The photo shows the end of the 80s in Moscow as many Muscovites remember it: street musicians, Tsoy’s Wall, young couples, artists, and intellectuals standing next to punks and hippies. That’s the way Old Arbat was: today it celebrates its 520th anniversary.
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Igor Stomakhin
Arbat Street, mainly referred to as the Arbat, is a pedestrian street about one kilometer long in the historical centre of Moscow.
Igor Stomakhin
The Arbat has existed since at least the 15th century, thus laying claim to being one of the oldest surviving streets of the Russian capital. It forms the heart of the Arbat District of Moscow.
Igor Stomakhin
Actually, today's Arbat has partially lost the historic atmosphere that attracted Moscow's intellectuals for many centuries.
Igor Stomakhin
Local youth were poets, musicians, and artists who read poems, wrote songs, and made paintings on this street. This tradition has remained.
Igor Stomakhin
In the 1980s, rock bands were just starting to appear in the Soviet Union. Their fans mostly gathered on the Arbat. Here, they played the guitar and exchanged records.
Igor Stomakhin
The songs of Viktor Tsoy, the lead singer of the band “Kino”, were an anthem for the 80s generation. Kino started to tour Russia in 1987 and gain fame among youth. After the death of Tsoy, the band’s leader, the Tsoy wall appeared at the intersection of the Arbat and Krivoarbatsky Side Street and is considered one of Moscow's landmarks.
Igor Stomakhin
Viktor Tsoi left a musical rock legacy for the many fans who still today come to Krivoarbatsky pereulok to remember the words and the music of Tsoi, look at the graffiti, and meet other fans, it is customary for Tsoi's fans to leave a broken lighted cigarette in the special ash plate by the wall.
Igor Stomakhin
Bulat Okudzhava, the Soviet poet and composer, wrote memorable lines about the Arbat 40 years ago in a song that is beloved by all Muscovites: "Oh Arbat, my Arbat - you are my homeland... you're my calling."
Igor Stomakhin
After the October revolution of 1917, the Bolsheviks confiscated private property on the Arbat, as they did elsewhere in Russia, and made the buildings state property. Nevertheless, the street did not immediately lose its reputation as a haunt for artists.
Igor Stomakhin
Through the 1920s this began to change, as mass immigration from the countryside into the capital put enormous pressure on housing. For this reason, the previous apartment buildings were made into kommunalkas, apartments where more than one family lived together.
Igor Stomakhin
Furthermore, the area served more and more to accommodate the high-ranking functionaries of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. This period is described in Anatoli Rybakov's novel Children of the Arbat.
Igor Stomakhin
Today the Arbat is an opportunity to immerse oneself in the creative spirit of old Moscow, listen to street musicians, buy original souvenirs, and take a leisurely walk from Arbat Gates to Smolenskaya Square.
