the story of my first guitar in the soviet union
I was born in 1986 in Moscow City, Moscow in the former Soviet Union. I had a very strange childhood in Moscow, growing up in an oppressed Jewish family with the monochromatic backdrop of the last gasp of the USSR. Death, war, heroin addiction, alcoholism, homelessness, disease, and antisemitism were such a prevelant part of everyday life for Soviets that even the more affluent families (like mine) could not escape it.
The Iron Curtain prevented Western culture (film, theater, television, outside news, radio, music, etc) from being consumed within the USSR. However, from what I can remember, two musical acts broke through the cultural and political barrier enstated years prior by the Motherland.
Elvis Presley and The Beatles were the exceptions. Soviet officials apparently loved them more than communism. I used to hang out in the kitchen while my mother or grandmother cooked and listen to the radio. The first time I heard The Beatles, my entire being altered. What is this sound? What is this language? I had never heard anything like it before, and I was hooked.
By the time I was 4, I was completely obsessed. I made my father teach me some basic English (technically British, we didn't know anything about "American English" until after we moved to the States, which greatly confused us and made the culture shock worse, but that's a story for another time) so that I could understand The Beatles' lyrics a bit.
That same year I begged my parents to buy me an electric guitar. Luckily my family could afford such luxuries, and a week later I awoke to find a beautiful new children's powder blue electric guitar with a brown leather strap and topped with a big red gift bow, placed lovingly in the far corner of my bedroom.
From that day forth, each day I would stand in front of a full length mirror, strumming the guitar to The Beatles on the radio, singing in gibberish because that's what English sounded like to me. I used to fall asleep clutching the guitar to my chest. This went on for months, and then six months after I turned 5 we moved to the States, and I was forced to leave the guitar behind. To say that it made me sad would be an understatement. It was like discarding a piece of myself to make room for unknown foreign horrors.
Last night I dreamt about that guitar, for the hundredth time. I'd love to find one just like it, but my parents don't remember exactly what kind it was. If I saw a photo of it, I'm pretty sure I would recognize it.
The Iron Curtain prevented Western culture (film, theater, television, outside news, radio, music, etc) from being consumed within the USSR. However, from what I can remember, two musical acts broke through the cultural and political barrier enstated years prior by the Motherland.
Elvis Presley and The Beatles were the exceptions. Soviet officials apparently loved them more than communism. I used to hang out in the kitchen while my mother or grandmother cooked and listen to the radio. The first time I heard The Beatles, my entire being altered. What is this sound? What is this language? I had never heard anything like it before, and I was hooked.
By the time I was 4, I was completely obsessed. I made my father teach me some basic English (technically British, we didn't know anything about "American English" until after we moved to the States, which greatly confused us and made the culture shock worse, but that's a story for another time) so that I could understand The Beatles' lyrics a bit.
That same year I begged my parents to buy me an electric guitar. Luckily my family could afford such luxuries, and a week later I awoke to find a beautiful new children's powder blue electric guitar with a brown leather strap and topped with a big red gift bow, placed lovingly in the far corner of my bedroom.
From that day forth, each day I would stand in front of a full length mirror, strumming the guitar to The Beatles on the radio, singing in gibberish because that's what English sounded like to me. I used to fall asleep clutching the guitar to my chest. This went on for months, and then six months after I turned 5 we moved to the States, and I was forced to leave the guitar behind. To say that it made me sad would be an understatement. It was like discarding a piece of myself to make room for unknown foreign horrors.
Last night I dreamt about that guitar, for the hundredth time. I'd love to find one just like it, but my parents don't remember exactly what kind it was. If I saw a photo of it, I'm pretty sure I would recognize it.