Filed Under: Topic > Leningrad > Viktor Tsoi’s funeral, from Alexei Uchitel’s “Last Hero,” 1992

Viktor Tsoi’s funeral, from Alexei Uchitel’s “Last Hero,” 1992

The Last Hero (Poslednii geroi, 1990) is a documentary film by Alexey Uchitel (1951-) that chronicles the aftermath of Kino frontman Viktor Tsoi’s (1962-1990) death in a car accident in rural Latvia on 15 August 1990. This is Uchitel’s second documentary featuring the Leningrad rock music community, the first being his 1988 documentary Rock, during which the director and his crew had to undergo a stringent vetting process by Tsoi and his band. Kino invited the film crew to spend a twenty-four-hour period at “Kamchatka,” the famous Leningrad boiler room where Tsoi worked as a stoker and the band’s underground concerts often took place. 
 
The decision to take part in Rock, for the band, would depend on the quality of the interactions between the filmmakers and the performers. Tsoi’s late widow, Marianna Tsoi (1959-2005), worked as an administrator for the film, allowing Uchitel to integrate himself into the rock community further, witnessing the private lives of his characters at close range. Uchitel claimed to have seen the driver of the Ikarus bus that suffered the fatal collision with Tsoi’s Moskvich-make car, an observation that became fodder for his fictionalized account of the first days following the rock star’s death. 
 
The Last Hero includes not only footage of Tsoi’s funeral, but also scenes from his gravesite in years that followed, when members of the singer’s massive fanbase would gather to mourn their departed idol. This depiction of collective grief transforms the film into a preemptive elegy for the Soviet rock underground. In the wake of Soviet collapse, the tight-knit communities comprising the scene mostly disbanded, with musicians leaving the country or succumbing to early deaths. Those who pursued recording or performing careers within the newfound post-Soviet market economy were able to do so without relying on the extensive social networks required for success in the late-Soviet space. Tsoi’s funeral, therefore, was not simply a farewell ritual aimed at one performer, but a public act of mourning for a fleeting period of optimism in Soviet and Russian history.