I wonder why.

Seriously, they didn't get the memo i guess :o

I didn't think there would be any due to the reasons stated by our friend above but a quick search on Rate Your Music suggests that there were a very few. Enough to count on one hand. None of these artists are listed on PA but deserve investigation.

http://rateyourmusic.com/customchart?page=1&chart_type=top&type=album&year=1970s&genre_include=1&include_child_genres=1&genres=progressive+rock&include_child_genres_chk=1&include=both&origin_countries=Russian+Federation&limit=none&countries=" rel="nofollow - http://rateyourmusic.com/customchart?page=1&chart_type=top&type=album&year=1970s&genre_include=1&include_child_genres=1&genres=progressive+rock&include_child_genres_chk=1&include=both&origin_countries=Russian+Federation&limit=none&countries=

I'm listening to the 1977 album by ARIEL whose debut album https://rateyourmusic.com/release/album/ариэль/русские-картинки-russian-pictures/" rel="nofollow - Русские картинки translates into Russian Pictures. This is clearly prog that should be on the site.

Vyacheslav Ganelin made an entire rock opera with Velnio Nuotaka

Probably the most ambitious example of Russian prog but sounds like he moved from Russia to Lithuania

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devils_Bride_%281974_film%29" rel="nofollow - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devil%27s_Bride_(1974_film)

The state was big on classical so they probably got away with throwing some rock into this by sticking to the playbook for the most part but sounds like a consideration for inclusion

Complete bullsh*t! It made my day. 

Seems your girlfriend lives in some secret city about 300 km of Moscow.

I guess Russian in this case means Soviet.

Actually in the 60s and 70s there were lots of bands, every university had several bands, every school had at least one band, factories and research institutes also often had bands. It was called 'samodeyatelnost' (amateur artistic ensembles) Yes, the term "rock" was forbidden, and they were called "vocal-instrumental ensembles", but they had the same drums, guitars, keys and, quite often, brass sections.  These university/school bands were not allowed to be paid for gigs. They could play at university/school clubs for their own pleasure, quite often they could get some money for playing at dancing floors, summer student camps etc. Later some of these 'amateur artists' became professionals and even nationally-known stars.

One of the most known bands (quite proggy track, btw):

To make living on music artists had to work officially in the state philharmonies. These so-called philharmoniс vocal-instrumental ensembles were extremely popular, recorded singles and albums (though not too often in comparison to their colleagues in countries like Poland, Hungary or DDR), toured extensively, played clubs, theaters, most popular bands played even hockey and sometimes football arenas. And there were hundreds of official ensembles! I have no idea why mentioned girl saw only traditional and patriotic choirs. 

Yes, official work had its limitations (i.e. censorship, the neccesity to play songs of "official" composers and lyricists etc). Thus in parallel with official ensembles rock bands with their own repertoire had to be in undeground until the early-mid 80s. After 1985 underground days were over.

Another myth: Soviet artists didn't have the access to records of Western rock music. It's only partly true. Yes, import LPs were available mostly on black market and were too expensive. But people made numerous tape copies (it was a big pleasure to have a copy recorded directly from LP, most often it was a copy of a tape copy). But anyway popular Western bands (from The Beatles, Stones, Chicago etc to fusion acts like Mahavishnu Orchestra) were known to music fans. Obviously, if ABBA or Deep Purple were household names, artists like Jaco Pastorius were popular among musicians and specialists. 

Add here radio, some Western LPs made by "Melodia" label by license and the possibility to buy in stores (and for reasonable prices) LPs of bands from Communist bloc countries (Hungary, Poland, DDR etc) where censorship was not as strong as in the USSR.

Now how proggy these bands (ensembles) were. Rarely they were pure prog. Leaders of many ensembles were from an older generation (i.e. fans of jazz in general and the band Chicago in particular), that's why most ensembles in early-mid 70s had a brass section. In the end of 70s - early 80s brass sections were replaced by synths. But many non-prog acts had some proggy songs, for example:

  

Why not too many prog acts in the 70's? 

First of all - the lack of instruments. Philharmonies could buy imported instruments and PA systems only for most popular acts (like http://www.progarchives.com/artist.asp?id=2284" rel="nofollow - PESNYARY and some others), the majority couldn't afford it. For underground acts it was even harder (via black market). 

Second reason - Soviet audience was mostly lyrics-oriented, i.e. quite often, especially in case of then  underground rock, lyrics in native language mattered more than music. 

If your girlfriend, born in 1980, knows better what was before and soon after her birth, be so.

But if you have questions I'll try to answer.

It should be in the main Lounge, it would get a lot more hits considering JFF is a hidden thread... and there's ceratinly nothing 'fun' about Russian prog 

Probably the same reason as the dearth of cutting edge funk emanating from East Germany in the 70's

When I was in Czechoslovakia in 1994(Communist, Husak was the leader) all the young guys were wearing leather jackets with "Iron Maiden," "Judas Priest" and other Western band logos & names....I walked past an ancient wood fence in the city of my grandfather's birth, Brodske (now in Slovakia) and saw "METALLICA" painted in huge letters.   It was the "peristroika" era in in the USSR.  

I think it was going on & we didn't get to hear much of it, but clearly, they had access to it.

p.s. this is me in Bratislava, Slovakia, posing with my evil twin, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin.  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lOfLoD6Rx7g" rel="nofollow - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lOfLoD6Rx7g

Also, I was in Soviet in the begin of nineties and bought there albums from Rolling Stones & Creedence, they´re Soviet-versions from their only record company melodiya.

Here´s also really great prog piece from Estonia from seventies, I think Soviet authorities didn´t let them record whole album:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7c5G-JYSEzQ" rel="nofollow - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7c5G-JYSEzQ

Thanks!  I really loved visiting over there....I was in Kiev during Breshnev years (1979) as well as Romania & Czechoslovakia....people were SO nice to us Americans, and we were very generous, handing out US cigarettes by the pack, giving money to little kids etc.  

I'm sure there were some amazing groups that never had a chance to record, music would have been a natural outlet for their frustrations and creativity.  

Well, I guess the Soviets had more control in Russia (and USSR in general) than in the East European satellitaire countries, because they had three more decades to install themselves....

However, my guess is that it (the "rock thing") was probably more underground than in CZ or Hungary.

This (great) near-biopic movie is instructive , because there was some kind of rock scene in Petrograd (St Petersburg) in the 70's & 80's

https://rateyourmusic.com/film/%D0%BB%D0%B5%D1%82%D0%BE/

Yougoslavia was really non-aligned during the cold war (the Tito years anyway), as I can remember and it was also opened to western tourists.

CZ and Hungary had rebellions (68 and 56 respectively), so the politburo in both countries had to be more lenient in terms of culture & liberties allowed. I understand the in Czekia, they even held a couple of rock festival during the 70's, but needless to say that there were as many spies attending as there was public.

Will the sickle (and hammer) be unbroken?

Oh, snap! 

http://rateyourmusic.com/release/album/ариэль/русские-картинки-russian-pictures/" rel="nofollow -

http://rateyourmusic.com/release/album/давид-тухманов/по-волне-моей-памяти/" rel="nofollow -

Thanks for mentioning these albums.