 Kelmi believed that he most likely was Lithuanian on his father's side, explaining that there is a town in Lithuania called Kelmė, which is consonant with his last name.Kris took the nickname in 1972, after Dr. Kris Kelvin, the hero of Stanisław Lem's novel, "Solaris".Kris Kelmi died on the evening of 1 January 2019 at his Moscow Oblast home from cardiac arrest caused by alcohol abuse.