Mirage (, Mirazh) is a soviet Russian pop group founded in Moscow in 1986 by Russian composer-keyboardist Andrey Litjagin. Biography 1986—1988 Mirage borrowed their musical style from other disco groups of the time such as Modern Talking and Bad Boys Blue. Gulkina and Suhankina shared vocals on the debut album The Stars Await Us (Russian: Звёзды нас Ждут) . The group toured without Suhankina, who was attempting a career as a professional opera singer, and using her pre-recorded vocals on the tour. The success of the first album increased demand for the band to make live appearances. Litjagin decided to create several "doubles" of Mirage to simultaneously tour different Russian cities, with the vocalists performing along with the studio session recording done by Gulkina and Suhankina. Among the new performers on stage were guitarist Igor Ponomarev, keyboardist Roman Zhukov, drummer Sergei Solopov, dancer Svetlana Razina (also the girlfriend of Litjagin), and "vocalists" Tatiana Ovsiyenko and Irina Saltykova. Financial and creative disagreements led to Gulkina quitting the group in 1988. After the separation, Gulkina felt entitled to perform under the name Mirage, as she had provided most of the vocals. Litjagin and Sokolov prevailed in the Mirage name use issue; Gulkina formed a new group called Stars. The second album Together Again (Russian: Снова вместе) was released in 1988 with only Suhankina featured on lead vocals. The album had greater success than the first. The talent of guitarist Alexey Gorbashov, helped the band project a more professional sound. The combination of Mirage's trademark Euro disco sound with the guitar rock stylings of Gorbashov created a new style of music in Soviet Russia. The best known songs of the group were part of the album including Music has connected us (Russian: Музыка нас связала) and Together again (Russian: Снова вместе). The tour for this album featured the band performing along to studio-recorded vocals, and such was noted by the media. 1991—present In 1991, Ekaterina Boldysheva joined the group. She was the first vocalist to perform live with the group, having previous professional experience. Mirage song remixes were made of the group's then two albums that included Boldysheva's vocals and issued in 1994. She sang on what was to be the group's third studio album, Not for the first time (Russian: не в первый раз) which was completed in 2004, but released in 2008 due to the difficult economic climate of the time.