Short answers, pulled from the story.
Yuri Shevchuk formed DDT in the summer of 1980 within Ufa, a city in the Bashkir ASSR of the Soviet Union. The initial lineup included five musicians who operated outside the official state-sanctioned music system that dominated the era.
Members landed on a KGB watch list shortly after recording and were subjected to government persecution that banned their music from official channels. Government forces forced them into total secrecy while they continued to produce albums and give concerts across the country without financial reward.
Shevchuk recreated DDT with a new lineup including Vadim Kurilev on bass, Andrei Vasiliev on guitar, Igor Dotsenko on drums, Nikita Zaitsev on violin and guitar, Mikhail Chernov on saxophone, and Andrey Muratov on keyboards. This new group debuted at the Leningrad Rock Club on the 23rd of January 1987.
He traveled to Chechnya to perform fifty concerts for Russian troops and Chechen citizens alike as part of his duty as a citizen to address government strengths and weaknesses despite risks. The band also presented an anti-war program called Don't Shoot! on September 24 and 26, 2008 dedicated to casualties of wars.
The band released Pig on a Rainbow in 1982 containing elements of rock and roll, blues, and country music before shifting significantly over three decades with albums like World Number Zero in 1998 incorporating industrial music influences. Transparent released in 2014 continued this trajectory toward conceptual depth while drawing lyrics from traditional Western rock music as well as Russian folk, classical, and religious traditions.