Rockers of the USSR. Foreign rock bands of the eighties Rare rock bands of the 80s

AC/DC (IC/DC)

AC/DC (IC/DC)- Australian team, created by two siblings in their youth. The Young family was literally obsessed with music. All 4 brothers Malcolm, George, Alex and Angus learned to play the guitar from childhood and by adulthood...

Aerosmith

Bad Religion (bad faith)

Bad English (bad English)

Bon Jovi (Bon Jovi)

Cinderella (Cinderella)

Def Leppard

Dire Straits

Dokken

Europe

Fine Young Cannibals

Foreigner

Genesis (Genesis)

Genesis (Genesis)- legendary English rock group. 2017 marks the 50th anniversary of the group’s creation. The group was included in the list of bands of the 80s because the 80s were the most successful years in the life of the rock group. It was at the very end of the 70s that Genesis radically...

During the era of perestroika, new youth movements began to appear in the Soviet Union, whose members we call informals. Informals existed before the start of perestroika, but it was at this time that their number increased significantly, and in almost every big city In the USSR one could meet representatives of various movements. This post will allow us to understand the diversity of informal societies.

Hippie

The heyday of the movement based on music lovers' psychedelic and hardrock preferences, which gave rise to the all-Union system of registrations, forest and beach camps, home concerts, as well as hitchhiking, occurred in the mid-70s. By the early 80s, hippie fashion swept the capitals; in Moscow, hippie communication covered the Boulevard Ring, Arbat and Mayakovsky Square. The ranks of the movement were joined by Beatlemaniac students, street bards and a generation of children of the Soviet intelligentsia who were engaged in unofficial creativity.

Hippie 1984

Hippie. Not far from the Tourist, 1988

Hippie. At the entrance to Saigon, 1987

Hipsters

In the 1980s, the movement was revived due to youth's interest in retro style. These groups appeared in Leningrad under the name “Secretists” in Leningrad, and in Moscow they were called “Bravists” (after the names of the groups Bravo and Secret)

Hipsters. Anton Teddy and comrades, 1984. Photo by Dmitry Konrad

Hipsters. Rus Ziggel and Teddy boys. Leningrad, 1984. Photo by Dmitry Conrad

Wide Hipsters. Moscow, 1987

New Wavers

The new wave movement received a rather vague manifestation in Soviet society. Initially based on music lovers' preferences in the form of electronic experiments and the aesthetics of post-punk "new romantics", domestic new wavers compiled their external aesthetics on the basis of "pure style", hairstyles of a certain type and makeup, with elements taken from other already established movements, ranging from breaker glasses, ending with post-punk “dark style”
After 85, following the partial legalization of foreign non-radical styles, the popularization of disco and the rise of the metal wave, total weight « new wave"was divided into two camps. Disco fans of foreign pop music who consumed branded items and were labeled “poppers” due to their passion for pop music in the 80s. And more advanced mods - new wavers, who were in close contact with the creative underground, experimenting within the framework of mod and post-punk traditions.

Newwaivers. Leningrad, 1984

Newwaivers. New wave at MEPhI, 1983

Newwaivers. At Mayak, 1990

Breakers

In the early 80s, echoes of the hip-hop movement reached Soviet youth and were manifested in the form of the “breakers” movement (according to the self-inflicted local definition of the dance style). Initially a lifestyle that combined skateboarding and disco dancing, this style was represented by a small student fashion community and the “golden youth” of the South-West of Moscow. But by the mid-80s, following the opening of youth cafes and the release of the film “Dancing on the Roof,” breakers were represented as nothing more than a dance subculture, with their own experiments in the field of appearance.

Breakers. Arbat, 1986. Photo by Sergey Borisov

Breakers. Arbat, 1987. Photo by Yaroslav Mayev

Break dance, 1987

Rockabillies

The style itself became widespread thanks to the pan-European revival of classic rock and roll and the beginning of the psychobilly movement in the second half of the 80s. In the Soviet Union, this manifestation overlapped with the New Wave costume fashion, but after 86 it became isolated, partly in the Kupchinsky underground (Leningrad), partly in the rocker underground (Moscow, Moscow Art Theater), and among the Elvis Presley fan club (Moscow) with party places at the station. metro station Revolution Square and Catacombs (ruins of the Greek Hall)

Rockabillies. Hedgehog and Moor, 1987

Rockabillies. Leningrad, 1987

Rockabillies. Rockabilly on Arbat, 1989

Rockers

The term “rockers” appeared in the early 80s and initially applied to Soviet fans of rock music. But, already starting from 1984, the label “rocker” was assigned to fans precisely hard rock, gravitating towards external styling similar to the British “coffee bar cowboys” and American bike clubs. In September 1984 (on Coverdale's birthday), this term was raised to the flag by a party of hard rock fans at the Central Park of Musical Culture named after. Gorky, and later spread to the first motorcycle gangs of Moscow “Black aces” and “Street wolves”, then to all motorcycle associations until 1989

Rockers, 1987

Rockers, on the outskirts of the Moscow Art Theater, 1988

Rockers, Night Out, 1988

Metalheads

Actually, the term “metalhead” itself originated in philophonic parties back in the early 80s, when at the turn of the decade the rhythms of groups that had previously been considered “hard rock” by Soviet standards changed. The slogan “heavy metal”, copied from foreign magazines, initially applied to “kisomaniacs” and other fans of “hardrock” in the early 80s. But by the middle of the decade, after the self-determination of some music lovers as “rockers” and the emergence of domestic bands “99%”, “ Metal corrosion", "E.S.T." and other groups of fans began to be called “metallists” /

Metalworkers from Gorky, 1987

Metalheads. VDNH, 1986

Metalheads. KhMR-89, Omsk

Punks

The most ideological, and at the same time apolitical, movement received its first manifestations at the turn of the 80s. Not having complete visual information about foreign analogues, but understanding the effectiveness of the artistic caricature lifestyle, this phenomenon manifested itself in the form of parodic street idiotism, artistic foolishness, gradually acquiring non-Soviet paraphernalia, playing music and arts.
Being the most “offensive” public manifestation for the Soviet nomenclature (openly discrediting the image of a Soviet citizen in front of foreign tourists), “Soviet punk” was subjected to the most intense pressure from Komsomol members, the police and gopots. All this led to radicalization; the merging of punks and rockers, the formation of hardcore, crusty and cyberpunk styles, with the first “Iroquois” on the deranged heads of the wearers. To the surprise of the representatives of the Soviet punk underground themselves, when information gaps were discovered in the “Iron Curtain”, it was discovered that these manifestations coincided with advanced global subcultural trends.

Punks. House of Culture Gorbunovo, 1987

Punks. Leningrad, 1986. Photo by Natalia Vasilyeva

Punks. Moscow, 1988

Mods

At the instigation of the first “new dudes” and receiving its starting impetus from the mod movement of the 60s, in the USSR it received a reverse vector of development from Soviet punk to the vintage motifs of the past. At the same time, without losing any radicalism, the Soviet “fashion styling” of the period of avant-garde artistic movements of the 80s became business card for many participants in musical and artistic projects, uniting a heterogeneous artistic people who gravitated toward music-loving omnivorousness and experienced all the latest innovations in fashion and music. Such characters, disparagingly called “mods” in the art community, participated in most key shows and performances, were carriers of the latest fashionable and cultural information and often shocked the population with parodies of social nomenclature costumes and punk antics.

Fashion. Moscow, 1988

Fashion. Moscow, 1989. Photo by Evgeny Volkov

Fashion. Chelyabinsk, early 80s

Hardmodes

The short-term manifestation of this intermediate foreign style of the 70s occurred at the end of the 80s, due to the consolidation of radical informal circles during the resistance to pressure and the influx of a new wave of truly marginal elements, following the popularization informal movements at the turn of 87-88 (exactly after the turning point in street battles with the “Lubers” and Gopniks). It is worth noting that such manifestations in a caricatured ironic form were present in the vastness of our homeland, when radical informals dressed up in proto-Skinhead outfits, cut their heads bald out of spite, and crowded into crowded places. Scaring you with your appearance policemen and ordinary people, who in all seriousness listened to Soviet propaganda that all informals were fascist thugs. The hardmods of the late 80s were a sublimation of the punk, rockabilly and militaristic style, and of course, having never heard about what they should be called according to the stylistic classification, they preferred the self-name “streetfighters” and “militarists”.

Hardmodes. Red Square, 1988

Hardmodes. Moscow Zoo, 1988

Psychobills

Psychobilly, being in to a greater extent appeared in Leningrad at the turn of the 90s, together with the groups Swidlers and Meantreitors, when groups of young people formalized this direction musically, standing out from the rockabilly environment. But even before that, there were individual characters who fell outside the framework of the new subcultural leagues and who preferred polymelormania of the rock and roll variety. In terms of dress code, this tendency was close to punk aesthetics

Psychobills. In the courtyard of a rock club, 1987. Photo by Natalia Vasilyeva

Psychobills. Leningrad, 1989

Psychobills. Muscovites visiting Leningraders, 1988. Photo by Evgeny Volkov

Bikers

During clashes with gopniks and “lubers” in the period from 1986 to 1991, special active groups emerged in the rocker and heavy metal environment, which at the turn of the 90s transformed from motto gangs into the first motto clubs. With its own visual attributes modeled on foreign bike clubs, and on heavy motorcycles, modernized by hand or even post-war trophy models. Already by 1990, the groups “Hell Dogs”, “Night Wolves”, “Cossacs Russia” could be distinguished in Moscow. Also present were shorter-term motorcycle associations, such as “MS Davydkovo”. The self-name bikers, as a symbol of the separation of this stage from the rocker past, was first assigned to the group rallied around Alexander the Surgeon, and then spread to the entire moto movement, gradually covering many cities in the post-Soviet space

Bikers. Surgeon, 1989. Photo by Petra Gall

Bikers. Kimirsen, 1990

Bikers. Night wolves on Pushka, 1989. Photo by Sergey Borisov

Bikers. Theme, 1989

Beatniks

A phenomenon no less multifaceted than punk aesthetics, Soviet beatism dates back to the distant 70s. When this term included fashionable decadents visiting hot spots, who grew their hair below their shoulders and dressed in leather jackets and Beatles. This term also included “labukhi” - musicians making music to order in Soviet restaurants, and simply people outside any “leagues”, leading an isolated and immoral, from the point of view of Soviet aesthetics, lifestyle. This trend in the early 80s was aggravated by a careless appearance, defiant behavior and the presence of some distinctive element in clothing. Be it a hat or a scarf or a bright tie.

Beatniks. Bitnichki, Timur Novikov and Oleg Kotelnikov. Photo by Evgeny Kozlov

Beatniks. Parade on the first of April, Leningrad-83

Beatniks. Chelyabinsk, late 70s

Fans

The movement, which originated in the late 70s and consisted of “kuzmichas” (ordinary visitors to stadiums) and the visiting elite who accompanied teams at matches in other cities, by the beginning of the 80s had already acquired its regional leaders, acquired “gangs”, merchandise and turned into football-related communication. Following the fast start of Spartak fans (most famous center Parties of the early 80s became the Sayany beer bar at the station. Shchelkovskaya metro station), who held their city actions and parades, just as quickly “gangs” began to appear around other teams

Fans. Moscow, 1988. Photo by Victoria Ivleva

Fans. Moscow-81. Photo by Igor Mukhin

Fans. Reception of a Zenit fan in Dnepropetrovsk-83

Lyubera

A unique direction formed at the intersection of the hobby of bodybuilding and youth supervision programs.
Initially assigned to a local group of people from Lyubertsy, who often traveled to the capital to vacation spots for young people, the name “Luber” already from 1987 was interpolated not only to heterogeneous groups not connected with each other, but also to larger groups concentrated during this period in the Central Park of Educational Institutions named after Gorky and Arbat. Zhdan, Lytkarinsky, Sovkhoz-Moscow, Podolsk, Karacharovsky, Naberezhnye Chelnovsky, Kazan - this is an incomplete list of the “brotherhood near Moscow”, which tried to control not only the designated territories, but also other hot spots and station squares. Initially encouraged by the authorities, they hoped to place these formations into the fabric of the “people’s squad” ", these groups had no common dress code other than their affinity for sportswear, but also had conflicting interests that were consolidated only within the framework of aggression against fashionistas and “informals”.

Lyubera. 1988

Lyubera. Africa and Lubera, 1986. Photo by Sergey Borisov

Lyubera. Lyubera and Podolsk in the Gorky Central Park of Education and Culture, 1988

All photographs were taken by German journalist Petra Gall at the turn of 1980–1990, project curator Misha Buster commented on them.
1. Dancing near the Margarita cafe on Patriarch's Street, in a strange way still working. Patricks in the 1980s was already a fairly advanced place, but since Valera Lysenko (Hedgehog) from Mister Twister moved there, it became associated with the rockabilly party. Mavriky Slepnev, captured in the photo, did a lot for this - the grandson of Papanin and the son of a ballerina, who famously danced at the “Misters” concerts. And then he got sick with a motorcycle and had a hard time driving around the underground passage of Pushkin Square. We called this transition a “pipe.”

2. By the end of the 1980s, when the clashes between rockers and lubbers had already died down - even the New York Times wrote about them - everyone took to the streets of Arbat. Among them were the Hare Krishnas, who, with their awkward appearance and mumbling, annoyed those around them no less than the motor-rocker gangs.

3. A typical Arbat painting from perestroika times, preserved to this day. Such tables with matryoshka leaders and other kitsch have nested next to the crowd since the late 1980s street artists. Moreover, it was like a facade, because there was also a brisk trade in deficit goods: foreign things, magazines, vinyl.


4. Sheremukha, aka Sharik: Sheremetyevo-2 airport was a traditional place of night pilgrimage for rocker columns, starting either from the backyard of the Moscow Art Theater or from Luzhniki. The purpose of the visits was to show off oneself and to scare foreigners. Plus, be sure to visit the cafe there. The route to the airport often ran through the Badaevsky beer factory and in the morning ended at the exit from the restaurant of the Moscow Hotel. There, paying 1 rub. 50 kopecks, motorcyclists took out from buffet helmets filled to the brim with food.


5. Before the advent of special units to catch rockers, traffic cops on motorcycles caused outright laughter among hooligans. They couldn’t keep up with motorcyclists, they rode awkwardly, and they looked, let’s say, much less fashionable than the motorcycle traffic cops in helmets and leggings of the 1960s. Aesthetics sagged on many fronts during these years.


6. Backyards of the Moscow Art Theater named after. Gorky is a place that became popular in 1987, when local fashionable guys got on motorcycles and created a separate crowd. Unlike the concert-rocker associations that cultivated heavy metal, she, as if in opposition, preferred the rockabilly style and was inspired by the film “Streets on Fire.”


7. In 1987, Petra Gall met in Moscow the Surgeon (Alexander Zaldastanov - founder of the Night Wolves motorcycle club), Ed (Eduard Ratnikov - president concert agency T.C.I., pictured on the left), Rus (Ruslan Tyurin - founder of the Black Aces motorcycle club, pictured) and Garik (Assa, Oleg Kolomiychuk - a character of the Moscow underground, died in 2012). She immediately found herself in the epicenter of the rocker movement. From this picture you can see that Ed and Rus' outfit combines the aesthetics of London street racers of the 1960s and the sketchy ideas of American motorcycle gangs of the 1950s. The guys wanted to look the coolest, like in the movies and on the covers of foreign magazines.


8. Warriors in the night dumpling shop. These are unforgettable establishments that, along with kebabs and sandwich shops, were held under general term"risers". Rockers and taxi drivers dined here at night, and office workers and visitors during the day.


9. Another photo from the stand-up. In one of these, on Herzen Street, the Arbat lyuber Shmel got a job as an intern. He was looking for mythical fascists, but instead he found us punks and fed us dumplings for free. After the collapse of the USSR, Shmel was renamed Pelmen and, not finding the fascists, became one himself, joining some Black Hundreds in the early 1990s.


10. The night center of Moscow at the end of the 1980s, filmed during some regular motorcycle tour with stops on Gorky Street for hot bread, just brought from the factory to the Filippovskaya bakery. Nowadays, such a deserted Moscow, immersed in darkness, with crooked streets, has been preserved extremely locally. Together with the mixed smell of wet asphalt and boulevard poplars, with strange passers-by, since all the non-strange ones passed out before the next labor feat, it can safely be called “Moscow.”


11. Near this monument on Kaluga Square, skaters first appeared in the early 1980s - on Riga “rules” and Moscow region boards. 10 years after the powerful rock wave of perestroika, the topic returned again, but in a different fashion. Wide trousers - pipes and pyramids, heavy boots and robes flashed against the backdrop of the same Soviet idols frozen in stone.


12. Sasha the Surgeon morally humiliates a lover he accidentally met on Pushka. A turning point came for the rock movement, when the persecution of everything informal intensified sharply and lubers appeared. It was a collective movement under the auspices of bodybuilding in Lyubertsy near Moscow. Bodybuilders have traveled to Moscow before, but they did not engage in overt social pressure. But those who mowed under lyubers practiced small gop-stop with might and main, for which they were sold. Sasha played an important role in this process, but, despite the fact that clashes between lubers and rockers became legendary, more often such meetings ended in skirmishes and comical performances.


13. Night ride of motorcycle hooligans in the spring of 1989. In such gangs, in the spirit of the movie “Mad Max,” they rushed through the deserted streets of the city, having previously removed the silencers from their “Yavs,” “Chezets,” and sometimes “Dnieper” and “Ural” vehicles. For the most part, Moscow rockers were ordinary guys, whom the more advanced called “telogreechniki”. By 1988, the movement had become so massive and noisy that in the USSR they began making horror films about them like “Accident - the Cop’s Daughter.”


14. In contrast to the previous gothic: here is the exaltation at Luzhniki in 1989 - at the Peace Festival. Despite the subsequent larger Monsters of Rock festival in 1991, the Peace Festival is remembered as the peak of the 1980s. There was no such atmosphere even at the first local concerts of Uriah Heep and Pink Floyd. They brought top stars to Moscow, including Ozzy Osbourne, and for some reason put Moscow new wavers from Stas Namin’s pool on the same stage with them.


15. This is probably 1992. It’s difficult to establish, since in the 1990s the rocker theme was finally replaced by a biker theme with heavy motorcycles, long forks and the first Russian bike clubs. In the photo is Tanya (Eremeeva. - Ed.), a friend of the founder of one of the first motorcycle associations "Cossacs" Oleg, aka Kim Il Sung (Oleg Goch. - Ed.). At the very beginning of the 1990s, he managed to travel abroad and bring more or less modern Harleys.


16. Late 1980s, Gallery - as Gostiny Dvor was called by the dudes who hung out there. A shabby, graffiti-covered gothic-decadent piece of the Moscow Empire style, filled with legends about the KGB basements. In those years, an absolutely deserted corner of Moscow, in which the ominous silence was destroyed only by some dull rhythmic sound from a unit working in the courtyard of the Gostinka.

Unlike its foreign “brother”, Russian rock did not develop so rapidly. On his way, he encountered misunderstanding, rejection and even prohibitions. Despite this, it was possible to form a fairly powerful movement that unites freedom-loving, bright and extraordinary personalities.

Reasons for popularity

The biker movement originated in the USA in the 1950s and almost immediately became a “protest” movement, attracting “selected” youth who wanted freedom and new opportunities. In the USSR after the Great Patriotic War The “motorcycleization” of the country was proceeding at an accelerated pace, but in a more peaceful direction: relatively inexpensive and accessible motorcycles became an everyday means of transportation for all ages and segments of the population, transportation of various goods, including building materials for dachas, and equipment for travel.

In the mid-60s, several factories produced motorcycles, mopeds and scooters - up to 350,000 IZhs per year - which were not much inferior in quality to their foreign counterparts. In the 1970s and 80s, it became easier to buy a car, and adults started driving cars. Motorcycles are the same quality vehicle remained in the countryside, and the cities began to attract young people - just at this time, echoes of the biker movement from the USA reached the USSR.

However, in the Soviet Union, informal associations of young people on motorcycles were called “rockers” rather than bikers. This term appeared in the early 80s and denoted Soviet rock music fans who tried to copy the style of British “coffee bar cowboys” and American bikers. But since many fans of hard rock in major cities already rode motorcycles, the term “rocker” soon spread to young motorcyclists in general, and to members of the first domestic motorcycle clubs in particular.

But for the Soviet “rocker,” especially in the provinces, it was not so important what ordinary people called him. From adolescence, the guys helped their fathers fix their motorcycles, collected spare parts from landfills and built equipment themselves; many took part in free motocross and karting sections.

We gradually saved money and bought our own lightweight, relatively inexpensive, domestically produced motorcycles: “IZH Planet”, “IZH Planet Sport”, “Minsk”, “Voskhod”. In the 1970s and 80s, Voskhod cost 450 rubles. - this is 3-4 average salaries.

The motorcycle was unpretentious, economical, lightweight and repairable, although not particularly reliable. But many learned to repair internal combustion engines on it. “IZH Planet” already cost 625-750 rubles. (4-5 average salaries), but at the same time the cheapest car - "Zaporozhets" - was sold for 3000-3750 rubles.

"Sunrise"

"IZH Planet Sport"

There were also “foreign cars” in the Soviet motorcycle fleet. For example, Czechoslovakian Jawa motorcycles were supplied to the USSR from the mid-50s, and by the 70s almost every third motorcyclist rode them, and in total there were more than a million Jawas in the USSR, which were valued for their reliability, power, versatility and ease of use. maintenance and repair.

The most fashionable model in the USSR was the Java-638, which began to be produced in 1984. It had a two-stroke two-cylinder engine with a volume of 343 cubic meters and a power of 26 hp. With., maximum speed motorcycle speed was 120 km/h.

In addition to Jawa, Hungarian Pannonia motorcycles were popular, equipped with a single-cylinder 250 cc two-stroke engine, a four-speed gearbox, a closed chain drive and a duplex frame. From 1954 to 1975, 287,000 motorcycles of this brand were imported into the USSR. The most successful model was the Pannonia 250 TLF: the motorcycle weighed 146 kg, had an 18-liter tank, boasted reliable electrics, and its engine produced 18 hp. With. power. In addition to this model, the plant produced motorcycles with a 350 cc engine and a sidecar.

Another successful motorcycle of those years was the Czechoslovakian CZ - “Cheset”. The dream of an entire generation was produced since 1962 and was equipped with a single-cylinder two-stroke engine with a displacement of 250 cm3.

But the “rocker” movement in the USSR was inextricably linked precisely with IZH motorcycles and the iconic Czechoslovak “Java”. In the cities, taxi drivers were the first to buy Java cars: in the 60-70s they earned 100-120 rubles. per month, depending on the class of the driver, and, in addition, they often sold vodka or counterfeit goods under the counter, having considerable additional income. Taxi drivers were then in fashion with eight-piece caps and brown leather jackets, which they bought from military pilots. In the evenings after work, they got together with colleagues and rode motorcycles.

At that time it was not necessary to wear a helmet. But as the number of motorcycles grew, so did the number of accidents involving them, and then drivers were required to wear helmets. However, at first there weren’t enough helmets for everyone, and they were poor and made of iron. Such a “helmet” spoiled the dashing appearance of a motorcyclist on a “Java” - that’s when the division into 1% of hooligans began, who did not recognize helmets, bans on crowd gatherings and rules traffic, and the remaining 99% of law-abiding motorcyclists. But over time, when more modern plastic helmets began to arrive from the Baltics, most motorcyclists switched to them: they could be painted, visors and muzzles attached, and generally “customized” in every possible way.

To hang out with friends and chat with girls, “rockers” usually gathered on Friday evenings and weekends near city parks and other public places. In Moscow, the most popular places in the 80s were Gorky Park, “Luzha” (Luzhniki Stadium), “Mkhat” (the area near the theater of the same name), and “Solyanka” (salt cellars on the Lubyanka). Motorcyclists also met at “Kuzna” (Novokuznetskaya metro station), in the cafe “On Malaya Bronnaya”, in “Mayak” and, of course, on “The Mountain” (the observation deck of the Sparrow Hills opposite the main building of Moscow State University), where they still gather now.

After communicating on the spot, the “rockers” got on their motorcycles and rode around the city at night. It must be said that until the 90s, the traffic police did not stand on ceremony with “rockers”: they drove them away from party places, and organized chases on the roads, they could even use weapons against especially arrogant ones. But the crazy motorcyclists of those years allowed themselves to ride not only without documents (having a “licence” of category “A” until the early 2000s was considered almost bad manners!), but also without observing any traffic rules: in a crowd in oncoming traffic, along underground pedestrian crossings, on sidewalks, etc. Many accidents also happened: according to statistics, in the late 80s in the USSR, 12 thousand accidents involving motorcyclists occurred per month, in which 1,600 people died. Over the year - 68.5 thousand accidents due to the fault of motorcycle drivers, about 10 thousand people died! Today, despite increased speeds and an increased number of cars and motorcycles by several orders of magnitude, significantly fewer accidents involving motorcyclists occur: about 10 thousand accidents per year, in which about 1,200 people die - the monthly “norm” of the USSR in the 80s.

The “rockers” of the 80s enthusiastically engaged in, as they say today, “customizing” their motorcycles - whoever knows what. Ideas were drawn from occasional European and American motorcycle magazines, and later from films like Mad Max. Everything was done with our own hands from scrap materials or from what we managed to get at the “flea market” or get from “over the hill.” They also repaired and tuned the motorcycles themselves - there weren’t even tire shops in the provinces.

The motorcycles were equipped with handlebars with a crossbar or two, “royal” high handlebars without crossbars (ape-hanger type), semicircular arches made from water pipes using a pipe bender and galvanized through a “friend’s father” at some factory. Czechoslovak windshields "Velorex", metal chrome glove compartments from "Pannonia", lights that turned on along with the low beam and at night left an illuminated spot on the road - from the "Vyatka" scooter, "stopari" and "dimensions" were altered and replaced with larger ones. The “original” gas handles and brake and clutch levers were immediately removed and replaced with others, for example, from the same “Pannonia”. Rear-view mirrors were mounted on the windshield, and there were also mirrors on the safety arches, through which male drivers looked under the girls’ skirts when they sat in the passenger seat...

The control buttons were chrome plated from “Pannonia”; they turned on the turn signals and beep signals, which were often made in two different tones, so that for each button a signal could be played using two buttons “ Dog Waltz"or imitate a 'siren'. The mufflers were also removed or altered: externally they were left as factory ones, but the insides were cut off to make the sound sharper and louder. Multi-colored light bulbs were attached to the wheels, glowing effectively in the dark and while driving.

By 1988, the rocker movement in the USSR had become so massive and noisy that they even started making films about it, or rather about its detrimental effect on fragile minds, like “Accident - the Cop’s Daughter.” And in the 90s, rockers were finally replaced by bikers on heavy motorcycles with long forks, the first Russian bike clubs and the first not military trophy, but real “biker” Harleys brought from the USA. But that's a completely different story.