suggested by Pipa, who was then reading Dostoevsky: the character Grigory Vidoplyasov, in the novel “The Village of Stepanchikovo" writes compositions, filled with 'howls of the soul,' that he calls “Vopli Vidoplyasova” (the screams of Vidoplyasov, , ). The group have used this transliterated Russian name since, however they adopted the Ukrainian version Volannia Vidopliassova (, ) for the Chervona Ruta festival in 1989. In 1989, the band recorded a session at the Faberge Hall of Culture in Kyiv, and released it as Tantsi. That same year, they appeared on the French compilation De Lenine a Lennon, the soundtrack to a French documentary on Soviet rock. In 1990, they released the album Hey, O.K on Kobza International and appeared on the Canadian compilation This Ain't No Polka (a recording of the 1989 Chervona Ruta) with the song "Tantsi". The following year, they played at the Eurockeennes festival in France, and the recording was released as Abo abo on BSA Records a year later. In 1991, Skripka and Pipa moved to France and would divide their time between it and Ukraine. In 1992, Skripka, Zdorenko, Pipa and Sakhno entered Komora Studio in Kyiv to begin recording what would become