18 Facts About Zemfira

Zemfira Talgatovna Ramazanova is a Russian rock musician.

Zemfira has been performing since 1998 and has been popular in Russia and other former Soviet republics.

At the age of 4, Zemfira became interested in music and entered a music school the following year and writing her first song when she was seven years old.

Zemfira began to lose interest in classical music, preferring instead to hang out with friends in the streets of Ufa and covering songs by Russian rock groups such as Kino, Nautilus Pompilius and Aquarium.

At the urging of her mother, Zemfira continued with piano studies and graduated music school with honors.

Zemfira took the entrance exams for the Ufa College of Fine Arts and was admitted into the second year, studying vocal performance.

Zemfira graduated with honors, and in 1996 took a job as a sound engineer at the Ufa subsidiary of the radio station "Europe Plus".

In early 1998, Zemfira invited Rinat Akhmadiyev, Sergei Sozinov, Sergei Mirolyubov, and Vadim Solovyov to join Zemfira.

Shortly after Zemfira sent out promo tapes to multiple Moscow producers, one of whom was smitten with the material, and invited the band for some sessions in Moscow.

In September 2004, Zemfira began studies towards a degree in Philosophy at Moscow State University, but after the first semester she took a sabbatical and did not resume her studies thereafter.

Zemfira won in two categories: The Best Performance and The Best Album.

In June 2010, Zemfira wrote on her official website: "vacation is over" and announced a mini-tour to promote a deluxe-edition of her first three albums.

Zemfira offended some audience members by comparing Kyiv to Moscow, in that she had to work hard, rather than Odesa and St Petersburg where the crowd do the work.

In July 2015, Zemfira unfurled Ukraine's national flag at a concert in the Georgian capital of Tbilisi, drawing criticism from Russian media, while several promoters in Russia abandoned their plans to include her in their programs.

However, in 2016, in a concert in Lithuania, Zemfira demanded the audience to remove a huge Ukrainian flag that was unfolded by fans.

In February 2016, during her "Little Man" tour Zemfira announced that she would stop touring, which was misrepresented in the media as her abandoning musical performance altogether.

On 6 September 2020, Zemfira performed as a headliner at the Stereoleto festival in St Petersburg.

Zemfira is currently residing with her partner, Renata Litvinova, in Paris.