1992-1993 School math calendar

Serving as a testament to the meteoric rise in popularity and the widespread influence of rock music culture on the everyday lives of the newly post-Soviet citizens, this 1992/1993 math calendar, intended for schoolchildren set to master the concepts of algebra and geometry, cements the shift of public opinion about the position and status of rock musicians in Soviet/post-Soviet society from that of ideologically nefarious loafers to newly minted fallen heroes and teenage idols. The calendar likely went into print roughly a year after Viktor Tsoi’s fatal car accident in August of 1990, after which his status as Russia’s ultimate rock icon became indisputable. Black Album (Chernyi Al’bom, 1991), Tsoi’s posthumous recording release with Kino, became the band’s most popular and lucrative album, selling over a million copies, and being one of the first Soviet musical recordings to be released on an independent label without state sponsorship, earning Kino’s producer and manager Yuri Aizenshpis a profit in the historically unprecedented sum of 24 million rubles. As a product intended for mass circulation among the country’s youngest consumers, the above calendar, therefore, is yet another manifestation of the commercial reaches of late-Soviet pop culture marketing. The recently deceased Tsoi is inscribed in this artifact as an officially sanctioned role model for Russian youth, whose death is emblematic of the fading old regime, and whose music is a fully commercialized consumer product.