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"Televizor" band // The Lumier Brothers Photography Center in Moscow has opened an exhibition dedicated to Leningrad rock'n'roll. It recalls events of the late 1970s – early 1990s when the so-called Leningrad rock club was shaped.
Dmitry Konradt
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"Nol" band // The organizers tried to collect earlier unknown works by the best photographers of the cultural underground of Saint Petersburg.
Valery Potapov
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Sergey Kurekhin // Exhibition presents posters, bills, covers of albums by rock bands, which appeared at that time in Leningrad – such as Kino, Alice, DDT, Auktsyon, and many others.
Viktor Nemtinov
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Oleg Garkusha // The Lumiere Photography Center’s owner Edward Litvinsky pointed out that when these remarkable people began to appear in the Leningrad rock club, they changed not merely musical life of the country, they changed mentality of the whole generation.
Igor Mukhin
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Boris Grebenchikov // Vremya Kolokolchikov (Time of hand bells) isn't just an exhibition but a grand project, which will last for two more months. During this period visitors will be able to watch see some movies, as well as take part in workshops and listen to concerts.
Dmitry Konradt
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Evgeniy Fedorov // The 1980s saw the explosion of Russian rock, and Leningrad was its cradle. An underground scene of rock artists emerged that based their style on a mix of Western rock music and the Russian bard tradition.
Igor Mukhin
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Mike Naumenko // Russian rock was also influenced by the Leningrad art group "Mitki" and the Western hippies.
Natasha Vasilieva
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Alexander Bashlachev // The lyrics of the Soviet rock bands often dealt with the darkest sides of the 80s Soviet life such as domestic violence, alcoholism and crime, and often carried a hidden political message.
Dmitry Konradt
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Konstantin Kinchev // Soviet rock bands bands were consequently ignored by the mainstream radio and television, often reaching audiences only through word of mouth. The monopoly for the music publishing in the USSR belonged to Melodiya, the one and only Soviet record label, and Melodiya had a strict policy against publishing straightforward rock music or underground musicians.
Svetlana Loseva
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Yuri Shevchuk of "DDT" band // During the early 1980s Soviet authorities started a heavy pressure on amateur bands. Some of the artists (Yuri Shevchuk, Yegor Letov and many others) even had problems with KGB due to their public activities.
Viktoria Ivleva
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"DDT" band // Underground concerts were banned as a sort of illegal commercial activity, while some of music promoters and sound engineers were even imprisoned for earning money from underground concerts.
Viktoria Ivleva
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"Akvarium" band // At the same time, several rock clubs were established to allow amateur bands to perform legal concerts.
Valery Plotnikov
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Joanna Stingrey and Sergey Kurekhin // In 1988 Canadian filmmaker Peter Vronsky travelled to Leningrad and shot a series of music videos with Televizor, Aquarium and other bands, tied together into a documentary film Russian Rock Underground which brought Russian Rock for the first time to MuchMusic television in Canada and to Italian television.
Sergey Borisov
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"Kino" band // Many of the 1980s bands are still active and popular among Russian youth. The term Russian rock is often used to refer to the particular sound of these bands.
Sergey Borisov
