In October and November, avant-garde music duo Vtoroi Ka will be touring Europe, from Istanbul to Reykjavík. This is the first tour of its kind for a popular music band from Kyrgyzstan, and represents another significant milestone in its burgeoning career. 

Like the rest of Central Asia, Kyrgyzstan is experiencing a pop music boom, partly thanks to its growing presence on international streaming platforms. However, local artists still lag behind those in neighbouring Kazakhstan, which has long established itself as a pop culture powerhouse, even winning a Grammy Award. Although Kyrgyzstani artists frequently perform concerts abroad, their audiences are usually limited to members of the Central Asian diaspora. 

The innovative Bishkek music duo Vtoroi Ka is now embarking on an ambitious tour to change that. From 17 October to 12 November, the band will perform in eleven different countries on sixteen dates, taking them from Istanbul to Reykjavík. This tour is unprecedented for a contemporary music band from Kyrgyzstan and represents a watershed moment for the local music scene. For Vtoroi Ka, however, it is the next logical step in their burgeoning career.

The organisers of the Iceland Airwaves festival in Reykjavík, at which Vtoroi Ka will perform on 7 November, share this opinion. In their presentation on the festival website, they express their strong conviction about their future career: ‘With the momentum building as it is, it won’t be long before Vtoroi Ka are the name at the tip of the tongue of your cooler best friend’s lips.’

Bakai Kolchaev, the band manager and director of Infinity Music, the leading music distributor in Bishkek, explains that the idea of a European tour had been in the air for some time, given the band’s growing international fan base. ‘We carefully examined the indicators in various countries in Europe and beyond – the figures showed that there is considerable interest,’ Bakai told Novastan. He added that the band is streamed particularly often in countries such as Germany, France, Poland and Spain.

Hip-hop in southern Bishkek 

Vtoroi Ka was founded in the mid-2010s by Sultan and Ilya in the Asanbay district in the south of Bishkek. The two school friends had met some ten years earlier – the band’s name refers to the designation of that class, ‘2K’. They started creating underground rap music with homemade beats in their home studio and releasing it on YouTube and local platforms, some of it accompanied by self-made music videos.

This led to the release of their debut EP, Iz Okna (‘From the Window’), in 2017. Eventually, they took it down from streaming services because they were no longer happy with the quality. However, the eponymous single, complete with music video, can still be found on YouTube, offering a glimpse into the group’s early work. 

The duo was already contemplating breaking up in early 2020 when they made their first local hit with the single Resnitsam stalo tyazhelo (‘My Eyelids Turned heavy’). Six months later, they released their first ‘official’ album, Den’ Zavisimosti (‘Dependence Day’). This musically rich hip-hop record introduces the band’s everyday life, their business, and their longings in their ‘hood’, the microdistrict of Asanbay.

As they gained immediate acclaim in the local hip-hop scene, Sultan and Ilya had already turned to writing completely different music. Their second album, Serial, released in 2022, still contains a few rap tracks, most notably the single 39 Shkola (‘39th School’), dedicated to a Bishkek school renowned for its performances in street battles at the time. However, with its portrayal of intense teenage life, the album already shows strong signs of musical eclecticism. Fans of 2000s pop rock will also find plenty to enjoy here.

Always on the move

In July 2022, the single Teni ot Palm (‘Palm Shadows’) marked the next breakthrough. With its memorable bass line, the track became a summer hit, gaining popularity far beyond Kyrgyzstan. To this day, it remains Vtoroi Ka’s most-listened-to song. The accompanying music video featured Sultan and Ilya in bizarrely old-fashioned gangster roles for the first time, a concept they continued to develop in subsequent years. For example, the track Vstrechayte Govnyukov (‘Welcome the shitheads’), released in early 2023, was accompanied by a retro-style music video, in which the two artists portray themselves as troublemakers who arrive in your city with a ‘whole squad’ and their ‘live live-band’.

Read more on Novastan: Sex, Drugs, and Postpunk – the new album of Bishkek’s Duo Vtoroi Ka

From then on, ‘always on the move’ became the motto for both Vtoroi Ka and for their artistic gangster characters. Sometimes they appear as elusive fugitives, as in the single Gde-to za granitsey (‘Somewhere Abroad’), sometimes as hustlers who are always on the lookout for the next big coup, as in Tonirovannyi Kaban (‘Tinted Benz’), in which the two set off with their business partner ‘Real Bayke’ (played by Bakai) to conquer Saint Petersburg. This also marked the beginning of the band’s travels, with parts of the videos being shot during their first concerts in Russia.

By that time, Vtoroi Ka had already been on the radar of Russia’s leading music critics for a while. In July 2022, the hip-hop magazine The Flow first reported on the two ‘newcomers’. Journalists such as Nikolaj Redkin and Danya ‘Pornorap’ publicly expressed their enthusiasm for the ‘incredibly stylish shitheads’ who produced the ‘best music videos of the past year [2023]’.

Post-punk and rave

Vtoroi Ka made their definitive breakthrough in the Russian-speaking world with the album Svinaya Poputka (literally a ‘Piggy Ride’), released in April 2024. With their post-punk-inspired yet consistently colourful and ironic tracks, the band clearly struck a chord. The album topped The Flow’s Top 50 ranking for that year and appeared in several other best-of lists.

However, that success did not stop the group from reinventing themselves time and again. They announced the end of their post-punk phase on social media when they released the album. Indeed, the GO PUBE EP, released in March 2025, shows them moving more towards electronic music. Their visual aesthetic has also evolved, away from the image of leather jacket-wearing gangsters. Instead, it revolves around a psychedelic, imaginative reinterpretation of everyday Kyrgyz motifs. 

Such elements can already be found in earlier music videos, such as Dura (‘Silly Girl’) and the video for Soundcheck, and their latest single, Minimum iz sta (‘Minimum out of a Hundred’). Reminiscent of the early noughties in both music and visuals, this latest piece also announces their upcoming album, Svobodnye Dvizheniya (‘Free Movements’).

Kyrgyz carnival 

These new directions are also accompanied by geographical expansion. Following a mini-tour of Russia in May 2025 and appearances at several festivals in China in August, Vtoroi Ka are now moving Westwards with their ‘whole squad’ and their ‘live live-band’.

With all these musical metamorphoses, even More Zvukov, the Berlin booking agency organising most of the tour, finds it difficult to assign the ‘innovative’ band to a genre. The promotional text states that they are ‘known for their unique blend of electronic, alternative, and indie sounds. Combining experimental beats with heartfelt lyrics, Vtoroi Ka creates music that transcends genres, resonating with listeners across diverse cultural landscapes.’

Nevertheless, there are some constants that have given the collective a clear identity over the years, whether their music features raw trap beats, melancholic basslines or powerful electro. Throughout their work, they present themselves and their surroundings in a lighthearted and self-ironic manner, without resorting to slapstick. Their combination of quirky motifs and artistic precision gives their work a very carnivalesque quality.

Nevertheless, their carnival is unmistakably Kyrgyz. These musical globetrotters have always maintained strong ties to their hometown of Bishkek. From the start, they have been ambitious to create a distinctive Bishkek sound. The Russian used in their lyrics is a Kyrgyzstani Russian, full of terms that prompted the journalist interviewing them for The Flow to ask several follow-up questions. The two are also eager representatives of Kyrgyzstan in their visual language, creating their own unique imagery full of playful details that stand out from tourist clichés. 

Art director Yuliya Petrova, who has been working with Vtoroi Ka since 2021, has certainly played a part in creating this visual world. She has also directed most of the band’s recent videos. The team around the musical all-rounders Sultan and Ilya, who write, record and mix their own music and lyrics, has also further grown.

Full venues and real energy

Their session musicians, who are featured in various live videos, such as this reinterpretation of their hit Teni ot Palm, include a drummer, a guitarist and a sound engineer. There is also a communications officer, and Bakai, the manager who takes care of all organisational matters ‘so that the musicians can concentrate fully on their art.’

‘Vtoroi Ka is a large team that takes music and image seriously,’ Bakai summarises. He believes that their growing success, manifested in tens or even hundreds of thousands of listeners in different corners of the world, is only ‘natural as they do everything honestly, deeply and to a high standard.’

During the tour, Bakai continues, he hopes for ‘full venues and real energy.’ In this respect, at least, some of the upcoming tour dates are looking promising: one of the two Berlin concerts and the Hamburg concert sold out weeks before the start of the tour. 

Click here for the list of Vtoroi Ka’s tour dates.

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Florian Coppenrath for Novastan