Word: kgb
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...before he could make it with his music. Only two years ago, Sukachev and fellow band members were routinely hauled into local police stations and asked to explain their hairstyles and unusual dress. When the band's photograph appeared in a French magazine in 1986, Sukachev was taken to KGB headquarters for questioning. These days, all that has changed. On a recent trip back to his high school, Sukachev was surprised to hear himself described as the school pride. Says he: "I used to be their shame...
...longer I listened, the more amazed I was that this conversation was even taking place. Could you have imagined it ten, five, even three years ago! Who would have met with them for a talk? Wouldn't it have been officials from the local kgb...
...Leningrad the top five party leaders were all wiped out. Also fallen: about a third of the 129 regional party leaders, Moscow's mayor, Lithuania's top leadership, the KGB boss in Estonia, the admiral of the Pacific fleet and the general of Soviet forces in East Germany, the party boss in Kiev, and Yevgeni Brakov, the manager of Moscow's ZIL limousine factory, who had the thankless task of taking on Yeltsin...
...exporting them to the West, Sitnikov scorned "socialist realism" in his art. His most serious paintings alternated between a touching optimism and a profound morbidity. During our afternoon together, we discussed the plight of Soviet artists, and I left with two paintings hidden under my jacket (in case KGB watchers were about). On my return to Moscow this year, I saw a fully sanctioned exhibition of "unofficial" art not unlike Sitnikov's and felt deep sadness that he had not lived long enough...
Andrei Sinyavsky finds his countrymen relishing greater liberty but, after run-ins with the KGB, questions whether perestroika and glasnost can survive...