Nikita: We were born in Russia, in Pyatigorsk, that part of the country. That's where we were raised. I was six when we came over here, so I feel like as far as our heritage and our family, the way they raised us was still very Russian. In our house my parents really wanted us to keep the language, so you would speak only Russian at home. Hearing stories about how they suffered for their faith, those really inspired us and they really motivated us to make our music be something that's deeper, something that's encouraging, something that's inspiring to our generation.

 

Yan: Or even just being bold about what we believe in in our music.

 

Nikita: When we hear stories like our great uncle spending 20 years in prison for owning a Bible and my great grandfather hiding and all these different things. It just really inspires us to dig into God's word, but to also have music that's bold about His Word.

 

Ruslan: The reason I feel like it was important enough to put this track into the album, is that we wanted to stay true to our family and who we are, in our music. We are who we are. This is us and we wanted that to be blatant on the album and in music.
 

 

 

Nikita: Not just our grandparents, but our parents. What would happen is Americans would setup these radio stations right across the border in different bordering countries and they'd broadcast into Russia the Gospel and message about Christian sermons and Christian songs, because in Russia you weren't allowed to have any Christian radio stations. It's the iron curtain. The communists would try to build signals that would jam those signals out as soon as they found out there was a new station or whatever. My parents and my grandparents for generations they would listen in and try to figure out what's the latest pirate radio frequency.

So going from that to our music being clearly heard—like even on satellite radio that reaches everywhere—it's amazing. Even smaller stations all over the country... it's a clear signal in some of those smaller towns and it's just amazing that God took it full circle.

 

 

Nikita: That's the whole story.

 

 

Ruslan: The crazy thing about that hymn is that the author of it is unknown. I've heard several different versions of the song and actually it was written over 100 years ago by people that were in prison for their faith. That's why we decided to put that song on the album right before the song "Torch," because that's where we make the statement that this is what we're made to do. We're meant to carry that torch of faith for our generation, for the next generation.

 

 

Nikita: I can say what I see my parents going through. Sometimes my dad will travel with us and he'll do front-of-house sound. Sometimes we'll be playing a song or leading worship or whatever and telling people our story, and you would hear people singing back some parts and sometimes I look out and I see his hands in the air and he has tears going down his face. In moments like that I just get goosebumps because I know when he was my age, he was being chased by dogs for doing Bible studies out in the woods, stories like that. Or my mom, when she was in the hospital with us, she would be denied care because they knew she was a believer. She was about to have one of us and they'd be like, “Oh, let your God help you.” Just stories like that. To see them see how God is using us here, I think they're really happy. They tell us that they're proud of us.
 

 

Ruslan: For us it's really unreal and it's kind of a God story. It goes back to why we wrote the song "God the Impossible" in the first place because all of a sudden we found ourselves as a band playing these stages, playing to thousands of kids, having our song on the radio and releasing a national album. And 16 years ago when we came here, English was our second language, and now we're writing songs in it.

 

Yan: Back then even when we were growing up we'd hear these albums on Christian radio or one of the first records that we bought was Switchfoot and The Afters—like their very first release. Now we're getting to play with those bands. Sometimes it's kind of unreal. It's like, "Wow!" and "Why?".

 

Nikita: We're sitting here with this Creation backdrop at Creation Northwest and I remember VHS tapes, someone gave us a VHS tape of one of the Creation festivals. It was like 1998 or something. The Supertones were playing and we were jumping off the couches, like air guitaring to that. For us to be here now it's unreal.

 

Yan: Maybe for other bands or for other people it seems like not such a big deal. For us, too, sometimes because these great opportunities, you get them every day now, and sometimes it just flies over your head, but when you stop and realize what you get to do and the opportunities that you have it's like, "How in the world!"

 

 

Yeah. I think it goes back to what Nikita was kind of saying, what they were both saying about carrying the torch. I feel like that's our responsibility. We were passed down the baton. Now it's kind of like our turn to run the race, you can say.
 

 

Russian references from Everfound explained

• First track, "Pyatigorsk," is the name the town where the Odnoralov brothers were born in Russia.

• In the song "Unless," the Russian speech in the bridge of the song is translated as: "I tried to build my life with my own hands but always came to a dead end and only when I gave up and fell on my knees I understood that only the love of Jesus Christ has the power to resurrect my dead soul." According to the brothers, that is a word-for-word translation. "It's correct grammar in the Russian language, but sounds a bit weird when translated into English."

• The Russian rap at the end of "Take This City," which can be heard much more prominently in the live shows than on the record, simply says, "We will be a city of light on a hill if we get on our knees."

• The 10th track on the album, "Lubut Lish Hristos Bezmerno" is a hymn written more than 100 years ago that means, "The love of Christ is unconditional."