ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the punk scene in Krasnodar. For most of its history this remote province in the south of Russia has been largely absent from Russia’s cultural narratives. A rare exception is its appearance in a poem by Soviet poet Vladimir Mayakovsky (1926) who, after visiting the region, and being impressed only by the warm weather and number of stray dogs roaming the streets, referred to it as ‘dogs’ capital’. Kuban’, a term referring to the Krasnodar krai area, was featured also in the classic 1949 Soviet fi lm Kubanskie Kazaki [Cossacks of the Kuban] directed by Ivan Pyr’ev. Allegedly Stalin’s favourite fi lm, it glorifi ed the life of members of a Soviet collective farm. Later, the region became famous for its coastal holiday resorts, especially Sochi. This is captured in a scene from Vladimir Men’shov’s Oscar-winning fi lm Moskva Slezam Ne Verit [Moscow Does not Believe in Tears] (1980), when, desperate to strike up conversation with Ekaterina, a successful Soviet manager, Gosha, a mechanic, asks: ‘Where could we have met before? Have you been to Sochi on vacation?’ to which she replies ‘I think every Soviet citizen has been to Sochi on vacation at least once.’
