"The ribbon.<url> has released a special project dedicated to the 45th anniversary of the Leningrad Rock Club

The series of materials tells how Russian rock got along with Soviet censorship, what role KGB agents played in this, and what its history says about modern Russia.

<url> (part of the Rambler&Co media holding) has launched a special series of materials dedicated to the 45th anniversary of the Leningrad Rock Club (LRK), the first officially recognized community of rock musicians in the USSR. On March 7, 1981, the Inter–Union House of Amateur Art on Rubinstein Street hosted the first concert of the association with the participation of the groups Picnic, Myths, Mirror and Russians - this date is considered to be the birthday of the Leningrad Rock Club.

The materials of the special project began to be published on Lenta.<url>" since the beginning of March, and now they are all collected in a separate cycle.

The special project "Tapes.<url>" combines historical reconstruction, archival evidence and the live voices of participants in the rock movement. Readers will learn how the repertoire of club concerts was formed, what restrictions censorship imposed, how the authorities' attitude to alternative music changed and why the Leningrad Rock Club is still perceived as one of the symbols of late Soviet culture. The cycle is illustrated with previously unpublished footage by legendary photographer Valentin Baranovsky.

Some materials of the special project are devoted to less obvious subjects that were rarely discussed publicly. So, one of the texts quotes Oleg Garkusha, the lead singer of the Auctioneer group, who claims that the Leningrad Rock Club was initiated by KGB officers in the 1980s and was considered as a platform for monitoring young people and studying the rock environment. The authors of the cycle show how the club simultaneously became the "assemblage point" of Russian rock and an instrument of control: legendary concerts and festivals took place here, but at the same time the moods and statements of the musicians were recorded.