I am in love with a beautiful, dead Russo Korean heartthrob named Viktor

Tsoi was a true icon for the last generation who spent their adolescence and youth in the Soviet era. My older brother, born in 1979, had Tsoi’s black and white portrait pinned to the wall. This poster, in fact, is one of my earliest childhood memories. Years later, I asked my brother if he was sad about the premature death of his childhood hero. He said he was, but also — in the spirit of post-90s cynicism — that he believed that Tsoi had to stay in the 80s, that he didn’t belong in the upcoming era of wild capitalism where his rebellious poetry would have been crushed by the glitzy delights of the free market. It’s been nearly 30 years since Tsoi’s death, but the legend has survived.