As you probably know, the internet throws up some very interesting things. From the utterly disgusting to the truly beautiful, everything imaginable seems to lurk in its’ unfathomable depths. It’s a perfect representation of the collective human mind, and just like the human mind, there are some unexplainable things lurking in darkened corners.

You can imagine my hesitation then, when a good friend of mine sent me a video with the note “Look into this guy man, he’s fucked up.”

The guy in question turned out to be Стас Барецкий – Stas Baretsky. He’s a musician, and quite an unusual one. At first I thought it was a joke, but then I watched a few videos of him kicking off on various Russian talk shows, attacking other guests. Then I watched a clearly staged video of him attacking some Russian skaters/bad actors, which made me think he was a joke again. The man himself is huge, unbelievably huge, and has a heavily scarred face, as you can see in the picture above. My friend and I discussed at length what the fuck his deal was, and came to no solid conclusions.

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According to most of the information I can find on him, he began writing poetry at a young age, and apparently in Russia, poetry is a “Man’s game”. No sickening rants about unrequited love or the beauty of the spring, just harsh, brutal critiques of modern post-industrial life. Drawing from ‘Russian Chanson’ (Russian traditional ballads, which includes a whole sub-genre glorifying violence and crime) Baretsky produces various forms of electronic music. He has worked extensively with the Russian electronic group EU (short for Ёлочные игрушкиm, which translates to ‘Christmas Tree Decorations’) and has also collaborated with the Ska-Punk outfit Leningrad, who are often derided for their explicit lyrics, known as матерщи́на (‘Russian mat’, a general term for profanity in some Slavic languages) which seems to fit perfectly with Baretsky’s character.

I probably can’t explain this man fully in words, so here are three videos which I think sum him up in an approximate way. Firstly, here’s a video of him being a fucking nutjob on a Russian chat show:

[yframe url=’http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=msNQ2Fc_dpc’]

Next, is one of his music videos. The song is called ‘Money’ and I actually really like it:

[yframe url=’http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZ88LvraGc4′]

Lastly, is a video of an interview, which won’t mean much unless you speak Russian. I only include it to show you the part which begins around 2.46, which is completely at odds with the image portrayed in the rest of his videos:

[yframe url=’http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h–JyrqjI8o’]

Basically, I have no real idea of what is going on with this fella. I think he is simply a deliberate shock act, but with a twist that can only come from being Russian, and that’s the point really. He is a perfect representation of the cultural gap between the UK and Russia; He is huge, incomprehensible, a little bit funny and a little bit scary. Either way, I would urge you to do a little research of your own, because he is very definitely interesting.