The first time I heard Victor Tri's song was on the Hermitage Square on the streets of St. Petersburg's Neva on the Russian New Year twenty-eight years ago. People greeted each other while chanting Choi's "Stars Called the Sun." The melody and the scene are still vividly remembered. Unexpectedly, many things change unimaginably, perhaps, all of which are destined for a journey...
August 15th of this year will be held in St. Petersburg for Victor. Statue of Cui. The St. Petersburg Palace Bridge will also be slowly opened to the music of Victor Choi, commemorating the rock singer who tragically passed away 30 years ago.
On August 15, 1990, at the age of 28, Cui died in a car accident. When the news of his death came, even unacceptable fans chose to leave with him, and more people spontaneously gathered at the memorial wall of "Стена Виктора Цця" memorial wall at 2 Arbat Street in Moscow to bid farewell to the singer who ignited the entire Soviet Union.
When Choi stood on the stage after a performance and waved to the fans, promising them that "in the summer before the new album comes out, we will see you again", he did not expect that this agreement would never be realized again.
Victor Choi (June 21, 1962 – August 15, 1990) was born in Kazakhstan. His ancestors were Ethnic Koreans from the Far East. There has always been controversy over whether the place of birth is Leningrad or Kazakhstan. After Choi's death, Russia and Kazakhstan finally ended the dispute over Choi's citizenship as Russia and his birthplace as Kazakhstan. Choi's father is a Korean engineer and his mother is a Ukrainian physical education teacher. When Choi was 5 years old, the family of three settled in Leningrad. As a child, Cui was introverted, shy, did not love words, and liked to be alone. Because he was born with an Asian face, he was regarded as an outlier by his children, who gave him a nickname "Japanese", for which he did not want to be paid too much attention to him, and often worried about being bullied. Fortunately, though, he loves music and fine arts, both of which are both his talents and the pleasures he enjoys when he's alone.
At the age of 14, he studied painting at the Leningrad Serov School of Fine Arts. Cui deserves to be a true avant-garde artist, and many of his paintings are political spectrum. Music is Choi's more direct means of expression, and in school, Choi and Maxim Bashukov organize a rock band called "Палата No 6). A year later, he was expelled from school after missing out on his homework by playing music. Soon after, he went to leningrad municipal technical vocational school 61 to study wood carving. At school, he became acquainted with Alese Rubin, Oleg Baliski, and in 1981 they organized a band called "Garin and Hyperbola" (Гарин и Гиперболоиды). After leaving school, in order to avoid military service, he pretended to be a mental patient and was sent to a mental hospital. In order to test the authenticity, the doctor gave him a question and answer test, and he was silent and was able to pass the test in disguise. By the time he was discharged from the hospital a month and a half later, his spirit had really almost broken. The poem "Tranquilizer" that he wrote later was inspired by this experience.
The band of that year has been underground. Often someone provides an apartment, gathers dozens of people over, and everyone sits on the ground, drinking, smoking, listening to songs, each contributing a ruble. Once, the lead singer of the band Акbarium, Boris Grebenshkov, met Victor Cui on the train, and Boris, who was already famous in the underground rock world, found that Cui's singing style was unique, simple and realistic, and decided to cooperate with him. Initially, they recorded some small samples. In 1982, he officially introduced Choi's band to the Leningrad Rock Club, and since then they have had a bigger stage. The band's first album was produced by Boris. Soon, due to oleg Baliski's withdrawal, Tri regrouped the band and renamed the band кино (film). The soul of the band is Victor Cui from beginning to end, and he is the lead singer, guitarist and songwriter.
During the Soviet era, not working was considered illegal, and idle people were arrested and imprisoned. In addition to making music, Victor Tri had to go out to find work and started carving wood for a while. Later, after working only one hour a day, he chose to work as a cleaner in the sauna, and spent most of his free time making music. Later, a friend introduced him to work as a boilermaker, a job that was even more tempting: free enough to organize hippie activities in the boiler room while working. There, he made more musicians and held several underground concerts. Today, the tiny boiler room has become a mecca for freedom and the spirit of resistance, and it has become a small memorial to Victor Tri, whom fans have named "Kamchatka," a song by Victor Choi.
Victor Tri met Marlena at a gathering at a friend's house. "I'm not happy because I'm not free, I'm not free because I'm not happy", Choi's punk image is quite like the street gangster Michelle in Godard's movie "Exhausted", and the look of hanging Lang is very fascinated by Marlena, she fell in love with him at first sight, and from beginning to end, Victor Cui has been silent. Marlena was very dissatisfied, and went straight over to him with lipstick and wrote her phone number on the door of his head.
Marlena's parents didn't look down on this poor Korean boy with black hair and yellow skin, but the two of them ignored this, and the song "8th Grade Girl" was written by Choi for Marlena during the love affair. In her career, Marlena has been a good helper for Victor Cui, acting as an agent to help Cui take care of everything in the band. After a year together, they got married. They had an alternative wedding and only invited friends from the music industry to make a fuss. Soon they had a son, Sasha.
Victor Choi's band Кино released eight albums: 45, 46, Head of Kamchatka, This Is Not Love, Night, Blood Type, The Last Hero, and Stars Called the Sun. Beginning with Blood Type, the band became famous, touring the Soviet Union and traveling to the United States, Denmark, Japan and France. In the Western stereotype, this Soviet band should be wearing a Russian shirt and holding a baralaika, and the punk image of the band кино made them feel very confused and surprised.
In the Soviet Union in the 1980s, Choi's music had a punk rebellion but no punk decadence, and its style was experimental, reminiscent of Kandinsky's abstract paintings, free, improvised, and full of spatiality. Its melody is as strong and powerful as a military music, and it is not a grand narrative that promotes people to rise. He writes about love, friendship, the idleness of young people, he also writes about war, politics, confusion under the stars... Young people sing his songs to flaunt fashion, middle-aged people sing his songs to express their struggle, and older people sing his songs to remember the past. Every generation can find resonance in his songs.
Кино's first album, 45, was released in the form of underground ripped by fans, and the production was very rough, and the album title was just a simple number "45". One of the songs, called commuter cars (Электричка), describes a man trapped in a car and taken to a place he didn't want to go. The song's satire on politics infuriated the authorities, and the band was quickly banned from the government and banned from the song. But Choi's rebellious spirit had spread among young people in pursuit of freedom, and his songs soon spread from Leningrad throughout the Soviet Union.
Victor Choi also starred in several films, most notably Асса (Asa) and Игла (needle). The soundtrack and soundtrack of both films were produced by the band кино. After the screening, the characters in the film were transplanted into reality, and in the eyes of fans, Victor Cui became a lonely superhero, a chivalrous hero who walked alone. At one concert, Victor Cui said to the noisy audience, "Can you calm down and let me say a few words", and the hundreds of thousands of spectators in the audience were suddenly silent, and some people described it as "you can hear the sound of the guards on Red Square blowing their noses". Victor Trin is no longer the insecure he once was, and his independence means he no longer needs someone to cover him. He and his wife frankly proposed to break up. Sveda, the actor who plays his girlfriend in the play, became The real partner of Choi from the end of filming of "Игпа" until Choi's death.
In order to alleviate the tension caused by the high-intensity work, Victor Trin goes to the beach every year for a vacation. The last time he took his girlfriend Sveda and son Sasha with him, who had settled down near a beach in Latvia. On the morning of August 15, 1990, as usual, he was preparing to go out fishing, and his son did not want to follow because he was in bed, so Victor Cui drove to the beach by himself. At noon, he was driving home from the seashore when he crashed into a bus head-on, killing Victor Trii on the spot. It is said that because of fatigue driving, he fell asleep during the drive. Some have questioned whether this was a deliberate car accident hired by the authorities to hire the KGB. Victor Tri was once considered one of the 5 people who influenced Gorbachev, and when Gorbachev met with Choi, he once said to him: "Comrade, for the sake of reform and the people, you need your strength, work together!" This may be the good reason why the KGB, as a hard-line conservative, assassinated him. His fans could not accept his sudden departure, 5 fans committed suicide one after another, and some fans had to comfort themselves: Victor Cui is not dead, he just went out to smoke a cigarette.
The roof trembled under the weight of the day, the flying shepherd boy chased the clouds, and the city shot a shuttle of light into the night, but the night was so dark and powerful. Those who are asleep, good night to you — "Silent Night," a song that was used as an interlude in the movie "The Fool of the Dangerous Building."
Yesenin's poetry ushered in the birth of the Soviet Union, and Victor Tri's songs heralded the collapse of the Soviet Union. "Songs may not change the world, but Victor Trinity changes us", if everyone is sleeping, who will sing? Make a silent stone, or a burning meteor? Cui said: We are the first fruit to ripen, and the god of death will be the first to pounce on us! Shortly after Choi's death, the Soviet Communist Youth League newspaper Pravda made the following assessment of Choi: Victor Choi had more influence on the nation's youth than any politician, celebrity, or writer. This is because he never cheats or betrays others, he has the courage to be himself, or it is impossible not to believe him... Choi is a pure Rocker, his mass image is no different from his real life, he lives the way he sings. Victor Choi is the last hero of rock and roll.
In 1999, Russia introduced a set of stamps for eight late singing artists, among which Victor Choi was among them. Victor Choi's mother said in an interview with television: "There was no hope in that era, they needed a hero, they created a hero for themselves. ”