Original subtitles

Once upon a time in Russia, a Revolution happened.

Actually, a ghost had been creeping around for quite a while.

The ghost of Communism.

Lenin proposed a simple formula:

Communism is power of Soviet plus electrification of the whole country.

Apparently, according to Lenin's plan, the Ghost would get a huge electric shock

and come to life, just like the monster Frankenstein.

The simple formula was effective.

People enthusiastically picked up their axes and shovels.

Soon in every farmhouse icons were replaced by "Ilyich" light bulbs.

There were now new gods: Science and Technical Progress.

The ordinary soviet peasant already saw in his dreams a giant magical switch in Kremlin

that will power communism as soon as the last red wire is connected.

The switch was turned on

but the Ghost never came to life.

Rotor Film presents

ELEKTRO MOSKVA

a film by Elena Tikhonova and Dominik Spritzendorfer

Cinematography: Dominik Spritzendorfer

Editing: Michael Palm

Sound Design: Atanas Tcholakov

Electro Tales by Andey Andrianov

Producer: Dominik Spritzendorfer

Co-Producers: Diana Stoynova, Petra Popovic

written and directed by Elena Tikhonova & Dominik Spritzendorfer

- Come in. Let's see what we have here.

- Is there some light?

- Wow, drums all the way up to the ceiling.

- Drums and record-players and mixers, anything.

- Sasha, how did you keep it so long?

- There are spare parts here.

- Hold on, what's that? - This is a Polyvox.

- It's not a Polyvox it's an ESKO. How come it is so battered?

- Took out some spare parts. - But it did work!

- A long time ago. Here is a keyboard.

- Ritm 2. - Probably.

- And where is the brain? - Took them as spare parts.

- Why did you take this processor apart?

- Also for spare parts? - Yes.

- Remember, you said you had some old reverberators?

- Are there any left? - No.

- You were right, this place was looted a little.

- Or more than a little. - It's all borrowed.

- When are you going to clean up here?

- When the radiator floods the whole place again.

- The Ritm Synthesizer I got from you had water damage, too.

- They changed that radiator. - That's why. A pity.

- Now they put 3 instead of 8 sections.

- This is a unique place you got here.

- Are those Pioneer drums? - Yes.

- Why so many? - There were 78 of them.

- So where are the others?

- I gave them to the... what are Pioneers called now?

- S... Scooters ... - Scouts!

- The vodka's not bad. - Keeps getting smoother.

- Sasha, did you ever notice a difference between Soviet

- and imported synthesizers? - Anyone can notice that.

- What is the difference?

- Western instruments have quality.

-And ours, they vary - some work, some don't.

- What is our motto? - Don't know.

- 'Come what may, for something will come anyway.

There was never a time when there was nothing!'

Singing: Settlers go into the virgin land...

- You have the wrong key.

- That's it! You know how it is with musicians:

- No cash, no music.

I was assigned to develop a television transmitter.

It was my diploma thesis at the Polytechnic Institute.

This was done in a year, and

in 1925 I received my degree.

There was a huge presentation and demonstration.

In fact, I was the first

to achieve television in mid-1926.

I was generously decorated for this.

My invention was later used

by the military for border control.

The border could be monitored with television

and trespassers could be spotted.

So I made such a television device for the military.

The institute and I were greatly rewarded for this.

Then the order came that my television was of highest importance

and it had to be kept in secrecy.

I was also engaged in many other experimental works.

The power of electricity launched a terrible military machine.

Slowly and inevitably an iron curtain came down over the country.

The long awaited communism turned out to be something

between an electrified jail and a huge factory.

'From each according to his ability, to each according to his work'

sadly, this famous socialist slogan was only half true.

The ones with abilities were sucked dry.

Scientific inventions were only considered of value

if they strengthened supremacy on earth and in the near space.

Most effort was put into secret manufacturing of rockets and bombs.

But at night, when they were free from bomb assembly,

in their dusty tiny rooms, genius inventors created incredible devices,

already bearing vague resemblance to the future nanotechnology.

This is the Rhythmicon, an invention by Theremin.

The prototype of the world's first rhythm-machine.

He built the first Rhythmicon in 1932.

This particular one was built around 1962.

That was not the best time in the Soviet Union.

Engineers not working for the defense industry

had a hard time finding components.

This instrument is literally made up of waste parts.

It was impossible to get good components at that time.

Even the most outstanding inventors

went to the dump to find parts.

It's hard to believe how this piece of trash

could be so finely tuned.

Aesthetically, it looks rather like a bit of space wreckage.

Secret space and defense research burnt up all the resources.

But, despite major difficulties, the first satellite was successfully launched,

followed by several dogs,

and then, finally, by the first Cosmonaut.

New idols emerged - like electronics.

The country gradually became filled with devices shaped as bulky mysterious boxes

with buttons of different size and purpose, all fed by electric energy.

A few rare ones were musical.

Murzin made the first wooden prototype at his country home.

He invented it when he was still a student.

It was in the late 1930's.

Officially, Murzin's laboratory was

part oft the Scientific Research Institute.

It had its own production plant.

This allowed the industrial manufacture of this synthesizer.

Only, the institute specialized in something totally different,

in air defense.

So the systems were not made for musical purposes.

He was a military engineer

for electronics and precision mechanics.

The idea came from the optical sound in cinema.

The sound wave became visible.

So the next idea was - why not draw it?

The ANS could synthesize speech.

It was a bit creepy when I heard

it said "Mom washed Mary".

It spoke in a human voice.

But the human never existed.

I demonstrated this to people. I've been asked

if it's possible to create normal rhythmic music.

I decided to try.

And I so wrote the 'Intermezzo'.

It's a pop song with a lot of rhythmic instruments,

percussions, solos.

It turned out to be a very hard job -

all the rhythms fell apart and diverged.

Now cosmic chill-out tunes were coming from everywhere:

from radio, from TV, out of the windows.

It was the music of unknown planets, music of the future.

The soft humming and rhythmic buzzing of the music boxes

reminded one of the first cosmonauts of the sounds he heard

when he had left his stuffy capsule, floating on the orbit around the Earth.

An electronic remake of the "Internationale" song

was supposedly even sent into space, in a special container.

The fate of the container remains unknown.

My father was a locomotive driver.

I went to the Railway Institute.

I've worked with electricity all my life.

I am a certified Electrician of Overhead Contact Systems.

In my hometown this restaurant opened up, called 'Dubrava'.

I was playing guitar and bass there.

In those times, the government did not let

western bands get into the country. Recordings of Rolling Stones,

Deep Purple or The Beatles

couldn't be copied or played on TV or radio.

You could risk playing a solo from a rock song,

from Deep Purple or Smokey or Rolling Stones.

But the music would be stopped.

A controller would come: 'Guys, the party is over. Everyone leaves now.'

No discussion.

Censorship was ruthless and it was everywhere.

Not just in Moscow.

Electronic instruments were very hard to get hold of.

So we said: "You want them? We'll get them."

Everyone went: "No way!" We got them for cash.

But we gave whatever receipts they needed.

And we brought them.

This was our mission. And we suffered for it.

I was the initiator of all this profiteering.

But my pal Valera really paid for it.

He took the blame and was imprisoned for five years.

I, to be honest, took a chance and ran away.

My parents were young professionals.

My mother was a programmer.

My father was a computer engineer.

I was familiar with computers since childhood.

I often watched the computing machines at work,

at my Dad's workplace. From the sidelines, mostly.

Entrance to the computer room was restricted.

People had to wear special coats.

You couldn't just walk in.

I got in a couple of times, though.

This was a completely different world.

Everything was humming, clicking, crackling.

I still remember it, with a sense of nostalgia now,

because that was my childhood.

Unfortunately, there is not much left of these computers,

except a few pieces.

I remember one time quite well.

It was the most modern computer at the time.

They were demonstrating its abilities.

The sound seemed bad to me. A low-quality, screeching noise.

This strange sound came back years later,

during my musical experiments.

This was the first industrial processor released in 1953.

That console was made out of nut wood, this one here.

It was all solidly made,

using rare wood that was in short supply.

What was good enough for the politburo was also good for here.

This machine computed for the first Sputniks and their missions.

At night it felt unreal,

with all the 10 000 bulbs lightning and flashing.

You felt like in a spaceship.

Buran was a listening device.

You could hear conversations in a house

without installing any other devices.

An infra-red ray was directed at the window

of the room or house, where the talking took place.

The sound of the voices caused the glass to vibrate,

just like a microphone.

So the glass of the window itself served as a microphone.

Tests were conducted at various locations.

It turned out to be very effective.

The device was initially used on the American embassy.

And later on the French embassy, and so on.

Then it was given to the KGB.

I later received an award for it.

Of course, everyone expected technology to come to every home,

change everyday life forever, make it happy, and create paradise on Earth.

A piece of earth I will take with me to Mars.

Taymyr, we can hear you, but we cannot see you.

'At the station everything is well under control.

Nothing excessive...'

'Beginning!'

But then the age of stagnation began.

Technology was very slow and reluctant to come to people's homes.

The variety of goods in stores kept decreasing.

There was now a supply shortage.

People had to get creative.

Specialized thick magazines published diagrams, instructions and sketches that people created.

You could use them to build anything, if you were patient enough:

a motorized bicycle, a chair, a lawn mower

or even a super heterodyne, from available materials.

Housewives were able to make hundreds of recipes

out of 5-6 types of products.

'We lift off to space'

It was around 1969-70 that television came.

You could buy a television set, but there were no antennas.

You had to have connections to get one.

So, we had to make them.

A lot of people did that.

You had to find your own solutions.

Life is a complicated thing.

There are good times and bad times.

I can't say that it was all bad.

But also not that it was good.

In those days, electro-musical instruments were

practically not available. This was a big problem.

At the time of Brezhnev, any instrument was very rare.

Only Houses of Culture could afford them.

It was not possible to buy them for cash.

There was a factory in Moscow

that produced the 'Alisa' synthesizer.

I would go there and meet a workerat the fence.

For a liter of vodka he'd give me the motherboard.

No keyboard and no body.

I'd later connect it and make a good synthesizer.

Sadly, these instruments are not made anymore.

It's getting harder to find them.

Their components are drying out, the plastic parts are yellowing.

The only reason they are not thrown out

is that they are very heavy.

- Does it work? - It does.

- 300 is ok for you? - 300? Ok.

- Here you go. - Need a bag?

- It's ok, thank you, bye.

To raise people's spirit, the decision was made

to utilize the waste of the military machine and turn it into something more or less useful.

And there was a lot of waste.

Enough even to make all kinds of electro-musical boxes.

The musical boxes reminded a bit of synthesizers,

the ones that rock musicians beyond the iron curtain played so masterfully.

Beyond the curtain there was freedom and plenty, as rumor had it.

In the 70's I studied at the Institute for Physicsand Technology.

I was stated top-secret.

I was not allowed to travel abroad or talk to foreigners.

It was impossible to buy any electronic parts.

So some people stole them from the factories and sold them to others.

This is how the whole Soviet industry was working.

It was almost legalized.

Of course it was not really legal.

But even ministers considered theft a positive element.

Without theft, Soviet technology wouldn't have developed at all.

There was a fun group of guys,

who were seriously into electronic music.

They also built synthesizers.

It turned out that they were from the KGB.

They helped us a lot.

They stole everything they could from the KGB headquarters.

Their factory also built cover panels.

I will never forget how I got the first cover panel for my Vocoder.

I had a meeting at 3 a.m. right by the Lubyanka KGB building.

There was a guy on every corner on the lookout.

I stood there waiting for the panel.

They brought it. I grabbed and ran.

I felt like I'd be chased.

That's how it was at that time, in the late 70's and early 80's.

A very strange time it was.

I live in Sverdlovsk since 1963. I spent my whole life

and my whole career here. And took the first steps

in radio electronics and music.

I accidentally heard that one of the local factories was

developing and manufacturing musical instruments.

The factory was for electro-automation,

now it is named 'Vektor'.

Factories produced specific things, not only for civil needs.

They had to make consumer products.

Like cups, teapots, pots and pans.

Since our factory belonged to the radio industry,

we wanted to do something related to radio electronics.

The word 'synthesizer' was considered as too modern

and was not appreciated.

A synthesizer is something western and alien.

So it was called 'instrument with expanded abilities'.

It was veiled.

I had the Moog circuit. I copied and tested it,

it was interesting. But it was patented,

and my dignity did not allow me to simply copy it.

I wanted to find my own way.

I tested for a few months. And I came up with a filter

that still amazes everyone.

It is unique in having almost no radio components.

Still, it is controlled by voltage,

provides multiple waveforms

and is tunable in the entire acoustic spectrum.

And it has only two microcircuits,

a bunch of resistors and not a single condenser.

Even our electricians couldn't figure out how it works.

Honestly, it sounds a little dirty.

When a synthesizer fails, it is nothing serious.

When the failure occurs in other sections,

an expensive machine tool might break or an airplane might crash.

Here, it was all produced in the same departments.

The design of the front panel

should reflect the character of the instrument.

Decorative elements were designed

to resemble a caterpillar belt or the engravings on a barrel.

We intended to create a military analogy,

so there was a khaki-colored model. That's how we learned to do it.

Everything had to be monumental, like the Kalashnikov,

made for all times.

The Synthesizers made from waste parts were unpredictable.

Most of them were unsuitable to play music;

they just produced cosmic sounds.

And some of these sounds were banned, for ideological reasons.

Vanya Sokolovsky was my band partner from Nochnoy Prospect.

We started in the late 1970's, early 1980's.

We wanted to do electronic music,

but we did not have the technical resources.

So we used everything that we could get our hands on.

It was considered improper to use Soviet synthesizers for stylish music.

These huge coffins, hard to steer,

with unpredictable sound.

Due to the overall shortage, any musical instrument,

any synthesizer was extremely valuable.

Something about it was ritual, almost sacral.

We recorded electro pop, rock-n-roll and twist,

quite cheerful dance tunes that had a certain success.

It wasn't really pop music.

We were still in an alternative scene,

in some kind of intellectual underground.

We played in dorms, at dance events and parties.

The equipment and safety measures were very poor.

A couple of times, I got electric shock

when I touched a cable or the microphone.

It feels nice when it's not too much.

However, electricity is a terrible force.

But this did not scare me off from electricity.

Noise, for example, includes all the music in the world.

Hi, how is it going? I'm here, like we agreed.

It's nice here, fresh.

- How was your trip? - Not bad. A bit hot.

Where is it, what you promised?

- In perfect condition.

- A Yunost! How did you manage to keep it, not break anything?

- Do you remember when we played like that?

- That pop-rock with pitch-bend and chorus.

A great piece. I used to have one.

- It has a strap and everything. - Great.

- The manual, too. - Andrey, so can we come to an agreement?

- I think so.

- You won't get in trouble, will you? - No

- The other one is in use, but this one is not officially listed?

- Ok then, will 1000 work? - 1000 euro!

- No, rubles. - No, 1000 rubles is too little.

- How much do you want then? Realistically, for a friend.

- Is 3 ok for you?

- You think 3? What about a discount? For your buddy?

- 2,500. - Fine, ok, it's a deal.

- Wrap it up!

- Tell me, do you perform a lot? - Yeah, once in a while.

- Is this a dance floor?

- No, they normally dance there. They take out the chairs.

- The projectors, the sound equipment, all from abroad?

- China. - Well-functioning China?

- Yes.

- Well, the main thing is that there is enough air in here when it's crowded.

- Not really, it is stuffy when it's crowded. - Really?

Well, what can you do.

- Let's go. Walk me out?

After the brave experiment of materializing the communist ghost,

a huge territory was filled with various garbage, entangled by endless wires

that were leading to nowhere from nowhere for no apparent reason.

Perestroika - reconstruction - began.

The Iron Curtain fell.

But they never actually reconstructed anything - they just took down cables

and started selling them to the West as a scrap metal, at a rather low price.

The Russian deconstruction knew no limits;

there was nothing they would stop for.

They dug out cables, sawed arms and machinery into pieces.

Electrification minus Soviet power

unexpectedly equaled a medieval market plus subsistence farming.

The Lenin formula worked as well in the opposite direction, too.

The market did its black deed.

Then, as a result of terrible urban mutations, the New Moscow arose.

The air of Moscow is very inspiring for me.

Being able to inhale impurities

stimulates creativity, to a certain extent.

If the air is cleaner, as in most European cities,

something else happens. For me, as an urban monk,

the air in Moscow is very inspiring.

And the smells. The air is not formatted here.

The ideology of standardization hasn't reached it yet.

Descartes said, 'I think therefore I am.'

I say, 'I arrive at the studio, turn on the equipment;

I hear sounds and turn knobs, therefore I am.'

What I like about the Soviet instruments is

that they are imperfect.

In their coating, their design, their keys.

But at the same time the instrument tells you:

'Hey, I am messed up. Probably, you are, too. Let's try it together.'

On a western device, you push a button and get a result.

On a Soviet instrument, you push a button and get something.

These instruments are unpredictable. As is life in Moscow, in Russia.

Since they are part of the life that surrounds us.

Let's assume that the phenomenon of Russian life is,

as Lenin said, 'inexhaustible as the electron'.

Then the native Soviet synthesizers also have this quality.

They translate some kind of profound lifeline,

the beginning of which was laid by the great October Revolution.

Electricity holds not one world, but many worlds.

There are wars and sex,

the cosmos is born there, and it dies there.

And when you switch off an analogue instrument,

you know it goes to sleep

and tells you: "Let's not part for long. Please, switch me on again.

I also want to live, if only for some time."

The artifacts of a disappeared soviet civilization could still be found.

Then there came archaeologist dealers, and some strange avant-garde inventors

that used both dealers and artifacts for their own purposes

Those purposes would be very difficult to explain to an ordinary person.

In a manner of speaking, it was hard to say who's in front of you

a genius or a madman.

Though in Russia it is quite common case.

Actually, there is no system at all.

If a system exists, you can plan the outcome.

You have an idea of what you want to get.

You build it into a certain musical style.

Everything that sounds or generates sounds has the right to be.

At some point I might be more interested in never-ending experiment.

Then I am in motion.

For me, the process of creating is more interesting than the result.

Chaos interests me.

In chaos you can find different directions and sonic lines.

You notice one angle today, a different one tomorrow.

You can keep studying the chaos endlessly.

- This track will be about ten minutes, any longer will be boring.

- And if we play it for two hours?

- It won't be interesting. At least I would get bored.

- You want it to be interesting all the time?

- Why should I waste my time otherwise?

- When something is boring for a long time, it gets interesting again.

- Really?

- If the concept is that I can't play, maybe we should change something.

- What do you mean by 'can't play'? You are not at school,

where they'd tell you 'you can't play'.

- Ok, if we don't have a concept at all, no problem.

- Why is it no problem? - If there was an idea, for example punk...

- Olga, why do you always want to classify things? - I do not.

- Go with the flow.

You keep searching for this interaction, for playing together.

- There's an overall concept. And then we say 'now improvise!'

- And everyone goes, Ah, now improvise! We're all improvising together!

Like in the crowd, like in communism!

And what if someone says 'I don't want to improvise,

I want do my own thing.' What are you going to tell him?

- Hold on, isn't the improvising and the doing-my-own-thing one and the same?

- Hello, Dad!? Can you hear me?

- Maybe I am too demanding for the first rehearsal.

- Actually, we didn't rehearse, we recorded an album.

A rehearsing musician is one that cannot play. I told you that 10 times already.

Any professional will confirm this.

- I'm not against rehearsing, I'm just not interested in it.

I want the music to occur and catch it on tape.

When you keep repeating the same thing,for some purpose...

Sure, I did it in the 80's and 90's.

I don't care for it anymore, you know?

Not because I'm against rehearsing.

Or because I'm this stubborn dilettante.

- Hello, Mom, do you hear me? Dad called me several times,

I don't know why. I called him back, he didn't answer.

Ah, got it. We are finished with rehearsing, I'll be home soon.

It is working, thank God!

Hi. It's Alexey from Moscow.

What is the weather like in Saratov?

Rainy? Sorry, man; it's basically the same here.

Well, I brought a Venec 3201.

It works; a full set: passport, manuals, strap,

brown leather cover, in sound condition.

I would like to have 4000 for it.

Because I brought it for you and I paid 3000 for it.

Richard, I have good news for you.

The modulators are all there, it is not even scratched.

There are 3 buttons, 4 switches and 1-2-3-4-5 levers to regulate.

I haven't tried it out, but everything is in place.

Ok, just let me know, come over and have a look.

That's it. Everything sold ...

... basically.

- How are you? - Fine.

- You feel this? - Yes, I like it.

- It has a very good pitch.

- Maybe I'll take it. I don't have a Kvintet and it is not too big.

- It is compact and comes with the original case.

- How much do you want for it?

- 1.800 for you. - We'll talk about it.

- It's got a headphone jack and one for a sustain pedal.

- All the keys are ok? - Yes, you can check it out.

- By the way, it's quite a rare one. - It's in good shape.

- That one is messed up.

- What's the problem? - The bass sound gets stuck.

- How much do you want for that one?

- 500. I'll sell at the price I got it for.

- You know, I'll take it.

- I just took it to keep up my source. Careful, the screws are missing.

A flow of immigrants burst into Russia,

but not from the West, as everyone would have preferred, but mostly from the East.

They finally brought private trade back to its legitimate spot.

What used to be reason for arrest now became the principal activity of people.

They called it - business.

At this point, a new fairytale starts.

A Chinese folk tale, so to say.

- How much are the guns? - 250 each.

- And the small Cheburashka? - 300.

- And this microphone? - 100.

Chinese toys are dangerous for children.

They are made of plastic that can't be inhaled.

The paint comes off and stays on the tongue

and doesn't leave the body.

And the solder used to assemble the circuit is lead.

Let's get to know each other!

Do you like to play? Let's play!

One, two, three, four, five, let's play hide and seek.

We are going to be friends.

The Chinese idiots, how can you make something this poorly.

Do you like to play? Let's play!

One, two, three, four, five, let's play hide and seek.

For me, Chinese toys are a great chance to get new sounds.

They are made in a simple way.

They break, but you do not mind.

And to break them is sometimes not even that easy.

Because of their simple sound generators they are quite flexible for circuit bending.

Here the magic has started already.

It does not scare me to randomly short-circuiting any pin.

Experience tells me that even knowledge cannot always

catch all the possibilities of electric chains.

Any result, if it is somewhat stable

and does not lead to the loss of the device, is a result.

This system is made of garbage.

All these colored modules are separate.

All made from waste products.

I make it into a single complex,

so that everything can be connected.

Maybe this is the first Russian modular.

- Meow!

- There is something catlike in it.

- Great thing.

- This is you, Richard.

- German. - You can really tell.

- It is crafted by engineers.

Looks good and is very pragmatic.

- It stopped working. - It stopped working forever.

- It will work again.

I am saying this, Dima, without any compliments.

But your instruments are much more interesting.

Why did you praise this one so much?

It is an object of a capitalist mode of production.

- I sometimes don't mind this capitalist mode of production.

I think we need to choose a third way.

To unite their potential and

pragmatic approach

with a bit of Russian craziness.

Then it is going to be more interesting.

If you fall completely into Soviet nostalgia,

you get a bit lost in time.

The ghost of communism fell into oblivion.

Perhaps it left this planet forever.

The new leaders had no interest in investing much into costly experiments;

they needed the money for themselves.

When Lenin died, his embalmed body was put into a sarcophagus

on the Red Square, where he lies for almost a century now.

What they were hoping for is a mystery.

But hope in Russia is the last to die, as people say.

Hope lives forever.

... needed to solve a series of problems.

- Mr. Theremin, did I understand correctly -

did your work come to the issues of eternal life?

- Yes, yes.

- So your work is incredibly valuable, it helps find immortality.

- Yes, in fact, I was working on two problems.

The first was an anti-aging treatment.

1 year of treatment can reduce age by 4 years.

So, a few years of treatment,

and you look 25 again.

And have the abilities of a 25-year-old.

That's what we call rejuvenation.

The second is when a person died but was left whole.

Not blown up in pieces during a blast.

Just when a few mechanisms malfunctioned -

the heart, the lungs.

Then it would be possible to revive the person.

We knew how to do it.

We had the knowledge to restore people's life and health

as it was before death.

These are the 2 methods I created.

And they have been tested in lab experiments.