The Beatles In The USSR

Last night I watched a show on TV called "How the Beatles Beat the Kremlin." It is about the effect the Beatles had in the Soviet Union even though they were officially banned. The documentary uses both original footage of both the Beatles and the USSR - but never together - as well as interviews with former Soviet citizens who remember what they had to do when they were younger to hear the Beatles.

I am not a very big fan of the Beatles - they were before my time - but it was interesting to see how they influenced whole generations of young people in the Soviet Union from the 1960s til today even though the Beatles never toured there (although every young Soviet believed they had after the song "Back in the USSR" came out) and the Soviet Government did everything they could to ban them there.

The young Soviets had to be secretive and creative to get, copy and listen to Beatles' records. They were often harassed, kicked out of universities and sent to jail for these activities. Even having long hair made them a target in a society of "equality" where going against the Communist norms was a threat in itself.

Now that I think of it I remember two incidents when I was living in Russia dealing with the Beatles. The first was when the director of my language school wanted me to sing one of their songs on Karaoke (I think it was "Michelle Ma Belle.")She couldn't believe that I didn't already know the words by heart like she did. I tried to explain that they were several decades before my time, but that didn't do anything and in the end I sang the song very badly. The second time was seeing a plaque made of wood that had all the Beatles on it in my girlfriend's appartment that her dad had made when he was younger.

At the time I didn't think much about it especially since both the language director and my girlfriend's dad are my from my parents' generation and the Beatles were popular back then. Now, after seeing the documentary, it brings new meaning to those two events and makes me wonder what the langauge director, my girlfriend's dad and all the others had to do during the Soviet times just to listen to the Beatles and escape the Communist propaganda constantly being thrown at them.