Radio Record House Classics streams from a station that did not set out to become Russia's first dance-format radio network. It got there because the people listening in Saint Petersburg told it to.
Built From a Small Office in 1995
Radio Record began broadcasting on 22 August 1995 out of a small office in Saint Petersburg, founded by Lyudmila Reznikova, widow of Russian composer and music producer Viktor Reznikov. In its earliest days the station ran a mixed format, splitting airtime between pop, alternative, rock and Russian-language music rather than committing to any single genre.
Listeners Picked the Format
That changed when the station handed the decision to its audience. Rather than a programming executive choosing a new direction, Radio Record let listener preference drive the switch to dance and electronic music, making it the first Russian station to adopt a full dance format based on an audience vote rather than an internal rebrand. It was a bet that paid off: by 2011 the station was drawing around 350,000 daily listeners in Saint Petersburg alone.
An Empire of Genre-Specific Streams
Since 2004, Radio Record has broadcast by satellite across Russia's European territory, and the network expanded well beyond its original dance format, eventually adding trance, techtonik, drum and bass, and synthwave streams alongside a growing family of genre-dedicated channels. House Classics is one branch of that expansion, a stream built specifically around the house tracks that helped define the network's sound before its later genre sprawl.
A Mix Culture, Not Just a Playlist
Part of what keeps a station like this distinct from a generic house playlist is its history of DJ-mixed programming, exemplified by long-running segments like Megamix, where a resident DJ blends roughly a hundred tracks into a single continuous set rather than airing songs individually. That mix-first culture traces directly back to the station's 1997-era pivot, when Radio Record stopped trying to be everything to everyone and let its listeners point it toward exactly what it became.