One of the main reasons for westerners to look at clips of Gruppa Hi Fi from Russia [further down – main years the 90s and early 2000s] is how much it reveals of just what made yoof tick over there, what they held dear, how they rebelled in the 90s, as we rebelled in the 60s.
And I was living during the tail end of both, also the punk and ska years over here.
Russia is very different. This is a people who had had no freedom, no room to move until the early 90s, who heard western music via the Samizdat – even the Beatles were naughty in Russian eyes – and of course, they had their Communist Party organizations.…