A book about the famous rock musician was published in the ZhZL series

Three hundred and sixty pages about the childhood, youth, formation and stellar period of perhaps the main Russian rock musician - the biography consists of excerpts from interviews with relatives, friends, close or not so close people. One of the intrigues of this work is the author himself - “a lawyer from Cheboksary,” as he calls himself, and “just a fan of Tsoi” - Vitaly Kalgin, a man who, in fact, never had anything to do with the Kino group, but who nevertheless compiled a full-fledged biography.

— Vitaly, a few words about the book itself. What structure does it have?
— Since the book was published as part of ZhZL, it fully corresponds to the format of the series. The content of the publication is divided into three parts. The first is Tsoi’s childhood and youth, from 1962 to 1977. The second part covers the period from 1977 to 1987. The third tells about the stellar period of Victor’s life from 1987 to 1990.

— How is it different, if different, from other biographical works about Viktor Tsoi?
— This edition contains a lot of new materials. I collected previously unpublished interviews, memories, quotes, comments and testimonies from both the Kino musicians themselves and representatives of his inner circle. It was important for me to find as much truthful evidence as possible. In 1991, a book by St. Petersburg writer Alexander Zhitinsky and Marianna Tsoi “Viktor Tsoi. Poetry. Documents. Memories,” which for some time became a good help for fans (in addition, Alexander Zhitinsky’s book “Tsoi forever. A documentary story” is also known. Note ed.). As for other books, alas, these were continuous repetitions timed to coincide with dates.

—Who did you meet while working on the book?
— In the process of writing the book, I met the most different people, including with Tsoi’s close circle. This was the hardest thing. So much nonsense has been written about Victor over the years that many of his friends did not want to help, or meet, or talk on the phone, a priori believing that I was just another dreamer journalist who would confuse and make things up. But as a result, I managed to talk even with those who at first categorically refused. As for specific names, then, of course, these were the Kino musicians. And also Inna Nikolaevna Golubeva, mother of Marianna Tsoi; tour director of the group Oleg Tolmachev; friends of Viktor Tsoi’s youth - Anton Galin, Igor Petrovsky and many others.

— Have there already been any responses from Victor’s father, son, friends and like-minded people to the book?
- Of course. Without the approval of the Kino musicians and Tsoi’s relatives and friends, the book would not have seen the light of day. I sent the text to everyone so that they could correct inaccuracies or express their opinions on controversial issues. I think the main thing is to give everyone the opportunity to speak. And let the reader decide who is right, who is wrong, or how everything really happened.

— Vitaly, tell us about yourself. What do you do?
— For the last two years I have been working on a book. It all started as a hobby, but it began to take up more and more time. In the future, I will either return to legal practice or continue my research.

“No politics, purely inner peace”

From the biography a rather definite image of Viktor Tsoi appears. A person with a “rare melodic gift” and “impeccable hearing.” Persistent and hardworking - if this concerns his favorite business. Simple in everyday life, restrained, focused. And at the same time fun and light. And also, according to those closest to him, extremely vulnerable.

This is how his friend Maxim Pashkov characterized him, talking about the crazy youthful parties in the company of the first St. Petersburg punks: “We must pay tribute to Victor. Although he participates in these events, compared to others, he retains a human face, a sense of humor and does not descend into vulgarity. Tsoi was much more conservative than the rest of the company, and never went all the way in our “fun”. There was never any licentiousness about him.”

The leader of the “AU” group, Andrei Panov, shares a rather funny story about the purchase of his first professional guitar: “My parents went south and left Tsoi ninety rubles at the rate of three a day. And Tsoi had a dream, like everyone else - a twelve-string guitar. He ran and bought it immediately. It cost 87 rubles. And for change, since I was hungry, I bought whites for sixteen kopecks from Victory Park. And that means I filled them up on an empty stomach. He remembered this for a very long time afterwards. He said he was lying green, alone in the apartment, dying. There was no way to get to the toilet. I lay there for several days. I haven’t eaten whites since then.”

“Then it was like a tank,” Boris Grebenshchikov recalls about his first meeting with Tsoi. “I couldn’t even imagine that an author of such magnitude grew up in Kupchin and is still unknown to anyone.” The next day I started calling my sound engineer friends, persuading them to immediately record Tsoi’s songs while the guys still wanted to play. I’m very happy that I was at the right moment at the right time.”

There is a rather unexpected episode about one of Tsoi’s works, told by Inna Nikolaevna Golubeva: “He got a job as a worker in the park management department, where he carved a children’s wooden sculpture in the Quiet Rest park on Kamennoostrovsky Prospekt, 81.” You can still see some of Victor’s works in that park, for example “Sad Lion”...

“Tsoi is not an actor - things are not going well for him with the gift of transformation,” the book cites the memoirs of Artemy Troitsky. “He hooked the audience with something else.” Maybe precisely because there is not a drop of fuss or strumming in him, but there is reliability, calmness and honesty. It is not surprising that in our hysterical times, many see in him, if not a savior, then at least a real hero.”

And here’s what Georgy Guryanov said about the so-called revolutionary nature of his songs: “About the song “Changes.” There is no politics in it. Absolutely. An absolutely philosophical treatise, there is not a word about politics, it is purely an inner world...”

Alla Chereshnichenko

The secret of Tsoi's guitar

The musician’s twelve-string guitar is kept in the Viktor Tsoi Museum in the Kamchatka boiler room. For fans of Tsoi it is a sacred artifact, and for its famous owner it was a high-quality instrument made in Leningrad.

PHOTO by Vladimir NIKITIN (from the newspaper archive) " class="article-img">

Once upon a time, teenagers played not American gadgets, but Leningrad guitars.
PHOTO by Vladimir NIKITIN (from the newspaper archive)

As we were told at the museum, Victor bought this guitar in 1978 in Gostiny Dvor. At that time, it was one of the best guitars presented in the windows of Leningrad music stores. And it cost almost the entire average salary of a Soviet citizen. In order to complete the purchase, the future legend of Russian rock had to save the money that his parents allocated to him for food. I look at the worn label on the guitar and see the almost erased inscription “Leningrad plucked string factory musical instruments them. A.V. Lunacharsky."

“Indeed, at that time the Leningrad Lunacharka guitars were famous not only in the USSR, but also abroad,” confirm both the musicians and musical masters. And the secret of the success of those guitars was, first of all, a well-structured technological chain of the production process, a serious attitude to the selection of materials and the enthusiasm of the specialists. These guitars were made mainly from spruce and birch plywood. Beech and maple were also used. Wood from the Arkhangelsk and Vologda regions was especially valued.

“As for the guitar that Viktor Tsoi had, it high quality depended, among other things, on natural technological features,” explains the hereditary guitar master Andrey Babichev. – To speed up the varnishing process, the guitars were coated with a special varnish in only one layer. The peculiarity of Soviet varnish (and there was no other) is that it dried to a smooth surface only if the thickness of the coating was more than a millimeter.”

As a result, almost all “Lunachar” guitars of that time were too heavily impregnated with this varnish, which naturally affected their sound quality. And only 12-string models were not afraid of the excessive mass of varnish due to the high tension provided by 12 metal strings, rocking the deck.

According to the factory legend, the Spanish guitar served as a model for such instruments. famous musician Anders Segovia, who in 1927 paid a friendly visit to the Leningrad factory. He gave his instrument to the craftsmen (according to another version, they used the instrument secretly while the owner was distracted). The craftsmen studied the overseas guitar inside and out, copied patterns from it, and carefully studied the measurements and location of the springs. It was those copied patterns that served as the basis for the best domestic instruments, many of which are still alive.

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Comments

1. Tsoi's first performance in Kyiv ended in deportation to Moscow. In 1984, the not yet very famous Tsoi and the already famous Mike Naumenko played a “kvartirnik” (in a house not far from the capital’s prosecutor’s office). The concert was interrupted by a visit from a local police officer. The owner of the apartment managed to hide the cassette with the recording - otherwise, Tsoi would probably have been accused of “illegal labor activity.”

2. Viktor Tsoi could not stand the sight of blood. In 1983, he tried to avoid the army in the famous St. Petersburg psychiatric hospital on the Pryazhka River.

“There it was necessary to be diagnosed with MDP, manic-depressive psychosis. Cut veins and so on,- recalls ex-Kino guitarist Yuri Kasparyan. — They took it with this. They somehow had an agreement there with their friends that they would take him, but his veins still had to be cut. And Tsoi hated blood. Finger prick—this was already a problem, especially since the man was playing the guitar. And here—cut your veins!... In general, they called an ambulance, the doctors arrived, and Tsoi was sitting so pink, there were some small scratches on his hands. Well, they took it anyway!».

By the way, “on the Buckle” Tsoi composed a song with the no-casual name “Tranquilizer”.

3. According to almost everyone who knew him personally, Tsoi was neither arrogant, nor noisy, nor, especially, an aggressive person. That didn’t stop him from being a fan of Bruce Lee, watching “Enter the Dragon” dozens of times, copying the movements, poses and even the facial expression of his idol.

4. Choi was very shy. “And regarding women, and in general,- remembers close friend Victor and the first guitarist of “Kino” Alexey Rybin in an interview with “Moskovsky Komsomolets”. — But this again comes from Soviet life: Vitya was humiliated because of his nationality. We haven’t heard enough phrases from the pubs addressed to him! Of course, this made him closed. They teased him at school, then gopniks pestered us on the street.”.

5. In 1986, despite the Chernobyl disaster, the Kino group came to Kyiv to star in the film “The End of Vacation” - diploma work young director Sergei Lysenko. It is generally accepted that this film launched Tsoi’s film career, although “close sources” claim that he was pretty depressed that “the film turned out to be such crap.”

6. Tsoi was fond of wood carving. He was first shown on television in the Monitor program as a gifted woodcarver. Tsoi especially loved making Japanese traditional figurines - netsuke - from wood. Then he gave these miniature sculptures to friends and acquaintances.

7. Tsoi loved to draw. His friends say they were grotesque images that were close to fantasy and cartoons.

8. At the famous "Kamchatka" Tsoi became a highly qualified fireman. But many friends say that he was not such a workaholic.

From the memoirs of the same Rybin: “Vitka was a terrible lazy person! So do we all. Songwriting just wasn't hard work for him. He did this in between times. In general, Tsoi’s favorite pastime was lying on the couch. I remember I came, and he, with his legs up, was reading a book with “Belomor” in his teeth.”.

9. Viktor Tsoi was interested Russian pop. He knew several songs by Mikhail Boyarsky by heart and once went to the SKK for a concert by Valery Leontyev.

10. Anatoly Sokolkov, the head of that very “Kamchatka”, says:

“He said to himself: “I am a mysterious oriental man.” The song “Kamchatka” was written much earlier than Tsoi got here. He wrote a purely phonetic text and liked the word. When he got a job, everything came together.”.

11. The song " good night"Tsoi wrote in Kyiv. From the tenth floor of the Slavutich hotel there was a beautiful view of the city - they say that this landscape and the mood that reigned in Kyiv inspired Tsoi to write the lines“I have been waiting for this time, and now this time has come. / Those who were silent stopped being silent. / Those who have nothing to expect get into the saddle, / they can’t be caught up, they can’t be caught up.”.

12. There is a version according to which the word “Assa” was made such a pop cultural symbol not by Soloviev or Grebenshchikov, but by Tsoi. One of the first sound producers in the USSR, Andrei Tropilo, recalls that “in his opinion, the main thesis Soviet culture in general and various youth activities in particular should be expressed by the word “ASSA!”.

“When they recorded “Night” or “Chief of Kamchatka,” communication was very difficult. Why? Constant feeling of madhouse. You are doing something with one performer, and at this time others, including Tsoi and Kasparyan, are continuously moving, jumping up, demonstrating karate techniques to each other. They waved their arms all the time. And when they constantly wave their hands above your head, it’s quite unpleasant. This word “assa” was constantly behind my back. They continuously demonstrated this “assa” to each other. A kick to the jaw or something else".

13. Biographers like to emphasize that Tsoi’s undeniably favorite color was black, but this is not entirely true. This color predominated in stage costumes, but in life Viktor Tsoi loved to dress brightly and adored yellow(in the East - a symbol of eternity). Tsoi's favorite flowers are yellow roses.

14. Viktor Tsoi and the Kino group managed to give four concerts in the West: in Denmark, Italy and twice in France.

15. People who surrounded the Kino group on tour noted their phenomenal performance. Leaving backstage after the concert, Tsoi almost always fell exhausted and lay on the floor motionless for ten minutes. I came to my senses because I always gave my all on stage.

St. Petersburg musician makes an art object out of Tsoi’s guitar (photo)

SAINT PETERSBURG, October 29. Musician Sergei Elgazin is restoring the guitar of the leader of the Kino group, Viktor Tsoi.

As Sergei Elgazin told a Rosbalt correspondent, he began restoration about three or four days ago.

"Now, since authenticity has disappeared, appearance The guitar turned out to be not so hot - there were cracks in the body. There is an idea to turn Tsoi’s guitar into an art object,” says Elgazin. - I sent out a request to various artists who knew the musician to take part in the action - to depict a portrait of Tsoi on a guitar. And Alexey Sergienko, an artist who did a series of works dedicated to the leader of the Kino group, answered me. He is just painting a portrait of Tsoi. And he suggested transferring it to the guitar. I will restore everything except the soundboard, and he will paint a portrait on it.”

The guitar is 30 years old. Tsoi's friends gave it to Sergei Elgazin back when Elgazin was a co-owner of the Kamchatka club. “I played on it, and a few years ago I turned to Tsoi’s son and asked him to write a paper stating that I was its keeper. And he wrote to me, there is also permission for restoration,” noted Elgazin.

The musician emphasized that this guitar was his working instrument, and he performed with it at all concerts. After the restoration he will play it again.

"There are people who think that we should have left everything as is. Put the pieces of the guitar under glass. But, firstly, there is no Tsoi Museum, and there is nowhere to put the guitar. Secondly, in the Kamchatka Museum there is a guitar that lies under glass is in terrible condition, and this instrument will play, continuing Tsoi’s work... If this was Tsoi’s only guitar, the question would be different, but the point is that there are many guitars that he played, and that’s why. “If I make one of them a working tool, Tsoi’s fame will not suffer. This is more correct than covering things with mothballs,” said Elgazin.