The official date of Nochnye Snaipery's creation can be considered August 19, 1993 when Diana Arbenina and Svetlana Surganova met in
Saint Petersburg. Soon afterwards, they performed as an acoustic duo at the Second All-Russian Bard Song Festival, after which Arbenina returned to her home city of
Magadan, and the creative project was placed on hiatus. In November 1993, Surganova moved to Magadan, and for the remainder of the academic year, the duo gave concerts at a local casino "Imperial" and at the
Magadan University, where Arbenina was a student at the time. They also recorded a series of home concerts, given for the benefit of friends and relatives. These early recordings are quite sought out by the fans of the band. It is anecdotally accepted that the name "Nochnye Snaipery" was chosen after Arbenina and Surganova were walking to public transportation after a gig, carrying a guitar and a violin in their cases, and were accosted by a man wanting to know if they were walking "to hunt or from a hunt," thinking their instruments were shotguns. In May 1994, Nochnye Snaipery won a regional round of the All-Russian Musical Competition "Student Spring" and traveled west to
Samara for the finals, eventually moving back to St. Petersburg. While based there, the duo continued an active life of gigs, songwriting, underground performances, etc., building a loyal following. In 1996, Nochnye Snaipery took their first trip outside of
Russia to attend a student festival in
Denmark. Two books of their texts were published in the same year -
Цель ("Goal") and
Дрянь (Rotter) (called "anti-songs" by the authors.) In February 1997, Arbenina and Surganova added amplification to the acoustic guitar and violin and collaborated with the drummers from the St. Petersburg band Soyuz Kommertcheskogo Avangarda ("The Union of Commercial Avant-Garde"), Yura Degtyaryov and Alexei Ivanov, as well as with the guitar soloist Denis Doulitsky from the band Vacuum'. In June 1997, Nochnye Snaipery debuted on the Internet. Getting more notoriety, Arbenina and Surganova sought help from the bands Ulme and Kuzya-band in recording some of their songs, which later would make up the album
Detskiy Lepet ("Child's Babble"), published in 1999. After graduating from university, Arbenina and Surganova devoted all of their attention to professional music. In the summer of 1998, they used an auditorium at the St Petersburg Zoo to record their first official album
Kaplya Diogtia/V Botchke Meda ("Drop of tar/In a barrel of honey"), which was sold on audio tapes. They also acquired a manager (Svetlana Loseva) who organized the band's participation at the Sirin festival of female vocalists held in
Tyumen. Loseva also introduced Nochnye Snaipery to
bassist Igor Kopylov and
drummer Albert Potapkin, musicians from the iconic Russian rock group
Nautilus Pompilius, who began to perform with the band. By early 1999, Nochnye Snaipery were in rotation on radio and television in St Petersburg, and in May 1999, they had their first performance in
Moscow. Their first official website debuted that spring. The sound of the early Nochnye Snaipery is quite unusual in its choice of violin (and sometimes
flute) layered on the guitar riffs and rhythms, growing out of the acoustic traditions of Russian
bards, and evoking some traditions of
gypsy music, as well as some parallels with
country music. The song content concerns mostly love and loss, and could be compared to early
Ani DiFranco without the political overtones. ==Popularity==