"LENINGRAD DOCUMENTARY FILM STUDIO" "Script YURI FILINOV" "Director ALEXEl UCHITEL" "Director of Photography DMITRY MASS" "Composer BORIS GREBENSHCHIKOV" "Sound Engineer SERGEl LITVYAKOV" "Special Effects LYUDMILA KRASNOVA" "Consultant ARTYOM TROITSKY" "Administrator MARYANA TSOI" "Colour Engineer TAMARA SHABOLOVSKAYA" "Script Editor ANDREl PETROV" "Executive producer MAYA SHCHAPKOVA" "Featuring:" "BORIS GREBENSHCHIKOV" "ANTON ADASINSKY" "VICTOR TSOI" "OLEG GARKUSHA" "YURI SHEVCHUK" "Misha, rewind it?" "I'll rewind it." ""NEWS OF THE DAY"." "Young pioneers!" "You are the new guard of Lenin's Komsomol!" "Raise up, and carry with honour and dignity the red pioneer banners." "Be always ready to do battle for the cause of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union." "Lenin, the party, Komsomol!" "ROCK" "Where are you turning my head?" "Stop grabbing my eyes..." "Do you want me to crash into the wall, or what?" "Tell me what it was like at the dacha, Gleb." "Was it interesting at the dacha?" "What did you get up to there?" "Eh?" "Well done..." "Lots of pictures... new ones..." "Standing stiff at attention, Break-dancing inside your soul," "Dreaming that you are a general, And that you've got extra-sens'ry control," "Knowing that you're the embodiment, Of everything they hold dear," "The whole world is only a stage, Set only for you to appear." "Kozly, Kozly." "My words aren't especially pretty, Nor are they terribly crass." "I'm only stating a fact alas." "Kozly." "In the do-it-yourself TV shows, They tell you exactly how" "But who feels glory or joy, From the job they are doing now?" "The more you talk about, The more valuable you are" "At work we swim in ice water, In bed we are fighting a war." "Kozly, Kozly." "Full of self-righteousness, Tied up into knots." "I'm the same only worse, and I tell you Kozly:" "Until I turn into clover, Until you turn into a psalm," "Our bodies are swords, Our souls are calm," "Our breath is sacred, We move along loving them all," "But give us an inkling of strength, oh Lord, We'll squeeze them under control." "Kozly, Kozly." "My words aren't especially friendly, Nor are they evil or mean." "It just makes me sad that we could have been human." "There's a particular route that is all marked out for young people to follow:" "school, university, work, Komsomol, the party, pension, old age." "I was quietly following along the route that was marked out." "I got as far as university, a sociological research institute..." "Then there was the Tbilisi festival in 1980, and I was spectacularly thrown out of university and the Komsomol..." "And when I realized that I had none of the things that I had been programmed for by society - no more work, nothing..." "Well, it went on from there, I worked as a night watchman, as a controller at a checkpoint, as a labourer on a forestry expedition..." "And a funny thing happened, we were playing a few years ago, and a student came up to me after the concert, and said," ""Excuse me, are you Grebenshchikov?" You know what?" "I was at a closed party information session, I don't know what it's called, and the lecturer said there that, as well as all the external enemies the Soviet Union has, there are internal, hidden enemies." ""Here in Leningrad you have that group called Akvarium," said the lecturer." ""When there was a music festival in Tbilisi, they came on stage naked, started shouting anti-Soviet slogans, throwing around pamphlets, and right there on stage, before the concert ended, they engaged in homosexuality."" "And the student goes:" ""How am I supposed to react to that?"" "I say, "Well, you're an intelligent person, figure it out for yourself."" "A ray of light hath struck me, I shan't be treated" "My heart is wounded, what more could I ask for from thee?" "As if were not tender the night, as if there still be a path," "The old direct path of our love." "Yet we keep our peace, yet we consider and wait," "Yet we but sing of ourselves - what other song could there be?" "But something is surely amiss, the flowers will surely go pale," "Surely again we are lost without thee." "Silver my Lord giveth me," "Silver thou giveth me." "Dar'st I but say sith mere words Anything true about thee?" "Silver my Lord hiveth me," "Silver thou giveth me." "More than stars, more than words, Side by side with my grief." "And like a village smith I'll part before the night falls." "Where I am bound no one shall come after me." "Perhaps I have always been blind, perhaps there is something amiss," "Yet I feel at the end of the path what I'll see" "Silver my Lord giveth me," "Silver thou giveth me." "Dar'st I but say sith mere words Anything true about thee?" "Silver my Lord hiveth me," "Silver thou giveth me." "More than stars, more than words, Side by side with my grief." "There's a theory of bringing up children that you shouldn't forbid them anything..." "Let them do what they want." "Excellent." "Well done, and again?" "Very good." "And I'm going to bite your nose off." "And what if I bite your nose off now?" " Shall I bite your ear off?" " Don't." "Don't." "Some nice weak tea, maybe you'll have a bit." "An itty-bitty little son." "It's good having a son, at least you know what to teach him..." " Teach him what?" " Pass on your own..." "Nothing but trouble from girls..." "She'll bring you something wrapped up in swaddling before you know it..." "Tell me what I did to you?" "Tell me what I did to you," "But this is without explanations." "It seems it's something in the blood," "I set light to the rain which Set light to me from the inside." "I left the law, But I never made it as far as love." "So pray for us, Pray for us, if you can," "We have no hope, but..." "This is our route..." "And the voices from heaven are brighter, Nearer and sterner." "And may I be cursed if it's a mirage!" "I'm a native Leningrad man." "My mother is a native Leningrad woman." "Our grandma was a professional revolutionary, calling up sailors from some battle ship, it may even have been the "Aurora", to free love..." "She didn't actually live at home, she was either in Berlin, or in prison there, or in exile here." "But my mother and grandmother spent the whole war in camps." "That's where she met my father." "That's also where I was born, in a camp." "And thanks to my being born, we were able to come back to Leningrad." "So, my father didn't live to see me born, and died of cancer some time in the same year I was born." "My mum doesn't like talking about it." "I never asked too many questions." "There's one little photograph left:" "a smiling colonel." "A terribly mundane situation, which probably thousands find themselves in." "I, you, all of you, all of us, but" "When one like two" "In step, tooth on tooth, shoulder to shoulder." "Own father!" "It's like in that book, right here and here It's kept carefully." "Look after it together!" "Approximately like this." "No!" "It will be!" "Big, great," "If we, as one, one by one to heaven," "But why against the grain?" "Not in half?" "Share everything, everything to each, Together, together, tooth on tooth," "Hand to hand, Stone on stone..." "In half!" "In half!" "Heaven opens and I believe I believe, like the one," "Approximately like this." " Not too afraid?" " No..." "Not afraid... a little bit afraid..." "I've got some sort of little glass splinter in my eye." "Probably I see other people's shortcomings incredibly clearly, so I sometimes find it really difficult with people who don't want to change." "It's easy for me in the studio, people come to learn." "They change." "I think that many of our own miseries, the miseries of people around us, the miseries, maybe to put it grandly, of the whole world come from people thinking something is of value when it isn't of any value at all." "It's not so easy to explain in m words that money might not be of value." "That maybe there's something else, of higher worth." "Explaining to people that our life now is absurd, that a lot of what we do now, write about, argue about, the way we live - is absurd." "I'd like people to understand while they're still alive." "And the next generation wouldn't laugh at us:" ""Look at how they lived!" "Can you believe it, how could they sink so low..."" "Work a little bit more, search around, so that even if only for a few seconds, there's the rhythm of a misery of yours." "So what then - their gaze is very close!" "It's a shame - they will be pleased to see each other!" "To get rid of conscience, there's only one possible decision." "To break with the past." "To carry on sitting in the swamp." "On watch in the night!" "Joy!" "Sorrow!" "Suspicion!" "With a little fear!" "Joy!" "Indifference!" "Coming back to the starting point for a child - he cries when something is wrong." "I used to cry inside for years, while I did stuff that I didn't want to do." "Now I've reached the point where there's no need to cry, and I do what I want to." "A blow - the door is wide open, A second - the threshold is past," "What was before - all forgotten," "The whole world has fallen, laing down at feet." "Time flows into the breast." "Time to start a new road." "There in the hall is quietly settling The whirlwind of papers raised by the wind." "What is ahead - nobody knows." "That's all, helmet's fastened, lengthened stride." "Time flows into the breast." "Time to start another road." "Time flows into the breast." "Time to start another road." "To friends for joy, to enemies for sorrow, Ahead, ahead, full speed ahead." "Time flows into the breast." "Time to start a new road." "Sing louder the song of resounding joy." "This joy will be ours, just don't yawn." "Sing louder the song of resounding joy." "This joy will be ours, just don't yawn." "Let's go!" "I try to be in tune with myself." "At any rate, I can't imagine that anyone could teach me anything." "I prefer to find out myself, to learn on the basis of my own observations, not to take someone's word for anything." "I just feel free, at the end of the day, free." "I mean I don't depend on anything at all." "Work like this is kind of natural," "I mean you can really see the fruits of your labour, you don't have any bosses, and so on." "It's not the same as sitting in an engineering office for goodness knows what." "Here you throw the coal into the furnace, and the people upstairs are warm as a result." "I mean you can see it straight away." "The roofs of the houses shiver under the weight of days," "The heavenly shepherd herds the clouds," "The city shoots rounds of lights into the night like grape shot" "But the night is stronger, its power is great." "For those going to bed - sleep well," "A quiet night." "I was waiting for this time, and now the time has come." "Those who were silent have ceased being silent." "Those with nothing to wait for are mounting the saddle," "There's no catching them up, already no catching up." "For those going to bed - sleep well," "A quiet night." "The neighbours come, they can hear the thump of hooves." "It keeps them awake, troubles their sleep." "Those with nothing to wait for - set out on the road." "Those who are saved, those who are saved." "For those going to bed - sleep well," "A quiet night." "What do you think, is it true that today everything went faster?" "It doesn't matter, no, it's fine..." "it felt fine." "Thank you." "What about kissing the hero?" "No, it's not a hobby, not in the least." "It's a way of life." "Maybe I'll get sick of it all tomorrow and start doing something else." "But today, it's the thing that, basically," "I'm prepared to sacrifice virtually anything for." "Garkusha, come out to the control board at once." "What's the big joke!" "Buy a couple of bottles of Pepsi-Cola..." "Give me some more money, the pastries cost 31 kopecks in the bar, ten times 31, that's three ten, and then for the Pepsi - give me another rouble." "Get lost, guys." "I haven't got any money left." "From the outside I'm probably a bit unusual, but seemingly ordinary." "All these manifestations, it's on the outside most of all, that's where it all comes from." "From all these detentions, nasty looks..." "I wasn't born like this." "I was just a good boy, basically a normal school kid and so on..." "There was another incident." "I was helping my wife one evening." "We were coming back from work together." "And then, at "Canal Griboedova" metro station, someone taps me on the shoulder." "I turn round and see the face of a militia officer I know." "He says, "Come along this way"." "I say, "What's the matter?"" "It's all pretty obvious that there's no point in arguing." "So I say, "They're going to, you know, do you want to watch how it's done?"" "These sauntering exhibits glide slowly round the projection room..." "So there's this man sitting there, wearing a jacket with a young Communist badge." "And he starts asking these totally stupid and banal questions:" ""What were you doing there?" "Why are you standing?" "Why aren't you standing?" "And what is your view of the Komsomol?" "We would actually throw you out."" "And all the while there's like an investigation going on" ""Empty out your pockets" - stuff like that." "It's all really unpleasant of course, totally degrading of human dignity." "Then they split me and my wife up, took her off somewhere." "Some man went up to her, and started saying about me:" ""Why did you ever get involved with him?" "All his friends are bastards, a bad lot."" "She says, "What is there written on him that he's such a bastard?" "Do you know him personally, or something?"" "What are you so scared of?" "What are you so scared of?" "Where did she cry?" "And my mother-in-law went." "And they told her: "Everything's fine..."." "Maybe my mother-in-law will go tomorrow." "I spoke to her through the window today, and everything's fine." "Maybe she's just not afraid, but upset that they're not bringing him." "Everything seems fine." "They keep not bringing him, I don't like this." "Where's our dad?" "Who's the lucky man?" "Congratulations, I wish you happiness and all the best." "I was actually born prematurely." "And now, unfortunately, my son was also premature." "It's not even that there's some sort of physical problem." "But everyone always looks askance at people born prematurely..." "And I thought somehow, there was a phrase that someone said when Yegor was being born, that they would probably put him in an incubator under surveillance..." "Papa brought mama a present," "It's very unpleasant and rather pathetic," "But, in order to save their delightful progeny," "They have to run and do what's necessary..." "I was born under surveillance." "I was born under surveillance." "Seven months - is no laughing matter." "Seven months - is blossoming May." "You can die, be born an idiot," "And you can become an excellent pilot." "I was born under surveillance." "So, what do you say, Volodya..." "It'll be ready soon, about another thirty minutes..." "I think that the greatest sin in life is... is not to do what was given you by God, nature or something else, but what it is that is in you, you have to give that." "Just, probably, you felt that you have to do it." "Just to drink, just to suffer, to be into Buddhism, meditation, something else - all that stuff's not for me, you know?" "I am a church with no crosses," "I fly, arms flung wide," "Along the sleeping banks" "of petrified torment." "I am faith with no reason," "I am truth with no origin," "You can hear how my soul screamed" "among the aspens." "I am a bird with no skies," "I am a stony echo," "The sad augur of half-forgotten places." "The midnight moon" "bandages my wounds," "And the grey mists" "bathe my cupolas." "I am memory with no kindness," "I am knowledge with no endeavour," "The frozen star of lost generations." "There is darkness in my soul," "tattoos of betrayal," "Broken glass," "tortured walls." "But I will die tomorrow," "the rain of calm will fall," "Having exploded over the river," "I shall leave your memory." "After that I was summoned first of all to the regional committee of the Komsomol, in Ufa." "The deputy minister for culture, I think he was, said:" ""I've been looking for you, they've given me a hard time in Moscow, they've been saying:" "You've got that band, DDT, oh, they've been saying, it's an anti-Soviet group, terrible, they say, they've quite led young people astray."" "And then it even went as far as them giving me this piece of paper, where it was literally written:" ""I undertake never to sing my songs."" "Then the second point was:" ""I undertake to make every effort to prevent their distribution."" ""I undertake henceforth never to compose any songs..."" "Three points, I remember them word for word, it was just the pits..." "Well, of course they put me through the wringer, but I never did sign that paper." "But they gave me a real slap in the face, they pronounced me an enemy of the people, of the country... who sang in an alien voice, some sort of American or Vatican voice." "Saying I'm an agent of the Vatican, can you imagine!" "But on the other hand, people came out onto the streets and started collecting signatures, right out in the street." "They went up to strangers, "What is your view of Shevchuk?" "If it's a favourable one, sign our petition..."" "Elmira was one of those who collected signatures." "And there were loads of letters like that, and people signed their names." "I've got one of the letters." "Someone gave it to me." "With ninety signatures." "Hands off DDT." "But on the other hand, my telephone stayed quiet." "It stayed quiet for a long time." "It was just dangerous to call me, I was under surveillance." "And I thought: "No, mate, you just need to ignore it, you need to answer this evil with confidence and kindness."" "Two fingers up - that's victory!" "And it's two fingers poked in your eyes." "We fight to the death on Tuesday for Wednesday," "But we do not understand Thursday any more." "In this world, there is not what we want!" "We believe that it is possible to change" " Yes!" "But, Revolution, you taught us" "To believe in the injustice of good." "How many worlds we burn every hour" "In the name of your holy bonfire." "Human meat tastes sweet, As the Judas' of the siege's winters know." "What would you lie for breakfast?" "They're bringing it again?" "Eat up!" "But you should know that we will not forgive you!" "In this world, there is not what we want!" "We believe that it is possible to change" " Yes!" "But, Revolution, you taught us" "To believe in the injustice of good." "How many worlds we burn every hour" "In the name of your holy bonfire." "So what are we to do?" "What should we sing about?" "On whose shoulders sits my head?" "How many Afghani's does death cost," "If your life is not right?" "In this world, there is not what we want!" "We believe that it is possible to change" " Yes!" "But, Revolution, you taught us" "To believe in the injustice of good." "How many worlds we burn every hour" "In the name of your holy bonfire." "And I realized that there was no point going back to Ufa." "So where did I go?" "Leningrad." "And we had a concert here." "My father came specially to see me." "He fought in the war." "He left for the front when he was 17." "worked in the regional party committee, worked in the ministries... and all during the concert and afterwards he was asking all the young people who were there: "How do you like DDT?"" "And it seems that they all said:" ""They're great, they're really something..."" "He came into see us backstage, all happy and looking great." "I said, "Well, dad, what do you think?"" "He said, "Like riding a tank all the way to Berlin"..." "It's such a victory for me..." "I'm not singing convincingly, that's that thing." " It's too bad that it's like that..." " No strength left at all." "After last year." "After Perm I should have had a month recuperating." "I don't know, I probably feel a bit different from you..." "I'm completely wrung out." "When I come home, the only thing I want to do is to sit down somewhere and go into suspended animation." "I can't do anything any more - I can't write songs, nothing works." "Totally grim... it's a dead loss..." "There was quite a lot of argument about the next song:" "about which war it was written about." "Give it a rest, there aren't any different wars." "Wars are when people die for no reason." "As for what war it was and when it was..." "The fact that the song was written at the start of the century has no meaning at all." "I do not know who needed to and why," "Who sent them to their deaths with a steady hand," "So very meaningless, so evil and unnecessary," "They were dropped down into eternal peace." "The indifferent viewers silently wrapped themselves in fur coats," "And a woman with a distorted face" "Kissed the dead man on his blue lips" "And hurled her wedding ring at the priest." "They threw fir branches on them, tossed earth on them," "And went to their homes murmuring against the noise," "That it was high time to put an end to this outrage," "That we would all start to go hungry soon enough as it was." "And nobody thought simply to kneel down" "And to say to these boys that in a talentless country" "Even brilliant acts of heroism are only steps" "Into the infinite abyss towards an unattainable spring." "I do not know who needed to and why," "Who sent them to their deaths with a steady hand," "So very meaningless, so evil and unnecessary," "They were dropped down into eternal peace." "So that's the game..." "Shall I give you the wolf?" "Maybe you'd like me to read you a book?" " Shall I read one, or is it not worth it?" " Give me..." "Is worth it..." "So where are our books?" "By the way, do you want a wee?" "Do you want a wee or not?" " No, I've woken up." " So you don't want a wee, I'm asking you?" " I want to walk around." " We will walk around, just a minute." "Come on, here, look, let's move the wolf out the way." "So, what have we got here..." "Well, what can I teach my son?" "We live together." "He sees what I'm like..." "What we are all like..." "We grew up when there was nothing left except for rock-n-roll." "All the rest was a fraud, all the rest was empty." "While that music, that life, that love that we all learnt and are still learning..." "That's the most important thing." "It's the search for light, and then finding it in how we sing, how we live, in how we love, we have found this light..." "The generation of yard-sweepers and night watchmen" "Lost track of each other In the spaces of this endless earth." "Everyone's headed for home." "In our era when every third man's a hero," "They don't send telegrams, they never start writing a tome" "These people, they stand still looking like stone steps" "When all the boiling oil flows down the stairs in a barrage," "And from somewhere they imagine somebody singing," "And just who am I, trying to tell them that it's a mirage." "We were silent like dolls while we watched in being sold" "All they could possibly sell, including our next of kin." "And the poisonous rain falls into the rot of the bay," "And we still sit here waiting for news, We still sit here watching the screen." "And our fathers would never lie to us" "They do not know how to lie," "Like wolves don't know how to eat red meat," "Like a bird doesn't know how to fly." "So tell me what I have done to you, why all this pain." "But it's without explanation, it's something you have in your blood." "But it was when I lit the flame that burned me out from inside," "Turned away from the law, but never quite made it to love." "Please pray for us, pray for us, if you can." "We have no more hope, but we're in this collage." "And the voices sound closer and stronger," "I'll be damned if this is just a mirage." "Listen, I've been wanting for ages to read you "Fedora's grief"." "There were a whole load of cockroaches hanging here." " What about a cobweb?" " No cobweb." "Here's a cobweb and a spider hanging as well, do you remember, like in the Valdai, the spider hanging?" "I remember..." "May the blessing of the hills be with us," "May the blessing of thunder in April" "Help us bloom once more." "We were taught to live," "As long as we don't fall under the axe." "We will build the new day ourselves." "And again, three four..." "The film crew is grateful for participation and assistance to the bands Akvarium, AVIA, Auktsyon, DDT, Kino and to Leningrad Rock Club and Leningrad Palace of Youth." "THE END" "Leningrad Documentary Film Studios, 1987"