Yuri Metelkin

Yuri Ivanovich Metelkin (Юрий Ива́нович Метёлкин, sometimes Metyolkin; born June 27, 1953, Gomel) is a Soviet and Russian musician, poet, vocalist and one of the founders of the popular Soviet musical group VIA Sinyaya Ptitsa. Author of several non-commercial Internet projects —  “Old Radio”, “Audiopedia”, “Witness”, etc.

Bioraphy
Yuri was born on June 27, 1953, in Gomel in the Belarusian SSR. Father Ivan Ivanovich Metelkin (1922–1992) — participant in the Great Patriotic War, driver. Mother  Valentina Mikhailovna Abrosimova (born 1925) —  accountant.

After graduating from high school in 1971–1974, he studied at the department of cultural and educational work of the Gomel Music and Pedagogical School, in 1983–1987 at the faculty of the same name at the Moscow State Institute of Culture.

Since 1972, lead singer of Sinyaya Ptitsa. In July 1977, for creative reasons, Metelkin left VIA and moved to Moscow. Subsequently, until the start of perestroika, he worked in various musical groups of the Moscow Association of Musical Ensembles (MOMA), including 12 years as a vocalist, as part of an ensemble led by jazz pianist Gabil Zeynalov.

In the 90s, he was forced to leave the profession and was engaged in various forms of commercial activity. In 2007, he began to conduct a non-profit cultural Internet project “Old Radio” and “Audiopedia”, related to the search, restoration, preservation and provision of universal and free access to the radio heritage of the “Golden Age of Radio Theater”. Metelkin is an ideologist of shortening the term of copyright and the speedy transfer of the cultural heritage of the peoples of the USSR for public use (public domain).

In April 2013, Metelkin donated 30 thousand reels of magnetic film with stock recordings of the USSR to the State Television and Radio Fund.

Personal life
He was married to Tatyana, the sister of his Sinyaya Ptitsa colleague Vladimir Shurygin.

Awards and honours

 * Moscow Oblast Governor Award 2014
 * Free Knowledge Award 2016