In the late 80s of the last century, when perestroika was in full swing in the USSR, foreign celebrities, from politicians to musicians, began to filter into the country through the leaky Iron Curtain.
In 1988, the famous Pink Floyd group, previously banned in the Land of the Soviets, arrived in Moscow almost incognito.
The arrival of Pink Floyd was organized by the Joint Headquarters of the Space Forces of the USSR through the mediation of Vneshtorgreklama, as well as the European campaign West Ost Contact. The fans of the legendary band, who found out about her arrival, rejoiced. However, the musicians had a completely different task - to record the sound of a rocket taking off at Baikonur, and also to transfer a disc of their songs to the Soviet-French crew. The first full-fledged concert "Pink Floyd" took place in the USSR in June 1989.
Blacklisted group
As you know, in the USSR rock music was considered a manifestation of a hostile Western culture, and the Soviet government fought it at the level of official propaganda, fought, however, not very successfully: Western music was spread in the USSR in an underground and semi-legal way at least since the 1960s. Komsomol members and even communists also listened with pleasure to this music secretly at home. Even professional fighters with Western influence from the KGB of the USSR kept records of officially not approved bands at home. When, after the weakening of censorship, everything surfaced, it turned out that rock music in the USSR was more popular than many works of the Soviet stage.
It is said that even in the mid-1980s, the famous list of foreign musical ensembles and performers still lay on the tables of discotheque administrators across the country, whose works, as they said, "contain ideologically and morally harmful works." For example, the Pink Floyd group was on this list at number 44 with the wording “for perverting the foreign policy of the USSR”. The musicians were banned for the line “Brezhnev took Afghanistan” in the song Get Your Filthy Hands Off My Desert from the last album, recorded with the participation of Roger Waters, who later left the group.
At that time the Komsomol vigilantes used a proverb: "Those who listen to Pink Floyd should be driven with a rotten broom." And suddenly everything changed: on June 3, 1989, a concert of this group was to take place at one of the main concert venues in Moscow, in the Olimpiyskiy sports complex!
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But for it to be held at a high level, the State Concert and the Olimpiyskiy directorate had to work hard. The employees were urgently ordered to travel abroad so that they could attend concerts of the Pinkfloyd tour in other countries and see with their own eyes what they are.
They chose the British production company "Barucci" as partners, whose agents, having arrived in Moscow, went to study the situation at the "Olympic". Meanwhile, the executive committee of the Moscow City Council did not like the noisy reception of the group at the airport, and the deputies tried to ban the concerts. But they did not succeed.
The first to arrive in Moscow was our world's largest military transport aircraft Ruslan, loaded with 140 tons of equipment. The Pinkfloyd men themselves arrived for him, along with the film crew. Meanwhile, our construction battalions, who were brought to Moscow from the garrisons closest to the capital, began assembling structures for the future show.
The excitement in the "Olympic"
Before the concert, as usual, posters were released, but the fans quickly learned about the arrival of their favorite band.
The real excitement began. The price of tickets from speculators reached 100 rubles at a face value of 9-10! In city box offices, tickets could be found only by chance and only for the worst seats - on the side stands, under the ceiling. At the Olimpiyskiy ticket offices, the treasured pieces of paper were sold upon presentation of an Afghan veteran's ID, and the Afghans immediately sold them to dealers, literally without leaving the cash register. The prices reached 200 and 300 rubles per ticket!
The streets and lawns in those days were filled with hippies lying on the ground. They came from remote regions of the country, hitchhiking to the capital for two weeks. They collected dirty rubles and kopecks in order to send one person from the whole group to a concert, and then touch him - a living person who saw Pink Floyd.
Stowaways infiltrated the hall through basements and freight elevators, begged the controllers, and begged for extra tickets. Those who managed to get into the hall a few hours before the start of the concert spent the rest of the time on the floor under the seats so that the guards would not notice.
The group "Pink Floyd", of course, was very flattered by such attention of fans - after all, they performed for the first time in a country that had previously banned them. Although, having visited the USSR in 1988, they already knew that in this country their music has been loved for a long time and anxiously. And of course, the five concerts they gave a year later in the USSR were unforgettable for them.
Although, probably, everyone has their own memories. For example, drummer Nick Mason later wrote: “Our place of residence is a massive hotel on Red Square. There were still plenty of KGB agents on every floor, and there were samovars to provide hot tea. Due to the density of security and the colossal size of this place, it took us three days to figure out where to find drinks in the evening and breakfast in the morning."
Pig as a symbol of hope
The concert was enchanting! A huge inflatable pig flew, which became a "symbol of hope and a calling card" for the group, laser beams pierced the ceiling, and a crazy Pinkfloyd video art was projected onto a round screen. And the music and clear sound were such that people quietly went crazy from the feeling of the unreality of what was happening.
One of those who attended the concert of the group recalled: “Next to us stood a man of about fifty in shabby jeans, with gray hair below his shoulders, with a long gray beard. The whole concert he swayed and sang their songs by heart - all four hours. Tears rolled down his cheeks. It seemed that now he would leave the hall and die. Because all his life he had been waiting for this hour and did not believe that it would come."
After the concert, the most die-hard fans blocked the road to the bus with the musicians, chanting: " Pink Floyd "," Pink Floyd ".." Neither the driver nor the policeman knew what to do. When the interpreter got off the bus and asked why they were not letting them in, the people shouted in unison: "We want autographs!"
The fans gathered in a heap some tickets, some a poster, some a T-shirt, and some even a passport - who had what - and handed it to the translator, who immediately disappeared into the bus. As one of the eyewitnesses recalled, “after about ten minutes the doors opened, and the translator simply threw everything in his hands right on the wet asphalt. You can imagine what started here! If a bundle of $ 100 bills were thrown into the air at rush hour, at a subway station, the effect would be less! I miraculously snatched my already crumpled postcard from someone's hands. It, like all other items that flew out of the bus, bore the autograph of Gilmour (composer, vocalist, guitarist of the Pink Floyd group David Gilmour. - Ed.). While the people almost before a fight were proving to whom this or that thing belonged, the bus quickly left."
According to the contract, the band's concerts were supposed to end on June 7, 1989. But on the 4th, a railway accident occurred in Bashkiria, and June 5 was declared a day of national mourning. Therefore, the musicians extended the tour, performing on June 8.
Alika DANILOVA