A hit on the pirated records scene in the North Caucasus, patriotic pop artist Liza Umarova struggles to make ends meet in Russia's capital.
By Anna Malpas Published: December 24, 2004
For proof that pop and patriotism can go hand in hand, look no further than veteran singer Oleg Gazmanov, who regularly rolls out his hit song, "Officers," with lines like "For Russia and freedom to the end," on military holidays. Meanwhile, Chechen singer Liza Umarova hopes that her music calling for peace will win over audiences on both sides of the conflict.
Umarova, who lives in a small apartment in southern Moscow, put on a video of her recent concert in Grozny while preparing a traditional Chechen meal last week. In the video, Umarova was performing a song called "It's Not the End," her black hair hanging loose as disco-style lights flashed across her face. "You betrayed and let down my people," she sang before belting out the refrain. "It's not the end. I will build a new palace in my soul."
Struggling to make ends meet in Moscow with her three children, Umarova has yet to taste the high life. But in the North Caucasus, her songs "Arise, Russia," "Grozny Hero-City" and "Motherland" are widely available on pirated cassettes, and she traveled to Grozny last month to perform in a concert marking the 10th anniversary of the beginning of the conflict.
"I'm a peacemaker and a singer. I sing for peace, not only in Chechnya, but for everyone in Russia, because I'm a Russian citizen," Umarova said, stressing that she doesn't see herself as "political." Nevertheless, all of her self-penned songs are about the Chechen conflict.
While she has always spoken Chechen at home, Umarova mainly writes her songs in Russian, and regards Russian-language singers Anna German, Sofia Rotaru and Alla Pugachyova as her chief influences. But singing in Russian is also a way of spreading her message outside of Chechnya.
One of her newest songs, "Russian Mothers," calls for women from both sides to unite. "With our maternal strength, we will stop this inhumane war," the song declares. Umarova herself has a 14-year-old son, and she worries that he will be called up to the Russian Army when he turns 18. "Maybe over the next four years something will move forward," she said.
Umarova was brought up in exile in Kazakhstan, where the Chechen people were sent in 1944. The family returned to Grozny in 1980, but left again when the war broke out. A second repatriation in 1998 ended when the fighting resumed. Their house was destroyed, and the singer's relatives scattered across Sweden, Germany and other countries.
After studying acting in Yaroslavl, Umarova gave up the stage to get married. But she continued singing in private, and, in 1998, made her first recording. The song, "Motherland," sets words about Chechnya to the tune of "Liberta," a 1980s hit by Italian pop duo Al Bano and Romina Power.
"I think it cost $50 [to make the recording]," she said. "I was sewing, earning money to feed the children at that time. I sewed sets of linen swaddling for newborn babies. And I had a lot of cloth, rolls of cotton. I sold all those rolls at the market, on the cheap, and made back the $50."
"Motherland" became a hit on the Caucasian pirated records scene, although the singer herself often went uncredited. It was even picked as the anthem of the interregional peacemaking organization Echo of War, she said.
Umarova has managed to appeal to both sides by staying clear of partisan views. When she sings the line, "You will be free, Chechnya," in "Motherland," she has in mind "free from war, from violence, from barbarism," rather than a call for independence, she said.
"I'm not saying that Chechnya should break off from Russia. We always lived in Russia, and lived all right, as long as I remember. We need to grow up and then think about whether to break off. To break off when we were in that position, that was stupid," she said.
Last September, Umarova recorded another seven songs, but the album never got distributed officially. Instead, pirates took care of distributing the copies, and the singer estimates that half the population of Chechnya now knows her music. When she failed to find a copy at her apartment last week, she suggested downloading the songs for free from the Internet.
Ultimately, Umarova would like to find a producer to help finance an album, but in the meantime, she sells Chechen books and literature on Islam to make ends meet, with deliveries carried out by her son, Marat. "A woman told my friend that I must be rich, a millionaire," she said with a laugh. "I said to her, 'Did you tell her that I borrowed money from you to pay for the apartment?'"
While Umarova's story has been picked up by the Polish edition of Newsweek and by Russian war reporter Anna Politkovskaya for Novaya Gazeta, the singer does not get invitations to perform in Moscow. "Probably these kinds of songs aren't needed here," she said. "Mainly human rights campaigners invite me now."
No one from the Chechen government turned up for her Grozny concert, she said, and only one newspaper placed an announcement. Umarova believes that local publications were too nervous to advertise a concert marking the 10th anniversary of the conflict.
Russian newspapers have compared Umarova to Lyube, a khaki-clad rock group headed by Nikolai Rastorguyev, whose most recent hit, "Keep on Going," features a soldier encouraging his wounded comrade to fight "for the Caucasus." But the Chechen singer dislikes this comparison. "[Rastorguyev] sings because that topic is current, and he makes money from it," she said. "My patriotism comes from the soul."
http://context.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2004/12/24/106.html
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