Tragedies of Russian Rock: Dark stories about legendary musicians

Rock is a complex music in which the complex destinies of unusual people are intertwined: poets, dreamers, rebels. What does the music of Russian rock stars hide behind it and how are their dramas related to each other?

The death of Yuri "Khoy" Klinsky

In the summer of 2000, the founder of the Gaza Strip group died in Voronezh — in someone else's house, under strange circumstances. On the morning of July 4, Klinsky, along with his mistress Olga Samarina, left for the shooting of the video "Night of Fear", but in the afternoon his body was found in a drug den on the Left Bank of Voronezh.

As it turned out, Klinskikh and Samarina stopped there before filming, and Khoy became ill in the house. According to Samarina's memoirs, she tried to call an ambulance, but the doctors refused to go to a dubious address for a long time. However, the musician's daughters and his widow Galina Klinskikh are convinced that the people surrounding the dying Khoy were simply afraid or did not consider it necessary to call doctors, because at the time of the doctors ' arrival, Khoy was dead for almost two hours. The same version was voiced in 2014 by some participants of the show "Battle of Psychics", where the family of Yuri Klinsky turned.

The suicide of Alexander Bashlachev

In February 1988, the poet and musician Alexander Bashlachev jumped out of the window of a rented Leningrad apartment on Kuznetsov Avenue and died on the spot. According to the memories of friends, shortly before his death, the musician talked a lot about death and, it seems, suddenly found the "right" moment. On the night before the death, there was a party in the apartment. The next day we agreed to go to the bath, and in the morning Bashlachev tried to wake up his friends, but to no avail.

Sasha Bashlachev could not sleep, and there were many reasons for despair. The musician was tormented by loneliness and a creative crisis; his wife Nastya Rakhlina was expecting a child, but there was no housing or money, and two years earlier Bashlachev's newborn firstborn died from another girl.

The only son of the musician Egor Bashlachev was born six months after the death of his father — in August 1988. His mother Anastasia Rakhlina died in the summer of 2018.

It is known that Mariana Tsoi was engaged in organizing the funeral of Alexander Bashlachev — in two years she herself will lose her husband.

The death of Viktor Tsoi and the wave of suicides

On August 15, 1990, 28-year-old Viktor Tsoi crashed on the Sloka-Talsi highway in Latvia, having fallen asleep at the wheel. He was going fishing that morning.

"Moskvich" Tsoi crashed into a bus at speed, the musician died instantly. The death of the leader of the Kino group was such a huge shock for the youth of that time that 45 Tsoi fans throughout the Union committed suicide.

The death of Mike Naumenko

A year after Viktor Tsoi, Mike Naumenko, the leader of the Zoo group, died. The musicians were connected not only by creativity: Tsoi was friends with Mike's wife Natalia Naumenko. Their relationship is described in Kirill Serebrennikov's film "Summer", although Naumenko's widow assures that the scale of her friendship with Tsoi in the picture is exaggerated.

12 days before his death, Naumenko divorced Natalia. The musician died alone in his room in a Leningrad communal apartment. The cause of death is a brain hemorrhage. The official version is called an accident, but some colleagues and Naumenko's son are sure that a few hours before Mike's death, he was beaten in the yard. There is no confirmation of this version.

The death of Mariana Tsoi and Ricochet and speculation about Tsoi's son

After the death of Viktor Tsoi, his widow began living with the musician Alexander Aksenov, known as Ricochet. Gossips from the rock party said that he could be the real father of Sasha-the son of Mariana, whom she gave birth to in marriage with Tsoi. Sasha Tsoi really has a lot in common with Aksenov, but there are similarities between Ricochet and Tsoi himself: dark hair, high cheekbones, a large mouth — so few people attach importance to these rumors.

Mariana Tsoi died in the summer of 2005, she was 46 years old. Shortly before her death, she defeated breast cancer, but immediately after treatment, she was diagnosed with a brain tumor… Two years later, there was no Rebound: the 42-year-old musician died of a heart attack.

Yuri Shevchuk: the loss of his wife

In 1992, the soloist of the DDT group, Yuri Shevchuk, lost his first wife, Elmira Bikbova. The girl died at the age of 24 from cancer. Widowed, the artist independently raised their common son — now he is 31 years old. Pyotr Shevchuk graduated from the Kronstadt Naval Cadet Corps, served in the Marine Corps, and now is engaged in creating websites and playing techno as a DJ.

Fyodor Chistyakov's attack on his girlfriend

One of the iconic addresses of the Leningrad rock is the Linnik dacha in the village of Komarovo, with which a tragic story is connected.

The house was owned by geologist Irina Levshakova, the granddaughter of Academician Vladimir Linnik. At the dacha, the girl collected rock parties, organized apartment concerts. Boris Grebenshchikov and Konstantin Kinchev visited and rehearsed with Levshakova, and in the early 90s, the leader of the group "Night" Fyodor Chistyakov lived in her house‑the young people had an affair.

In October 1992, Chistyakov attacked Irina with a knife, cutting her throat. It seemed to him that his girlfriend was a witch. Fortunately, Irina survived. After the attack, she got married, gave birth to a son, in 2010 was held on the case of growing cannabis in the country and died in 2016 at the age of 56.

Of course, Chistyakov's condition was affected by hallucinogens, but, as it turned out later, the musician at the same time developed schizophrenia, from which his mother suffered. At the trial, Fyodor Chistyakov was declared insane, spent a year in a psychiatric hospital, after which he became a Jehovah's Witness. In 2017, after the sect was banned in Russia, Chistyakov left for the United States, where he released a new album this spring.

The death of Mikhail Gorshenev

In July 2013, the heart of the leader of the group "The King and the Fool" could not stand it. Pot abused alcohol and morphine and did not live to see his 40th birthday for less than a month. The only daughter of the musician, Sasha Gorsheneva, was 4 years old at that time. The musician's wife Olga helped him fight addiction for many years, and next to her, the Pot really kept itself in hand. However, on the day of his death, Gorshenev was left alone. The artist went to the country and for the first time in a long time decided to relax…

The death of Yegor Letov

Alcohol also caused the death of Yegor Letov, the founder of the Civil Defense group. The 43-year-old musician died in February 2008 — the body could not stand the acute alcohol intake.

Yanka Diaghilev: an accident or suicide?

In the late 80s, Letov had an affair with a young Yana Diaghileva, a member of his group "Civil Defense". The couple broke up shortly before the death of the Yankees in the spring of 1991. The 24-year-old singer and poet disappeared on May 9 near Novosibirsk. Diaghilev celebrated Victory Day at the dacha with her family, went out for a walk in the evening and did not return. The search lasted more than a week, and on May 17, the girl's body was found by fishermen in the Inya River. There were no signs of violent death on the body, so the investigation called two versions: an accident or suicide. But what exactly happened is unknown.

Those who believe in the suicide of the singer, recall that Diaghilev had reasons for depression: parting with Letov, the loss of her mother, who died of cancer, the death of her half-brother Sergei, with whom the girl was close. And three years before the death of Yana Diaghileva, her close friend, musician Alexander Bashlachev, committed suicide…