MK: 1/ Hi Yermen, please introduce yourselves first. Who are you, where do you live, what do you do?
YA: My name is Yermen Anti - a Kazakh poet and musician, vocalist and songwriter of ADAPTATSIYA band from Aktobe city in Kazakhstan.
Concert in Prague, 2024,(first time with whole band)
MK: 2/ Let's talk about the band ADAPTATSIYA. When did you form your band? What were your musical influences? What was the alternative/punk scene like in Kazakhstan when you started? How did you discover punk/alternative music in the USSR before 1989? I heard bands like Добровольцы Поневоле, 12 Подвигов Нуркена, Немцов И Немцы, Фима И Мифические ДБ, Алдар Косе И Надувные Баурсаки, Бьрнай Карабасов И Самозванцы. Were they at the beginning of the punk scene in Kazakhstan? Any chance of getting a copy of the Karaganda Garage Band Compilation/Central Kazakhstan's Underground Scene? I am still looking for it. But I am still looking for all 90s cassettes of Kazakhstani punk bands.
YA: We formed on January 1, 1992. I was 17 and I listened to punk rock - such bands as Grazhdanskaya Oborona, Sex Pistols, The Clash, Exploited. We knew that there are many bands in the former capital of Kazakhstan – Almaty, but mainly we got information of the bands from Russia, probably it was related to the fact that Aktobe is located 100 km far from Russia and until November 1991 we lived in one country – the USSR. Among the bands listed by you I listened to Aldar Kose and Naduvniye Baursaki, in 2000 in Saints-Petersburg someone played them at 45 rpm for me. Such a garage rock recorded for fun in Karaganda by some people unknown to me. I played there many times but when I made attempts to know anything about them, no one from locals could tell me anything. This often happens in this part of the world: when you come to some city and tell people about what a cool band used to be in their city ten years ago, and they have no idea what you are talking about.
Concert 1992
MK: 3/ Yermen, you play as a solo artist and then with a band. What are the differences between these two positions? Please, can you write down your complete discography here? Can you put both here - solo and with the band?
YA: In the 90s when there hadn’t been formed the club system yet, we often played our concerts in flats where I sang my songs accompanied by acoustic guitar. Further on, this became a part of touring: I went on solo tours to the cities where due to different (mainly financial) reasons they could not invite the whole band. At some point at solo performances I changed acoustic guitar for electric one, added delay and overdrive, and it started sounding more like punk. If you heard the early Billy Bragg, you know what I mean.
Concert in Prague, 2024
MK: 4/ When did you form the band? What does the
band name mean, what are the lyrics about? You call yourselves Nomadic Poetry
Punk. What do you mean by that? How did it happen that your poems were
translated into Czech? Who helped you to invent the book?
YA: For me lyrics always mattered. They are social themes, existential
protest, reaction to the surrounding reality and fixation of my existence in
this world. Nomad poetry punk is a link to my roots, I’m a descendant of
nomads, some call me Akyn (Akyn is an
improvisational poet and singer within the Kazakh culture) and this is partly
true. Before the war I led a nomadic life: travelled in vast areas of the
Eurasia and sang my songs in Vladivostok and Barcelona, Bishkek and Salekhard.
The war made its own adjustments to my touring geography: I refused from
playing in Russia, Ukraine has other things to worry about rather than
concerts, in Belarus the authorities suppressed independent stage. Only
Kazakhstan, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan and the EU are left. In March 2023 for the
first time I played in Prague, and the guys who arranged my concert there,
offered to issue a book of my poems translated into the Czech. Half-year earlier my book was issued in
Germany in German language. They are interesting projects, and I hope that
there will be something issued in English too.
Cover of Wheel Of History
MK: 5/ The first time I heard your band was on a
cassette (Wheel Of History) with a cover of a guy. Is that your portrait? The
music reminded me of the band Grazhdanskaya Obrona.
YA: I cut out this photo from the Soviet magazine called Family and School. It seemed to me that
it reflected my inner state when I was 18-20 years old, at that time those
songs were written. Also, it was a hint to the album of The Pogues – Peace and Love.
As for Grazhdanskaya Oborona, they had an impact on many people, during
the period of country collapse and total chaos, their songs helped survive and
go on creating. Koleso Istorii (History
Wheel) is the album of Adaptatsiya,
which was influenced by Oborona most
of all.
Book of poems and DVD cover
MK: 6/ Once I played at the Egor Letov memorial
concert in Prague, but I was a bit worried about playing there, because I know
about his leanings towards the National Bolshevik Party, and that is a bit
disturbing to me. In the end it was a
very nice concert with a very nice organiser. Grazhdanskaya Obrona - were they
really Bolsheviks or nationalists/fascists? Was Letov a member of the NBP or
did he "only" play at their events or whatever? Can you tell me your
opinion about this band? I know they had a huge influence on the punk scene in
the Soviet Union.
YA: Letov had a NBP party membership
card ticket number 4! And this exactly contributed to the big inflow of youth
to this party in 1994. I won’t be mistaken if I tell that half of NBP were young fans of Grazhdanskaya Oborona. The NBP project itself was an attempt of
Limonov* to unite the left and the right in the fight against a new bourgeoisie
and oligarchs who ripped out the country taking for pennies big factories built
in the times of the USSR. Letov joined NBP
exactly from motives of the left. Being a sincere person, he was very
disappointed in Limonov when at the presidential elections in 1996 the latter
supported a drunkard Yeltsin, who was behind the privatization in Russia. Since
then they hadn’t cooperated.
Concert in Prague, 2024
MK: 7/ What is your opinion about politics? Here
in Slovakia you can often read in the newspapers that there are a lot of
Russian trolls and Russian agents trying to destabilise the political
situation. What is your opinion about Putin's politics? What is your opinion of
the European Union, for example? What is Kazakhstan's position in relation to
Russia?
YA: I think Putin is the most terrible thing that happened
with Russia since the times of Stalin. And even Stalin was clearer as he had an
ideology but Putin hadn’t had any for long time and then in 2022 he found it –
an ideology of war, and as long as he has power, the war will continue. His
propagandists are fooling their people and prepare them for eternal war for
revival of the USSR or Russian empire. For a person with common sense this is
an absolute nonsense but for the half of Russian it is a reality. The EU in
spite of all of their problems is a community of countries the development of
which is directed to the future and the government doesn’t interfere the
private lives of their residents, there are political freedoms, access to
information. I’m concerned with the increasing popularity and influence of the
right-winged parties: from “Alternative for Germany” or party of Viktor Orban
in Hungary that are the conductors of Putin’s politics intending to weaken the
EU. As for the relationships of Kazakhstan with Russia, then one needs to take
into account the fact that we have the longest frontier in the world and
whatever’s going on in the RF, this will indirectly affect Kazakhstan. Yes,
Kazakhstan doesn’t support the war in Ukraine, doesn’t recognize Pro-Russian
formations like DPR or LPR but we are the members of several joint military and
economic unions, 15 percent of population in Kazakhstan are ethnic Russians, we’re
closely connected in cultural and informational spheres. The positive moment is
that for thirty-three years of independence in Kazakhstan has grown the
generation of people for whom such notions as the USSR or the Russian Empire
mean nothing, they were born and grew up in the independent Kazakhstan, they
speak Kazakh language and they are the future. The threats of the Russian
propaganda and part of politics about territorial claims to Kazakhstan do not
contribute to the friendly climate in the relationships between our peoples. A
big part of Kazakhstani society are against the aggression of Russia towards
Ukraine as they understand that imperial ambitions may be spread to our country
as well.
Album cover
MK: 8/ How was your last tour of Europe, what disappointed
or pleased you most?
YA: It was great! It was like as if I returned twenty
years back into the times when we first started visiting Europe with shows. At
that time, we played at squats and anarchist communes in Paris, Dijon,
Saint-Etienne. In Berlin our favorite location was Kreuzberg with its
atmosphere of freedom, creativeness, autonomism. This time we played at squats
as well: Kőpi in Berlin, Punkerspa Bagehl in Rostock. Also, for the first time
ADAPTATSIYA played in Warsaw and Prague, before I had been there with solo
concerts.
Album cover
MK: 9/ Do you know any Czech or Slovak punk
bands? Have they ever played in Kazakhstan?
YA: In the mid of the 90s we had workers from Czechia who trained local
builders to do as we call it “euro-renovation”. One of our fellows worked there
as a general laborer. The Czechs after knowing that he listened to punk-rock
gave him a cassette of TŘI SESTRY/ Three Sisters’
band. We liked it, such an energetic folk-punk.
Band ADAPTATSIYA
MK: 10/ Yermen, the last words are yours if you
want to say something. The interview will be published on my blog
MUZIKA-KOMUNIKA and maybe it will be printed in some fanzine. By the way - do
you have a punk fanzines in Kazakhstan?
YA: Our formation in Aktobe was called Aktyubinsky Punk Club containing around
ten different bands. The members intercrossed in the bands: I used to sing in
ADAPTATISYA but played bass guitar in Zapadny
Front band or played the drum in Muha
band. And also, there was and still exists my project in Kazak language –
BISHARA BALDAR. In 1999 we issued samizdat (underground press) called Alga and several more projects. At that
time, it was relevant, it served as an exchange of information with other
creative formations. After the Internet had appeared, the movement waned.
Nowadays I see fanzines only when I come to Europe.
Book cover
All the best to you and the band, may you be
successful. / Mišo