Ruzhena Sikora

Ruzhena Vladimirovna Sikora (; 20 August 1918 – 23 December 2006) was a Soviet traditional pop and jazz performer of Czech and Polish origins, highly popular in the late 1940s and 1950s. Sikora is credited with being the first Soviet artist to have started performing international jazz, swing and pop standards in their respective original languages.

Biography Ruzhena Sikora was born in Novorossiysk. Her father Vladimir Vladimirovich Sikora was a second-generation Russian Czech, son of a wine-maker Vladimir Sikora Sr. who in the mid-19th century left his country for Tiflis, Georgia, then settled in Abrau-Dyurso, Krasnodar Krai. Vladimir Sikora Jr., an accountant in a local cement factory, was a part-time opera singer, well known among the Novorossiysk connoisseurs. Ruzhena's mother, Veronika Adamovna Sikora, came from Poland.

In the early 1950s Sikora married pianist Viktor Goryshnik who became her accompanist on stage. In the early 1960s the pair suffered a serious car accident. Goryshnik died, Ruzhena Sikora spent seven months in hospital. Later the singer returned on stage, then married band leader Nikolai Taranenko. But giving full-time concerts for her was becoming more and more difficult and in the 1970s she had to quit, continuing to teach vocals, at the Central House of Artists in Moscow.

After the retirement, Sikora appeared on stage twice, first at the Alexander Vertinsky memorial, alongside Nikita Bogoslovsky and Bulat Okudzhava. Then in February 1993 music historian and writer Valery Safoshkin organized the Ruzhena Sikora special concert at the Moscow Central House of Artists. In the finale of this highly successful show the legendary performer Izabella Yuryeva rose on stage to present the bouquet of flowers to Ruzhena Sikora. Also in 1993 she was granted the prestigious title of the People's Artist of Russia.

Ruzhena Vladimirovna Sikora died on 23 December 2006 in Moscow. She was buried at the Khimkinskoye Cemetery.