"In the Berry Field forever"

On July 5, Boris Grebenshchikov and his “Aquarium” will perform at the St. Petersburg Openayer Stereoleto , which takes place on Elagin Island. This is not just the next concert of the popular rock band: the last time the Aquarium played outdoor air in St. Petersburg almost 15 years ago-in 2001 at the Open Windows festival, which took place at the Petrovsky stadium, and Elagin is a great importance in historiography of the cult collective.

Taking advantage of the occasion, COLTA . Ru He publishes rare photographs of the first performances of the Aquarium in the open air and gives eyewitnesses, as it was.

1977. On the steps of an engineering castle

Photo by Willy Usov

The Aquarium group was founded in July 1972 by Boris Grebenshchikov and George Gunitsky, who, according to legend, borrowed the name for the group of Pivbar on Budapest Street. In the first years, the team existed in demo mode-BG wrote songs, and the group rehearsed, but rarely performed, since there was nowhere. The regular concert activity of the Aquarium began only in 1976. Therefore, the first open performances of the group can be considered rehearsals at the engineering castle - in those years the Paul I Palace I, on the contrary of the Summer Garden, was a party place of Leningrad hippies, where theatrical productions took place, in which members of the Aquarium also participated. From this period, only a few photographs of Willy Usov, where gatherings with guitars are captured.

According to the memoirs of Seva Gakkel, in 1979 he wanted to arrange a festival on the steps of an engineering castle, but his initiative was suppressed by law enforcement agencies.

1978. Smolny Cathedral Festival

Photo by Willy Usov

The first full-fledged Openair, which was mentioned in the archives of the group, is the concert of Boris Grebenshchikov and Mike Naumenko in the garden behind the Smolny Cathedral, near the Okhtinsky bridge, in the summer of 1978. The mini-festival was improvised and took place as a logical continuation of the BG recording and Mike Naumenko album “All Brothers-Sisters”-one of the first Russian magneto-albums with the cover and concept.

In 1978, Boris Grebenshchikov experimented with sound, believing that the walls of the recording studio only interfere. Therefore, to record the album “All the brothers -sisters” of the rowers and Naumenko chose the coast of the Neva beyond the Smolny Cathedral, the Mayak tape recorder was carried in a clean field on an extension cord, and microphones were placed in the middle. Now the album is considered in the discography of the group “Fifth prehistoric”. Almost all songs from this album came out at the subsequent albums of the Aquarium and Zoo, only the “king of the subconscious” and “daughter” is the exception. The latter is dedicated to the birth of the daughter of BG - Alice Grebenshchikova.

Vsevolod Gakkel (from the book "Aquarium as a means of caring for a tennis court")

We were all observers of the records and joined Bob only in the choir on the song "Daughter". A little later, right on this lawn, as far as the length of the network extension cord allowed, we arranged a mini-rock festival, which all our friends flew to. The people were a hundred people. They played everything with a direct sound, that is, the absence of one, since there was not even a single microphone and only the bass was included in my small VEF column. There were categorically no concerts at that time, and this festival was an event. Absolutely everything became events, because we really wanted it to be so. The scale of the event almost did not matter, its essence was important.

1983. At the summer festival in Vyborg

Photo by Willy Usov

On July 24, 1983, the Aquarium took part in the festival in Vyborg, which took place in the Montrepo Park on the Bay of the Gulf of Finland. The festival was also attended by the Russians, Manufactory, Center and others. Participants in the underground rock moves from Moscow and St. Petersburg gathered at it-in particular, Artemy Troitsky and Alexander Lipnitsky (in the photo), since this was almost the first rock-Openair in the Soviet Union.

Artemy Trinity (from an interview with Alexander Dolgov)

This festival was inspired and organized by one cute young man who was called, in my opinion, Andrei (Andrei Kolomoisky.- Ed. ). He was from Vyborg, but was constantly in St. Petersburg, and all the musicians knew him very well. I met him a year or two before this festival. He was a great patriot of Vyborg and nurtured the idea to somehow revive the city, attract artists in it, and tighten interesting alternative projects. And in Vyborg, his favorite place was Montrepo Park, which still exists there. He turned to me with a request to take out some pretty group from Moscow at my discretion, which I did with great pleasure-I brought the "center". It was the end of June or July. There was chic weather. Everything happened on such a simple wooden pop stage in the park; There were some benches, but basically everyone sat just on the grass. By the way, there were few people: a thousand people, I think, no more. Everyone came from St. Petersburg and spent remarkably time-they walked and drunk, naturally. The sound was surprisingly good. That is, by today's standards, he was probably terrible, but for the open scene of the 1983 model in the provincial town it was very tolerant. The concert lasted a very long time. “Russians”, “Aquarium”, “Manufactory”, some local groups played ... “Center” was not a strong concert group, but, in my opinion, their performance turned out to be almost the best that I saw throughout their career. The groups performed in a state of complete relaxation and mutual buzz with the audience. After the concert, no one had a desire to disperse, the festivities continued all night: they burned bonfires, thumped and crowned, probably someone had sex ... By the way, in my opinion, it was at this festival of Seva Gakkel who met a girl Alexandra, who later became a rather important person in the Aquarium company ... The Moscow delegation was Rada-Radeshenka. I myself was there in the society of Italian students - they were completely delighted ... It was a day just serene happiness. Everyone parted - well, at least, most of them - in the morning on the first trains.

This festival has become a completely happy event for me. I think every Russian rocker-meloman had his own Woodstock. For some, it was a festival in Podolsk, for someone-concerts in Tallinn, for someone-in the Leningrad rock club on Rubinstein Street, for someone-something else. For me, such “Russian Woodstock” was the festival in Vyborg ...

1994. BG on Elagin Island

Photo by Willy Usov

Much in the life of the Aquarium is associated with the environs of Elagin island. It is said that the first performance of the group, known to us as the Aquarium, took place in the Leningrad Restaurant "Trick" near the Central Park of Culture and Rest, and the first fee amounted to 50 rubles in cash. On the neighboring, Kamenny, island at the philologist Andrei Falaleev, whose family was still unsubscribing to lifelong use of the house and plot, rented rooms of the cresters, Lyapin and Titov. The cover of the album “All Brothers - Sisters” (1978) Grebenshchikova and Naumenko starred at the house of Falaleev, and borrowed the Buddha figurine for this cover at the owner of the house. The hobby of Buddhism was a lot of contributed to the nearby St. Petersburg Buddhist temple "Datsan Gunzecheinay."

The leader of the Aquarium still loves walks along Elagin Island, random tourists take pictures of the guru on phones, and local residents recognize and do not bother with requests for an autograph. In Instagram, Boris Grebenshchikova, calm panoramas of Elagin, the island are adjacent to bright photos with a tour and from travel.