"In the morning I will go to other meanings": a pure trace of the Siberian underground

September 4, 1966 at Novosibirsk A rock poet, singer-songwriter, and punk queen was born Yanka Diaghilev. 

Raised in a family of engineers, she dropped out of the Institute of Water Transport and music school, preferring guitar chords, the lyrics of Marina Tsvetaeva and Anna Akhmatova, and her own humanitarian sensibility to academic confines. A meeting with Yegor Letov in 1987 ultimately determined her path—Yanka became the deafeningly honest voice of the Siberian underground.

From 1988 to 1990, her life became an endless road: recording cult albums, performing in Leningrad, and performing on festival stages from Tallinn to Crimea. Yet, Yanka categorically did not seek fame: she declined offers from the official Melodiya label and avoided cameras and journalists.

On stage, she seemed the antithesis of pop standards—resembling a vulnerable teddy bear, she moved the audience to tears. People at her concerts wept because Yanka sang about what others were afraid to admit, and she saw the world with its naked truth.

The spring of 1991 proved tragic for Dyagileva. After suffering depression and the death of her half-brother, Yanka recorded her last songs. On May 9, 1991, she left her dacha near Novosibirsk and never returned. A week later, her body was found in the Inya River. Whether it was suicide, murder, or an accident remains a question that remains unanswered.

Yanka Dyagileva was only 24 years old. More than a thousand people attended her funeral in Novosibirsk. Leaving behind no glossy interviews or television recordings, Yanka left behind the most important thing: an impeccably pure poetic trace that still resonates in the hearts of those who truly need it.

Together with #notradio_NotMoscow, we recall Diaghileva's lines, which remain relevant and fit the mood of today's reality.