The First (Home-Made) Post-Soviet Independent TV
1 00:00:10,560 --> 00:00:16,560 PIRATE TV 2 00:00:29,680 --> 00:00:34,200 - The Chepists have seized power... - On August 19, an extraordinary meeting 3 00:00:34,320 --> 00:00:38,840 was held by the Committee on the Anti-state of Emergency of the USSR. 4 00:00:39,000 --> 00:00:41,280 In attendance: Sergey Bugaev "Afrika", 5 00:00:41,360 --> 00:00:43,080 Mayakovsky Friends Club writer. 6 00:00:43,160 --> 00:00:45,680 Timur Novikov, Pirate TV producer. 7 00:00:45,840 --> 00:00:48,320 Georgiy Guryanov of the Spartacus Society. 8 00:00:48,400 --> 00:00:52,200 Vladislav Mamyshev-Monroe, the A-Ya Society Komsomol secretary. 9 00:00:52,280 --> 00:00:56,560 Andrey Khlobystin, consul for the USA at KhUIS USSR. 10 00:00:56,720 --> 00:01:01,960 Among others, Pirate TV producer Timur Novikov said a few words. 11 00:01:05,560 --> 00:01:07,400 "We appeal to you all! 12 00:01:07,960 --> 00:01:11,680 The Anti-chepists won't yield. The Gekachepists are attacking, 13 00:01:11,840 --> 00:01:15,680 but they aren't all-powerful. Ignore the GKChP, 14 00:01:15,840 --> 00:01:18,760 its falsehoods and its directives. 15 00:01:18,920 --> 00:01:22,280 Watch independent Pirate TV. 16 00:01:22,440 --> 00:01:25,800 From August 19 at 23:00, 17 00:01:25,960 --> 00:01:30,560 on channels 7, 10, and 15 around the clock. 18 00:01:30,720 --> 00:01:35,520 We'll switch channels for security. Look out for Pirate TV. 19 00:01:35,680 --> 00:01:39,600 Glasnost is our strength! From the Anti-ChP leadership." 20 00:01:40,000 --> 00:01:44,440 We just got a call from Moscow. Boris Yeltsin supports our committee. 21 00:01:44,600 --> 00:01:49,120 He's against the GKChP and declares their orders invalid. 22 00:01:49,200 --> 00:01:52,080 - That was just now. - Great to hear. 23 00:01:54,640 --> 00:01:55,880 Listen up! 24 00:01:58,680 --> 00:02:01,520 Here's a flyer from KhUIS. 25 00:02:02,320 --> 00:02:07,680 "Anti-chepists of all KChP, break away!" That's the KhUIS slogan. 26 00:02:08,600 --> 00:02:10,520 "The Gekachepists are attacking! 27 00:02:10,680 --> 00:02:15,360 The media is in the hands of a brainless junta. 28 00:02:15,520 --> 00:02:18,400 But the voice of KhUIS has been heard. 29 00:02:18,760 --> 00:02:22,120 The president of the RSFSR, Boris Yeltsin, 30 00:02:22,280 --> 00:02:26,080 has called on the country to resist the coup leaders. 31 00:02:26,240 --> 00:02:30,920 KhUIS supports him wholeheartedly and calls on all Anti-chepists 32 00:02:31,080 --> 00:02:34,560 to read not only KhUIS flyers, 33 00:02:34,720 --> 00:02:38,360 but also those published by the Russian leadership. 34 00:02:38,520 --> 00:02:40,440 Fascism will not pass! 35 00:02:40,600 --> 00:02:42,520 Yeltsin for KhUIS!" 36 00:02:45,600 --> 00:02:47,880 Since they've shut down TV 37 00:02:48,720 --> 00:02:50,120 and radio broadcasts... 38 00:02:52,000 --> 00:02:53,000 Quiet! 39 00:02:53,160 --> 00:02:55,280 I'll read. "Citizens of Russia!" 40 00:03:20,320 --> 00:03:21,800 ...for citizens' safety, 41 00:03:21,960 --> 00:03:27,960 to safeguard the economy, transport, and public institutions, 42 00:03:28,280 --> 00:03:31,960 and to maintain order in the city of Leningrad 43 00:03:31,960 --> 00:03:36,920 and surrounding areas, as of four o'clock on August 19, 44 00:03:37,280 --> 00:03:41,120 a state of emergency is declared. 45 00:03:41,280 --> 00:03:43,800 This entails several special measures. 46 00:03:44,960 --> 00:03:48,200 ...and Russia. The hydra of bureaucratic communism 47 00:03:48,360 --> 00:03:50,000 is coming to St. Petersburg. 48 00:03:50,160 --> 00:03:52,560 Its sole purpose is to take our freedom 49 00:03:52,640 --> 00:03:56,720 and make us slaves to the Moscow establishment degenerates. 50 00:03:56,920 --> 00:04:02,040 The Anti-ChP committee will fight for the freedom of Petersburg and Russia. 51 00:04:02,200 --> 00:04:04,720 Consign the CPSU to the trashcan of history 52 00:04:04,880 --> 00:04:09,000 and resist the demands of those communists in the GKChP. 53 00:04:11,840 --> 00:04:14,800 I am the hydra of the GKChP. 54 00:04:15,120 --> 00:04:17,360 I'm on my way to Petrograd. 55 00:04:24,680 --> 00:04:29,360 Oh no! What's that? It's the Anti-chepists! 56 00:04:29,520 --> 00:04:31,680 My death approaches! 57 00:04:33,840 --> 00:04:39,840 And one, and two, and three, and four! 58 00:04:40,080 --> 00:04:44,960 And one, and two, and three, and four! 59 00:04:45,200 --> 00:04:50,160 And one, and two, and three, and four! 60 00:04:52,280 --> 00:04:56,600 Stop, GKChP! Fascism will not pass!
Primarily based in Leningrad/ Saint Petersburg, Piratskoe televidenie (Pirate television, Piratskoe TV, or PTV) was established by Timur Novikov (1958-2002) and other members of the New Artists/ Leningrad Rock Club/ New Academy as an experiment at the intersection of video art and independent media. In the 1980s and 1990s, the show epitomized the deep influence of late-Soviet underground culture and its scenes or tusovki over mainstream Russian media—and of the increasingly blurred boundaries between these two spheres.
Pirate TV was conceived as a means of “infiltrating” Soviet television to break its stiff atmosphere. Its main creators—Novikov, Vladislav Mamyshev-Monro (1970-2013), Yuris Lesnik (1957-), and Georgy Gurianov (1961-2013)—had initially discussed with Artemy Troitsky (1955-) the possibility of broadcasting their surreal, “psychedelic” sketches as unannounced “interferences” to his musical show Programma “A”—but the plan failed, allegedly, because the language and topics of said sketches were too risky for Soviet TV. Other attempts to incorporate the project into local TV shows, including Sergey Sholokhov’s (1958-) Piatoe koleso and Tikhii Don, failed for similar reasons. However, Piratskoe TV was a prelude to Sergei Kuryokhin’s (1954-1996) sacrilegious Lenin-mushroom prank, which aired on Piatoe koleso and which Novikov and Sergey Bugaev helped conceive and produce.
The show itself, shot at the Leningrad/ Petersburg squat on Fontanka 145 and the studio on Moika 22, then circulated on VHS within circles close to Novikov’s group, was a farcical parody of official Soviet TV. Its main host and protagonist was Vladislav Mamyshev-Monro (1969-2013), the first Soviet drag queen, who appeared as either an affected news anchor or as one of his iconic celebrity characters. These included Marylin (Monroe), Hitler or, in the case of the episode excerpted here, the tentacled bureaucratic monster Gidro-GKChP, the “Hydro-State Committee on the State of Emergency,” a reference to the would-be coup leaders in 1991.
Piratskoe TV covered culture, music, and film, and also included a sports segment called “Spartacus,” which was hosted by Gurianov and reflected his queer-camp-totalitarian athletic sensibility. The show also treated various local events, including concerts, exhibits, and raves, as well as local and national news. Many of its “reportages” relied on the shock and even violence that Mamyshev’s provocations—and sheer presence—would often elicit.
The episode excerpted here serves as a testament to the fundamental ideological, aesthetic, and sexual fluidity of Novikov’s group. In it, Mamyshev-Monroe, Novikov, Guryanov, Bugaev, and Andrey Khlobystin stage a “Hearing of the Committee on the Anti-State of Emergency (Anti-ChP).” Occasioning this segment was the attempted coup d’état against Gorbachev, organized by a group of Soviet hardliners calling themselves the “State Committee on the State of Emergency” (GKChP). During the episode, the artists declare their support for Yeltsin and glasnost and their opposition to the “fascism” of the military junta threatening to seize power. At the same time, they appropriate and parody the empty language of Soviet authoritarianism, from the comical over-the-top military outfits, to the exaggeratedly official tone of Novikov’s announcements, to the absurd acronyms (Anti-ChP; Anti-GKChP; Anti-chepisty), to the figure of Yeltsin’s speech from the tank abruptly interrupted with footage of Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake. A few short years later, Novikov and his group would turn to equally fluid forms of aesthetic conservatism and totalitarian camp—this time in reaction to Yeltsin’s corrupt bureaucratic capitalism.
Pirate TV was conceived as a means of “infiltrating” Soviet television to break its stiff atmosphere. Its main creators—Novikov, Vladislav Mamyshev-Monro (1970-2013), Yuris Lesnik (1957-), and Georgy Gurianov (1961-2013)—had initially discussed with Artemy Troitsky (1955-) the possibility of broadcasting their surreal, “psychedelic” sketches as unannounced “interferences” to his musical show Programma “A”—but the plan failed, allegedly, because the language and topics of said sketches were too risky for Soviet TV. Other attempts to incorporate the project into local TV shows, including Sergey Sholokhov’s (1958-) Piatoe koleso and Tikhii Don, failed for similar reasons. However, Piratskoe TV was a prelude to Sergei Kuryokhin’s (1954-1996) sacrilegious Lenin-mushroom prank, which aired on Piatoe koleso and which Novikov and Sergey Bugaev helped conceive and produce.
The show itself, shot at the Leningrad/ Petersburg squat on Fontanka 145 and the studio on Moika 22, then circulated on VHS within circles close to Novikov’s group, was a farcical parody of official Soviet TV. Its main host and protagonist was Vladislav Mamyshev-Monro (1969-2013), the first Soviet drag queen, who appeared as either an affected news anchor or as one of his iconic celebrity characters. These included Marylin (Monroe), Hitler or, in the case of the episode excerpted here, the tentacled bureaucratic monster Gidro-GKChP, the “Hydro-State Committee on the State of Emergency,” a reference to the would-be coup leaders in 1991.
Piratskoe TV covered culture, music, and film, and also included a sports segment called “Spartacus,” which was hosted by Gurianov and reflected his queer-camp-totalitarian athletic sensibility. The show also treated various local events, including concerts, exhibits, and raves, as well as local and national news. Many of its “reportages” relied on the shock and even violence that Mamyshev’s provocations—and sheer presence—would often elicit.
The episode excerpted here serves as a testament to the fundamental ideological, aesthetic, and sexual fluidity of Novikov’s group. In it, Mamyshev-Monroe, Novikov, Guryanov, Bugaev, and Andrey Khlobystin stage a “Hearing of the Committee on the Anti-State of Emergency (Anti-ChP).” Occasioning this segment was the attempted coup d’état against Gorbachev, organized by a group of Soviet hardliners calling themselves the “State Committee on the State of Emergency” (GKChP). During the episode, the artists declare their support for Yeltsin and glasnost and their opposition to the “fascism” of the military junta threatening to seize power. At the same time, they appropriate and parody the empty language of Soviet authoritarianism, from the comical over-the-top military outfits, to the exaggeratedly official tone of Novikov’s announcements, to the absurd acronyms (Anti-ChP; Anti-GKChP; Anti-chepisty), to the figure of Yeltsin’s speech from the tank abruptly interrupted with footage of Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake. A few short years later, Novikov and his group would turn to equally fluid forms of aesthetic conservatism and totalitarian camp—this time in reaction to Yeltsin’s corrupt bureaucratic capitalism.