Best Selling Musical Artist Ever

I know what you are thinking: Madonna. Well no, it's Russia's Alla Pugacheva. According to Encyclopædia Britannica, she sold more records than Michael Jackson: over 250 million. She did have the advantage of performing in a tightly controlled market but even under Communists nobody was making Russians buy any particular artist's records, so the tally is fair.

Throughout her career spanning over 40 years she has reinvented herself on many an occasion and stayed immensely popular in the Russian-speaking world. Author of many of her songs, she's quite a Russian phenomenon and just like our greatest national poet Pushkin is untranslatable.