Sviatoslav Vakarchuk in Cologne

Sviatoslav Vakarchuk is a Ukrainian rock singer, songwriter and musician born in Mukachevo in 1975. He founded Okean Elzy in Lviv in 1994 while studying at Lviv University and became the band’s lead vocalist and frontman. His work outside the band includes the albums Vnochi and Brussel. Okean Elzy supported Zemlya with a 2013 stadium tour through Ukraine, Russia, Belarus, North America and Western Europe. Vakarchuk and the band also performed at the Euromaidan protests that December. In 2014, they marked the group’s twentieth anniversary with large stadium concerts across Ukraine.