Part of the Viktor Tsoi Wall on the Arbat in Moscow
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Sunday evening, Hundreds of fans gathered at the Viktor Tsoi Wall on Arbat Street in Moscow to commemorate the legendary singer on the twentieth anniversary of his death. According to a correspondent from RIA-Novosti, his fans brought flowers, sang his songs, and shouted, “We’re with you!” Pedestrians on the Arbat, including foreigners, stopped at the wall for a few minutes, and sang some of his well-known songs. Flower stalls on the Arbat ran out of carnations and roses, because fans bought them up. In 1981, Viktor Tsoi founded Kino when he was only nineteen; it became one of the most popular Soviet rock groups. Until the end of his life, he remained its leader, the author of all its lyrics and music. The group existed for nine years, and, during that time, it released over a hundred songs, several albums, and live recordings. Tsoi died in a car crash on 15 August 1990, a few dozen kilometres from the Latvian capital of Riga. According to the official version, the musician had fallen asleep at the wheel. After his death, Kino fell apart.
Editor’s Clarification:
As an aside, the well-known Russian pop singer Anita Tsoi (1971- ) is not related to Viktor Robertovich, not even distantly. The only link between them is that they are both Koryo-saram (members of the ethnic Korean minority in the post-Soviet space, most of whom speak Russian, with little or no command of Korean).
BMD
15 August 2010
Voice of Russia World Service
