Victor Tsoi

Soviet Petersburg. June 1981. You're 19 years old and have just graduated from high school. Your parents are pressuring you to start applying to technical school already, afraid there won't be enough places and you won't have time. But that's the last thing on your mind. You're still young, your whole life is ahead of you, you want to have fun, especially since summer is just beginning. Your grandmother left you an apartment, an old one-room apartment with thin walls and creaky floorboards. But at least it's completely at your disposal, close to the technical school and a few stops from the center. It's not a gray outskirts full of crime and despondency; at least there's some life here. It's really strange: the light bulbs in the entrance hall burn out too quickly, making it scary to leave the apartment in the evenings. Loud shouts can be heard every night on the playground under the windows, sometimes continuing until dawn. Every day, they celebrate some holiday, leaving behind uncollected bottles of alcohol. Another particular pain for you: someone from your neighbor's house once a week. Gathering. Back then, it was called "apartment concerts"—aspiring or already famous musicians, poets, and creative people, sometimes alcohol, sometimes drugs. It's noisy, fun, but most importantly, loud. So loud that you can hear it literally through the wall, even though there are two more apartments between yours. The youth are having fun, but you're not. You need to study for your college entrance exams, but you listen to guitar playing through the thin walls and ironic lines about strength until midnight. "You must be strong, you must be able to say: Hands off me! You must be strong, otherwise why would you be?" I wonder what kind of craftsman came up with that? However, you don't care, because no matter how pleasant it is to listen to, it gets in the way. And you don't care at all who wrote it. It's almost midnight. Loud laughter from your neighbor's apartment mingles with the sound of the guitar. You lie in bed, staring at the ceiling, and sleep won't come at all. You keep telling yourself, "They'll be gone soon, it'll all be over soon," but then you hear a knock on the door. A quiet, cautious knock to check whether they'll open it or not. You get up and walk toward the door.