In 1998, Mikhail Kozyrev was dismissed from his position as program director of the radio station Maximum. During a forced leave, he received an offer from Boris Berezovsky to establish a new radio station focused on Russian rock music. Kozyrev accepted the proposal. Thus, the new station, named Nashe Radio ("Our Radio"), began broadcasting on 14 December 1998 via the frequency of the news-oriented "Radio NSN", debuting with the song
V Nashikh Glazakh ("In Our Eyes") by the band
Kino. The station's playlist soon expanded to include
Aquarium,
DDT,
Alisa,
Grazhdanskaya Oborona, and other prominent groups. During its early years, the station also occasionally featured pop music acts such as Amega,
Leonid Agutin, and
Kristina Orbakaite. Kozyrev initially defined the station's format as: "We aim to be a bit too old for teenagers and a bit too trendy for people over thirty-five". This approach positioned Nashe Radio as an antithesis to
Russkoye Radio, then the sole major station broadcasting Russian-language music. On 10–11 December 1999, the first
Nashestvie festival was held at the Gorbunov Palace of Culture to mark the station’s first anniversary. The event became an annual tradition, solidifying the station’s cultural influence. Nashe Radio played a pivotal role in revitalizing
Russian rock, spurring the rise of a new generation of guitar-driven bands that resonated with youth audiences. His successor,
Mikhail Zotov, prioritized established bands already featured in the station’s rotation. On 9 July 2024, the station shifted its Moscow broadcast frequency from 101.7 MHz to 101.8 MHz to optimize radio frequency allocation. == Criticism ==