Hey Adam: The documentary you reference, about Paul Pena is called "Genghis Blues."
I agree it's a great story, but I don't think any videos were made beyond the documentary itself. I know one of the producers, and I think he would have mentioned it to me.

I contacted the record label of the Shin and here's the reply:
"......luckely they were on tour in Germany when the Russians marched
into Georgia, and we decided with their personal manager to keep them
here for a few weeks until the situation becomes better ( we really hope!!).
it was also lucky that they received an offer to record a song for a
commercial in Switzerland (for an insurance company) so they have some extra
income while they are here."

We'll see about those bands (I think we had a Kazakh intern who sent me a bunch of links to some of these bands videos on the net)...just be aware that getting the videos, and licensing them is a tortuous process in some cases, as it can take months to get a good communication going. But I'll let you know if anything comes through.

Michal

Yekaterinburg, the biggest city in the Urals, is one of the centers of Russian rock--the other being St. Petersburg. Rock bands hailing from that city are Urfin Dzhyus, Chayf, Chicherina, Nautilus Pompilius, Nastya, Trek, Agata Kristi, and Smyslovye Gallyutsinatsii. Certainly one of these bands will have a cool video.

Hope that helps, Michal.

If I remember correctly, there was an American bluesman named Paul Pena who learned, then mastered, Tuvan throat singing. Unfortunately, he is dead now so we can't contact him. Wikipedia has a really good article about Paul Pena. Perhaps there is video of him out there?

WHOA, ADAM! I don't think you now how hard it is to get the videos we DO have! (BTW, you left out Kyrgyzstan) Of course, we'd like to show Huun Hur Tu or Yat-kha, but the videos we have seen of them are simply not that good, and we refuse to show a bad video. Tell you what-- if there's a group from the Caucasus, Ural and Aral sea regions that you think is super cool, let us, know. We'll see if they have a good video, and if they do,I promise we'll try to get it.

Michal

It's great to see videos from all the parts of the old USSR: Moldova, Armenia, Georgia, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, and yes, Russia itself. But there are so many different ethnic groups contained within the Russosphere. How about some videos from the ethnicities in the Caucusus, Ural and Aral Sea regions? Or better yet, a video featuring Tuvan throat singing? That's one music form I have yet to see you cover!