On February 13, 2015, on his birthday at the Mongolian embassy in the Russian Federation, he received the “For the Motherland” award of the 1st degree. This honor was honored after the tour in Mongolia in May 2014 as part of celebrating the 75th anniversary of the victory at Khalkhin-Gol. On the same day, Maxim received the “Chart Dozen” prize in the “Legend” nomination as part of the “Sekret” beat-quartet.

Periodically continues cooperation with the group “Sekret” (mainly during the jubilee dates of the group). In 2012, musicians began to record new songs. In 2013, released the first 16 years of the album “Sekret 30”, and in 2014 – “Vsyo eto i est lyubov.” In addition to the title track, the songs “Zabey” and “Na lyuboi storone zemli”, to which the clips were released, became known.

Its current name was received only in 2003 – with the release of the album Hippopotazm. The album’s name, in its turn, came about by chance, thanks to one of the songs included in it – “Hippopotam”. According to musicians, Vladimir Gustov, scoring the name of the song in the computer, accidentally made a typo by pressing the “Z” key – and this word arose. Then Maxim and Co. decided to call themselves “Hippoband”, and the logo of the group was decorated with a hippopotamus (“totemic animal”). The composition of the band has not changed since 1997, when the first drummer of the collective Evgeny Lependin moved to Moscow to work with Vladimir Presnyakov Jr., and his place was taken by a young musician Yuri Sonin.

Maxim Leonidov’s group “Hippoband” was founded in March 1996, after the return of the musician from Israel. In May of the same year their first concert was held.

In late 1990, along with his first wife, Irina Selezneva, he immigrated to Israel. Until 1996 he lived and worked in Tel Aviv, after which he returned to St. Petersburg.

In 1990, after leaving Sekret, Maxim Leonidov’s solo album was recorded with the group “Collected Works”, 6 songs in English, but there is no information that it was ever released on a record or CD.

After leaving the group in 1989, Maxim Leonidov began a solo career.

In 1983 he graduated from the Russian State Institute of Performing Arts, the course of Arkady Katsman and Lev Dodin. He served in the army, in the Song and Dance Ensemble of the Leningrad Military District, together with Nikolai Fomenko and Yevgeny Oleshev.

In 1983, he became one of the founders of the popular “Sekret” beat-quartet (Maxim Leonidov, Nikolai Fomenko, Andrei Zabludovsky, Alexei Murashov), who started working professionally since 1985.

In 1979 he graduated from the Glinka Choral School under the Leningrad State Academic Chapel.

Maxim Leonidovich Leonidov (Russian: Максим Леонидович Леонидов ; born February 13, 1962) is a Soviet and Russian musician, singer, actor, songwriter and TV presenter, known as one of the founders and members of the beat-quartet Sekret, and subsequently as a solo artist. In 1997 he won the Golden Gramophone Award.

Maxim Leonidovich Leonidov was born in the family of actors of the Leningrad Academic Comedy Theater, Honored Artist of the RSFSR Lyudmila Lyulko (July 10, 1923 – October 25, 1967) and one of the famous skit pioneers Leonid Yefimovich Leonidov (real name Shapiro, March 27, 1927 – April 30, 1996).