As home port of the Russian Pacific Fleet,Vladivostok’s returning sailors provided the locals with tantalising glimpsesof a world beyond the then Soviet Union.

MumiyTroll founder and frontman Ilya Lagutenkoremembers, “They came from Japan, Singapore, and Hong Kong and would bring homeWestern albums. They didn’t really follow the charts, they brought the oneswith nice artwork. That’s why my first encounters with Western music were bandslike Genesis, Motorhead and Duran Duran.”

With his imagination fired by whatever illicitsounds he could get his hands on, a teenage Ilya formed Mumiy Troll in 1983. At the time, however, there was no sense thatthe band could ever amount to more than a kids’ game.

“We always knew we weren’t a part of that(Western culture)”, he explains. “We grew up with the idea that the SovietUnion was forever”.

Consequently, Mumiy Troll existed throughout the ‘80s as a semi-clandestine hobby.Two self-recorded albums were distributed among friends and like-minded people,and gigs performed to the same, necessarily limited, audience.

But as the ‘90s dawned, the Soviet Unionhad indeed begun to change. With restrictions on work and travel lifted, Ilyawas able to realise his long-standing dream to “dissolve myself in a different environment”.

Being fluent in both Mandarin and English,Ilya lived for a year in China as part of his degree course, and then, in 1994,in London, where he recorded Mumiy Troll’sfirst official album amid the heady atmosphere of the nascent Britpop scene.

Armed with a headful of ideas and the albumwhich would make him a superstar at home, Ilya returned to a Russia newly liberatedby perestroika. Not only did making a living from the band now seem like arealistic option, the internet was beginning to offer alternatives to thetraditional industry model.

MumiyTroll weren’t just one of the first bands anywhereto launch a website, they became, in 2000, the first with a sizeable fan-baseto give away an album as a free download; seven years before Radiohead’ssupposedly pioneering move with In Rainbows.

“We realised that our biggest revenue wastouring and that really depends on music distribution”, says Ilya, many yearsbefore the idea had taken root in Western thinking.

In grasping this new reality so quickly, Mumiy Troll found themselves at the forefrontof the digital revolution which would transform the music industry in thedecade to come.

Starting with the release of their firstofficial album in 1997, Mumiy Trollrapidly became one of Russia’s most popular and influential bands, and haveclocked up more than 100 million downloads to date. They were the first to appearon Russian MTV, represented Russia at Eurovision, and have won every nativeaward going including Best Russian Band of the Millennium.

Their success continues unabated to thisday, with tours selling out as a matter of course and their most recent album,SOS Matrosu, topping the iTunes charts.

As befits a true pop cultural icon, Ilya’sinterests and influence extend beyond music. He recently starred in afeature-length movie, which he also co-wrote, co-directed, and co-produced, andis the Russian representative of the Global Tiger Initiative, which campaignsto save wild tigers from extinction.

Having conquered modern, oligarch-era Russia,you might think Mumiy Troll would becontent with a comfortable routine of domestic touring, casino residencies, andprivate shows.

But to do so would be to ignore “the mentalityof the Vladivostok sailor”, which Ilya insists has always been his drivingforce.

Embracing this literally as well asmetaphorically, Ilya took the band around the world by ship to record their 12 official album, SOS Matrosu,stopping off in places as diverse as the USA, Japan,China, Singapore, South Africa, Germany and France in his unending quest formusical inspiration.

Before that could happen, however, Ilya wasforced to make some discoveries about his bandmates.

As members were struck down variously byalcoholism, mental health issues, homesickness, and accidents, and with somesimply bailing out of the project, it became evident that travelling by sea isa greater test of band cohesion than even a tour-bus, which you can at leastget off occasionally.

With typical pragmatism, Ilya views thisturn of events as a good thing; a form of purging essential to the future ofthe band.

Equally important was the experience of playingto small audiences in countries where they were unknown. As Ilya puts it, “Thelast thing I wanted to be was one of those bands who rest on their laurels. Forme it’s more exciting to start again, to feel like a new band with all thechallenges still ahead of you”.

This spirit of adventure, the oldVladivostok sailor thing, has led to MumiyTroll becoming a truly international band, with collaborators coming from allover the world.

Ilya’s love of oriental food wasresponsible for at least two. He met new keyboard player Sasha Ho (aka DZA) ina Hong Kong noodle joint, while Keefus Ciancia (T-Bone Burnett's pianist) waspersuaded to get involved over a bowl of Tom Yum soup in LA, the city whereIlya is now partially based.

Asked to describe SOS Matrosu in a singlesentence, Ilya calls it, “My vision of the modern pop world from urban Asia torural Africa – modern rock music from outside traditional rock territories”.

Clearly, Russia was only the beginning for Ilya Lagutenko.This Vladivostok sailor now has his sights set on the whole world.