In 1988 she stopped writing songs and switched to philological work and translations; in 1989 she defended her PhD dissertation about OBERIU literary group.

Umka and her band travel extensively; they toured in many cities of the former USSR and many countries abroad (USA, United Kingdom, Israel, Germany, Netherlands).

She published translations from German, English, French, but mostly from Lithuanian (Tomas Venclova, Gintaras Patackas, Antanas A. Jonynas, Henrikas Radauskas).

She has also translated several autobiographic books and interviews of British and American rock musicians: Keith Richards, Iggy Pop, Frank Zappa, Maureen Tucker and others.

As a professional philologist, Gerasimova published scholarly articles on history of the Russian avant-garde literature, including the legacy of the OBERIU members Alexander Vvedensky, Daniil Kharms and Konstantin Vaginov.