Kino: the Russian punk band who battled the USSR and won
The punk revolution that spread across popular music in the late 1970s wasn’t limited to Britain and the United States. Around the world, different variations and iterations of the genre proliferated, especially in areas with intense political and social restrictions. In the communist-controlled Soviet Union, rebellious musical acts were quickly snuffed out and silenced. But punk was still very much alive in the USSR, eventually achieving widespread attention through the band Kino.
Formed in Leningrad (now Saint Petersberg) in 1981, Kino was helmed by singer-songwriter Viktor Tsoi. By this point, punk music had infiltrated Russia via British records that were bootlegged. Known as Magnitizdat, the process of recording and distributing rock music was dangerous in the USSR. All rock music was illegal to sell and distribute, so Magnitizdat became its own form of protest and proliferation of subversive ideals.
Initially, Kino experienced a false start when original drummer Oleg Valinsky was drafted by the military. With just Tsoi and guitarist Aleksei Rybin as the band’s official members, various musicians aligned with the AnTop recording studio helped Kino finish and release their debut album, 45, in 1982. AnTop worked exclusively in Magnitizdat, which was how the band’s first three albums were distributed.
Tsoi knew that explicitly anti-authoritarian lyrics would cause Kino to be silenced. Instead, Tsoi focused his lyrics on individual freedom and adversity, along with topics of love, frustration, and alienation. As the singer gathered a new lineup around him, the band’s sound began to take on more explicitly new wave and post-punk elements. Their presence at Leningrad Rock Club, the first legal rock venue run by the KGB, increased their visibility among music fans as Russia began to loosen its grip on rock music.
When Rybin left the band in 1983, Tsoi took complete control over Kino. The band’s music was becoming popular as authorities allowed more widespread public performances of rock music. It wasn’t just in the USSR that Kino had found supporters – their participation in the 1986 compilation album Red Wave saw international distribution as one of the first Russian rock albums to make its way to the West.
Tsoi sought to legitimise Kino outside of the underground rock scene. While 1986’s Noch was again distributed as Magnitizdat, the album would later be re-released on the label Melodiya, the biggest state-owned record company in the country. The album contained a song titled ‘Anarchy’, with the original release using the subtitle ‘A Prody of Western Rock Bands’. On later reissues, the song was retitled ‘Mother Anarchy’.
The fame that Kino had experienced by the mid-1980s allowed Tsoi to begin a second career as an actor. His appearance in the 1988 film The Needle made him a national celebrity, and that same year, the group released Gruppa krovi. The album represented the peak of the band’s popularity in their home country, even seeing an American release on Capitol Records before the fall of the Berlin Wall. Tsoi and Kino were primed to be the breakthrough voices as the USSR became Russia. Unfortunately, Tsoi wouldn’t live to see it happen.
On August 15th, 1990, Tsoi fell asleep while driving on the Sloka–Talsi highway. His car crashed into a coach bus, killing Tsoi almost instantly. His death came as a shock to the scores of Kino fans across the country, and after his bandmates completed the band’s final album as a tribute to him, Kino was officially disbanded. Just two months later, German reunification was formally established, one of the final dominos that eventually led to the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Almost exactly a year after Tsoi’s death, Latvia and Estonia reclaimed their independence as the USSR became the Russian Federation.
Kino was never directly combative with the USSR authorities. They performed under the watchful eye of the KGB, with Tsoi making sure to communicate that his lyrics were personal rather than political. Still, the illegal distribution of their music and the pervasive themes of their work ultimately made their position clear. Tsoi was rebellious without being seen as a reel, and once he died, he was transformed into a martyr. In recent years, the members of Kino released live albums featuring Tsoi’s voice, continuing his legacy as Russia enters a new age of political and social turmoil.
