Translation. Region: Russian Federation –
Source: Melody – An important disclaimer is at the bottom of this article.
Online sales of vinyl and turntables are growing in Russia despite high prices. Karina Abramyan, First Deputy General Director of Melodiya, and Oleg Nesterov, leader of Megapolis, spoke on Media Trends on RBC Radio about who's buying vinyl.
At the end of 2025, Melodiya announced the resumption of record production at its own plant. The company cited high audience demand as one of the reasons for this. According to First Data, online sales of vinyl players and records in Russia increased by 36% over the past year.
Karina Abramyan, First Deputy CEO of Melodiya, notes that the vinyl market remains niche and expensive, but has been growing steadily for about 15 years. The main drivers of demand are the 25- to 40-year-old audience and Zoomers, who are focused on "conscious listening." Record purchases are becoming part of lifestyle consumption: vinyl competes not with a digital subscription, but with going to the theater or a restaurant, and also serves as merchandise and a direct monetization tool for artists.
According to musician Oleg Nesterov, frontman of the band Megapolis, a digital signal contains "a mass of unnecessary information": "Our consciousness doesn't process it; our body rejects it. As doctors say, listening for more than three hours straight tires a person. Analog signals, that is, how a vinyl record works, are all waves, and their physics are absolutely consonant with the nature of the world, with human nature," says Oleg Nesterov.
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Melodiya is relying on its own press plant, archival releases, and high-quality printing, hoping for a long-term renaissance of the format and increased collector value. With high production costs due to imported raw materials and logistics, lowering the price of records is virtually impossible, so labels are targeting a loyal cultural core audience while simultaneously providing access to the same recordings digitally.
Evgeniya Stogova,RBC Radio, March 2, 2026
March 2
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