"They were freer than me": Joanna Stingray on Viktor Tsoi, friendship with Grebenshchikov and rock in the USSR

2021-06-27T01:48:56.218Z

American actress and singer Joanna Stingray has long gone down in the history of Soviet rock. Arriving in the USSR in the 1980s, she got into the Leningrad rock party, and this changed her life. Joanna made friends with Boris Grebenshchikov and Viktor Tsoi, was married to the guitarist of the Kino group, Yuri Kasparyan, and helped the musicians buy instruments that were impossible to get at home. In an interview with Oksana Boyko, the host of the Opposites program, the singer spoke about her friendship with cult musicians of that time and how Russian rock differed from Western rock.