Nikolay Ivanovich 'Kola' Beldy (Russian: Никола́й Ива́нович "Кола́" Бельды́, 2 May 1929 – 21 December 1993) was a Soviet-Russian pop singer of Nanai ethnicity.
[1] During the Great Patriotic War, he escaped through Khabarovsk to the front, attributing to himself two extra years, and became a cabin boy of the Pacific Fleet.
After graduating from an external music school, Beldy continued his service as a diesel engine driver on a minesweeper of the Pacific Fleet[2] In 1957, he became a laureate of the 6th World Festival of Youth and Students in Moscow.
[6] In the late 80s, he released the album "White Island"[7] with interpretations of folk songs of the indigenous inhabitants of the North in Russian; according to critic Alexander Gorbachev, "this gloomy electronics mixed with ethnic motifs creates a wild and mysterious atmosphere, akin to that which arises when listening to Western bands that participated in the industrial movement, but with taiga notes.
[4] According to musicologist and rock critic Artemy Troitsky he "scored with some tundra-orientated megahits in the seventies and is considered a hallmark of Soviet snow-opera kitsch".