Yury Khovansky

Yury Mikhaylovich Khovansky (born 19 January 1990) is a Russian video blogger, comedian, rapper and former Assistant Deputy to State Duma member Vasily Vlasov. He became interested in music during childhood and played bass guitar in amateur rock bands, and before starting his YouTube channel he worked as a promoter, a waiter and a courier. He created his YouTube channel in September 2011, initially uploading videos of foreign stand-up comedians with his own Russian translations, and his projects include a series of humorous songs called That guy with the guitar and four seasons of Russian Stand-up. He later recorded satirical music videos in gangster-rap form, released his first album My gangsta in 2017, and became a judge on the rap battle show Versus Battle. On 9 June 2021 he was detained in St. Petersburg in a criminal case under Article 205.2 of the Criminal Code for public justification of terrorism, related to a song pertaining to the Nord-Ost Hostage Crisis, and he was placed in pre-trial detention. He later published an apology for the song, was released from detention on 29 December 2021, and the criminal case was closed due to a statute of limitations on 20 July 2022.