Filed Under: Performance > Musical > Lyube performs "Atas," 1990

Lyube performs "Atas," 1990

In 1990, the Russian rock band Lyube—which Vladimir Putin (1952-) would later count among his favorites—appeared on television with one of their first hits, “Atas.” In contrast to the many amateur underground bands mentioned in this collection, Lyube was one of the first professionally produced rock-music collectives in the USSR. Their 1990 performance took place at the peak of their newfound popularity.
 
In 1986, composer and songwriter Igor Matvienko (1960-), head of the Soviet recording studio Rekord, had conceived of a rock-music ensemble that would merge traditional Russian folklore with rock music to record patriotically oriented, war-themed songs. Lyube was formed on 14 January 1989 to fulfill this objective. Matvienko invited his long-time collaborator, Nikolai Rastorguyev (1957-), to serve as the band’s lead singer, while songwriters Alexander Shaganov (1965-) and Mikhail Andreev (1954-) were tapped to compose song lyrics. From the start, militarism was a central feature of Lyube’s concept and aesthetics. The band promotes nationalism; glorifies and romanticizes war, presenting it as an inherent part of Russian identity; and performs a patriotic, folkloric masculinity designed to offset what its creators perceive as a dearth of “properly” masculine expression within the broader Soviet and Russian rock landscape.
 
By the early 1990s, Lyube were extremely popular, even becoming the unofficial band of a nationalistically inclined youth subculture called Lyubery, after the town of Lyubertsy near Moscow. The Lyubery engaged in rivalry with the rock, punk, metalhead, and hippie youth subcultures in the late-Soviet and early post-Soviet periods. In contrast to the so-called neformaly—a loosely defined, music-inspired countercultural nonconformism—the Lyubery glorified a patriotic, hypermasculine culture of health, fitness, and bodybuilding. Rastorguyev, in turn, borrowed from the Lyubery to craft his trademark stage image. Although he has never served in the Russian army—despite the existence of mandatory military service for all men under the age 28—the singer often performs in military uniform and/or combat fatigues, backed up by military choirs or singers dressed as soldiers. 
 
It is in a stylized uniform, complete with jodhpurs and leather suspenders, that Rastorguyev appears in the 1990 performance of “Atas,” a cop-glorifying number based on the hit late-Soviet police procedural The Meeting Place Cannot Be Changed (1979). After recounting the crime-busting plans of heroic detectives “Gleb Zheglov” and “Volodya Sharapov,” the second verse ends with the words: “Rest easy, dear homeland!” Lyube’s popularity has endured through the entirety of the post-Soviet period to date, with Rastorguyev often invited to sing at celebrations of the Russian military. Official accolades have followed, including the prestigious title of People’s Artist of Russia, which Rastorguyev received in 2002. That same year, he joined Putin’s political party, United Russia, and by 2006 had become a deputy in the Russian Duma.