[2] The band was formed on October 11, 2001, with the original members being Vyacheslav Butusov (former lead singer of Nautilus Pompilius), Yuri Kasparyan (former lead guitarist of Kino), Oleg Sakmarov (former member of Aquarium and Kolibri) and Evgeny Kulakov.

The band's namesake was the Roman god Jupiter, though they often stylized their name in a mix of Cyrillic and Greek letters: Ю-πиτΣρ (see: pi, tau, sigma, rho).

[3] U-Piter released their first single in November 2001, "Udarnaya lyubov'" (Russian: "Ударная любовь").

They released their first album, Name of Rivers (Russian: Имя рек) in March 2003, consisting of 11 songs written by Butusov.

The title of the album also is a play on the term "имярек", which is a placeholder name often used in official documents.