Russian Punk and Mafia Graves

Yekaterinburg - Monday 30^th April 2012

This was my second day in Yekaturinburg, I was just over a month into my Trans-Siberian journey from Kuji to Moscow and had just left the capital of Russian wooden architecture, Tomsk.

 My first day consisted of meeting drunks and circus performers on the train and being stranded on my first night in the city by my hostel. When no one answered the door at the hostel I was forced to stay at the nearest place I could find. This was it:

Expensive and a pretty ugly place.

The next day I had booked a few nights at the Meeting Point hostel. Now this place was fantastic and incredibly cool on the inside.

Look at the oven. LOOK AT IT.

The outside of the building was pretty sweet as well (I only found the place by the graffiti near the door).

There was also a Russian big band staying there for a while and they slept all day, every day.

One of the main reasons I had stopped in Yekaterinburg was to see the Mafia Graveyard I had heard of from friends before, now this place is iconic but also notorious for being very hard to find for an average tourist.

It took me two tram rides and a two hour walk out of the centre of the city and I had to climb over a fence near a petrol station but I finally found it.

The graveyard was huge, all of the graves had photos of the people who passed away, but the ones that really stood out were the huge black granite monoliths scattered around. These were the graves of mafia members of one of two families that were waging war in Yekaterinburg during the 90’s.

                 

I walked around for hours looking at some amazing work (mafia or otherwise), I made my way back to the city centre before it got dark.

I came across a music store on my way home, filled with 80’s American regalia (Predator toys, Chuck Norris posters, the works).

Now I’d been studying Russian for about four months before and I felt like I had a good grasp of the basics and wanted to practice as much as possible, this seemed the perfect opportunity to try and have a conversation.

“Excuse me, can you recommend some good Russian punk?”

The short bearded man smiled at me, walked over to the rock section and handed me this:

 ...obviously all that studying didn't help me.

After a few more failed attempts and a lot of miming of air guitars, I was handed this:

Дачники (Dachniki) by Leningrad.

Leningrad are more of a Ska band than a balls to the wall punk band but they still have a pretty decent sound. Slightly Gypsy, slightly Gogol Bordello.

Apparently the lyrics are absolutely filthy and they’ve been banned from playing in Moscow!

Although having said that banning bands seems to happen a lot in Russia.

Listen/enjoy x