RUSSIA/FILE: Russia's rock legend Viktor Tsoi remembered 20 years after his death

Record ID: 757044

  • Title: RUSSIA/FILE: Russia's rock legend Viktor Tsoi remembered 20 years after his death
  • Date: 12th October 2010
  • Summary: CEMETERY WITH PEOPLE AT TSOI GRAVE FRESH FLOWERS ON TSOI GRAVE PICTURE OF TSOI ON GRAVE (SOUNDBITE) (Russian) FAN, VICTOR GRIGOROVICH SAYING : "It's linked to my youth, it's in my soul, inside my soul, I grew up with it, listening to him - it carries memories of childhood, of youth." 'VIKTOR TSOI ' NAME ON GRAVE GRAVEYARD MOSCOW, RUSSIA (RECENT) (REUTERS) PEOPLE WALKING PAST 'VIKTOR TSOI WALL' ON OLD ARBAT STREET PEOPLE LOOKING AT PICTURE OF TSOI PAINTED ON WALL MAN LOOKING AT WALL (SOUNDBITE) (Russian) 'KINO' AND TSOI FAN ZOE GANABINA SAYING "Actually he sings about fundamental things and I understand him." (SOUNDBITE) (Russian) 'KINO' AND TSOI FAN ARTYOM SINOGLAZOV SAYING: "I think for a rock musician he left life the right way and anyway he's still alive in our hearts." PEOPLE TAKING PHOTOS BY THE 'VIKTOR TSOI WALL' VARIOUS OF FLOWERS ON PAVEMENT NEAR WALL
  • Embargoed: 27th October 2010 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Topics: Arts / Culture / Entertainment / Showbiz
  • Reuters ID: LVADPPRN9WFPMVL4GPEGLJ5X035N
  • Story Text: Twenty years after Soviet rock star Viktor Tsoi died in a car crash at the age of 27, fans and musicians are honouring his memory.
    Fans crowded into a memorial concert in St Petersburg on Friday (October 8) in memory of Tsoi, who was the lead singer of the Soviet rock band 'Kino'.
    In the years since his death, Tsoi's popularity has grown - his songs are regularly re-released and covered by contemporary rock stars such as 'Zemfira'.
    At the concert, fans of all ages -- many just teenagers -- sang along to hit after hit, knowing every word of his songs.
    For the lead singer of St Petersburg band 'Pukh', Anton Pavlov, Tsoi is part of his own rock heritage.
    "In my childhood the pop music was quite awful, in the end of the 1980s let's say, and Viktor Tsoi was for me not a discovery, he was the only real one," said Pavlov, after performing 'Kino' hits on stage before an ecstatic audience.
    Tsoi's mother was Russian and his father came from North Korea. He grew up in a working class district of then - Leningrad and he and his band 'Kino' rose to cult status in the dying years of the Soviet Union.
    His biographer, Alexander Zhitinsky said Tsoi was a simple man from the streets of the Leningrad neighbourhood Kupschino.
    "He was naturally bright, talented, without a doubt. He made his own way in life and climbed up out of the ranks and that's why he is so loved and why he was loved back then too," he said, sitting in his office packed with Tsoi memorabilia.
    The band was formed in 1981 and in the early years performed in apartments as rock music was frowned upon by the Soviet authorities. But with the era of 'glasnost' and 'perestroika in the Soviet Union, Tsoi was able to find a bigger audience and by the time he died, was playing stadium gigs and had a mass fan base.
    With the heyday of Russia's homegrown rock music in the late 1980s, Kino was the best known of the so-called 'Leningrad wave.' Tsoi's death in a car crash in Latvia in August 1990 shocked rock fans across Russia and the Soviet Union. In St Petersburg his flat was turned into a cafe and museum called 'Kamchatka' after one of Tsoi's most iconic hits - a haunting, existential anthem to the far eastern end of the Soviet landmass.
    Fans gather at the cafe to watch old videos of 'Kino' performing, though many of them are too young to remember Tsoi and have grown up in the post-Tsoi, post-Soviet era.
    Today Kino's songs of ordinary life with its boredom, haphazard beauty and youthful energy are as popular as when he was still alive.
    His former manager Yuri Belishkin remembers Tsoi as a towering talent.
    "When you listen to him, when you remember him, one gets a good feeling. I've worked with a lot of famous, super famous, artists but none stand close to Tsoi," he said, speaking in 'Kamchatka.' His grave in a cemetery outside St Petersburg is decorated with fresh flowers and a steady stream of people visit the red marble column with its bronze bust of the young Tsoi.
    "It's linked to my youth, it's in my soul, inside my soul, I grew up with it, listening to him - it carries memories of childhood, of youth," said Viktor Grigorovich, after paying his respects at the grave.
    In Moscow new generations of fans gather to read the handwritten messages, gaze at painted portraits of Tsoi on a wall dedicated to his memory near the Old Arbat.
    Couples come on dates and groups of friends visit to take photos of each other.
    "Actually he sings about fundamental things and I understand him, " said Zoe Ganabina, a young Muscovite in her early 20s, visiting the wall on 'Krovoarbatsky' Lane with her boyfriend.
    For another young fan, Artyom Sinoglazov, Tsoi died as a rock legend and his memory lives on.
    "I think for a rock musician he left life the right way and anyway he's still alive in our hearts," said Sinoglazov.
    Musicians in Moscow also performed at a concert entitled '20Years Without Kino' last week.
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