Aleksandr Kharchikov

Aleksandr Kharchikov was a Russian folk singer-songwriter noted for his controversial songs of Stalinist, nationalist, anti-Ukrainian and antisemitic nature. He is considered a hero and patriot by Nazbol and neo-Stalinist groups in Russia. He was born on 21 December 1949, in the village of Kensha, in Penza Oblast. He attended primary school in Saransk before enlisting in the Navy. During his naval service, he participated in 1968 in the Sinai war between Israel and Egypt, on the Egyptian side, and claimed to have been wounded. He graduated in 1974 from the Mordovian state University as an electronic engineer. Kharchikov, as a Saint Petersburg resident, was a leader of the 17 March movement proclaiming the "implementation of the March 17, 1991, referendum on future of the USSR " as its goal. Kharchikov achieved notoriety in the 1990s after his participation in a TV broadcast of the program "600 seconds", after which his cassette tapes and later CDs achieved wide circulation. He had a repertoire of nearly 300 songs, of which those with extreme chauvinist, nationalistic, Stalinist, antisemitic and anti-Ukrainian content became the best known part of his oeuvre. He sang in a hoarse voice styled after the Russian bard Vladimir Vysotsky, self-accompanied on guitar, or occasionally a synthesizer. He died on 7 January 2023 at the age of 73. The cause of his death and the location of his resting place are unknown.