Otava Yo

A group of professional folk musicians in St. Petersburg, Russia, spontaneously got together in 2005 and formed Otava Yo as a side project. They wanted to create new interpretations of Russian folk music, accessible to all audiences, and to revive old favorite Soviet tunes
After working on its "Russian beat" concept for three years the band released a new album, "Once Upon a Time."

Some call them "modern buffoons", others describe the music as "communal flat groove", and both are true. Otava Yo serves up its music in a vigorous manner with a good dose of humor, mixing up overdriven traditional Russian instruments with a stereotypical Russian look, which simultaneously frightens and attracts the tourists.
Witty song introductions emerged with the music, livening up already energetic performances. The band is very popular in its home city of St. Petersburg, playing some 80 concerts a year at various venues and events. 2010 and 2011 were especially successful - Otava Yo played at several well known European folk festivals, breaking records in festival CD sales and
meeting the President of Estonia; made its first music video; received an award from Bratislava’s Humor Academy; and produced a play based on Russian Christmas songs, to be released on an album in December 2011.

Instrumentation
Alexey Belkin - vocals, Russian fife, gusli (Russian psaltery), bagpipe
Dmitry Shikhardin - vocals, fiddle
Alexey Skosyrev - vocals, acoustic guitar
Petr Sergeev - darbuca, bass drum
Yulia Usova - vocals, violin
Timur Sigidin - bass guitar