Anya Gerasimova (Umka) is a writer (philologist, translator), poet and songwriter. She tours the country (with and without her rock band) and, when possible, the world. She says, "I'm not a poet, that's not what interests me, and that's not what I write about," and poetry is "a byproduct of life, the brain's reaction to the body's life," and certainly not a profession. She holds a PhD in philology ("The Problem of the Ridiculous in the Works of the OBERIUs," 1989), compiled collections of works by Harms, Vvedensky, and Vaginov, and translated works from English (Jack Kerouac, rock biographies, etc.) and Lithuanian (T. Venclova, G. Patackas, G. Radauskas, etc.). She collects and publishes limited-edition biographies of interesting people under the brand of the defunct publishing house "Umka-Press." Laureate of the Master Prize (2017, for T. Venclova’s book “Metelinga”) and the Andrei Bely Prize (2022).