Biography
Natalya Naumenko is the ex-wife of Mike Naumenko, musician of the Zoo group. She was a direct witness to the heyday of Russian rock and roll and rock. Musicians who later became legends gathered in their communal apartment on Borovaya: Viktor Tsoi, Boris Grebenshchikov, Alexey Rybin and others. In 2020, Kirill Serebrennikov’s film “Summer” will be released, telling about little-known facts from the lives of Viktor Tsoi, Mike Naumenko and Natalia.
Death of Naumenko
In March 1991, the rock musician took part in a concert in honor of the 10th anniversary of the rock club in the Northern capital. He performed “Suburban Blues” with the musical accompaniment of the group “Aquarium”. This was his last performance.
Funeral of Mike Naumenko
On August 27, his life was cut short by intracerebral hemorrhage. According to friends, the musician’s brain damage was due to a previous injury. In the evening he was allegedly robbed and beaten, and in the morning his relatives found him still alive and called an ambulance, but it was too late. The circumstances of such a sudden tragic death of the musician have not yet been clarified.
Mike Naumenko's grave
Admirers of his work gather at Mike’s grave at the Volkovskoye cemetery almost every week.
Career
When Natasha met Mike and they decided to get married, she had to go to Teploenergo, since the organization’s employees were given rooms. Everything was new for the petite girl. Unknown mechanisms of unimaginable size in the boiler room instilled fear that she had to overcome. She worked as a gas boiler operator, simply a fireman.
Natalia Naumenko
But at the same time, she managed to read books at work, learn English and write letters to friends.
In 1997, Alexey Rybin published the book “The Right to Rock,” which included Natalya’s memories of life with Mike. Its part received the title “Hotel called “Marriage””.
Childhood
The future rock musician was born on April 18, 1955 in the Northern capital and became the second child in a family where 8-year-old daughter Tatyana was already growing up. His parents were true Leningraders - intelligent, well-read, modest. Father Vasily Grigorievich taught at LISI (now SPbGASU), and mother Galina Florentyevna worked in the library.
Mike Naumenko in childhood and youth
His grandmother, who was also a highly educated person, also took part in raising her little grandson. It is not surprising that at the age of 5 the boy already knew how to read, and he received his secondary education not in a regular, but in a special school with English-language training, where, by the way, he acquired the nickname “Mike.”
As a teenager, he was interested in aircraft modeling and detective stories, and Mike's interest in music appeared when he heard one of the songs of the famous Liverpool four, The Beatles. Besides them, he also listened to the Rolling Stones, T.Rex, The Doors, Jefferson Airplane, Chuck Berry, David Bowie, Bob Dylan, Lou Reed and other most influential rock musicians. Knowledge of the English language allowed him to appreciate and admire not only the music of his rock idols, but also the poetic content of their work, as well as read Western magazine articles about them.
Young musician Mike Naumenko
In 8th grade, Naumenko learned to play the guitar. His grandmother gave him his first instrument for his 16th birthday. At the same time, he began to write his own compositions: first in English, and in 1972, under the influence of Boris Grebenshchikov, who was popular in the local rock scene, he experimented with versification in Russian.
Having received a certificate, on the advice of his father, he entered LISI (Architectural and Civil Engineering Institute), but dropped out of his studies in the 4th year. Then for some time Mike worked as a sound engineer at the Bolshoi Puppet Theater, and later as a watchman at the Lenin Stadium.
Personal life
The girl met her future husband, musician and leader of the Zoo group Mikhail Naumenko, when she was 19 years old. She first saw him in a communal apartment on Vasilievsky Island; her cousin Vyacheslav introduced him to Natalya. A month later they met again at Slava’s wedding, Mike joked a lot, and then invited the girl to rehearsals at the Bolshoi Puppet Theater, where he worked at that time.
Natalya Naumenko and Mike Naumenko in their youth
Soon the young man proposed to the girl, but they decided to postpone the wedding, since the housing issue had to be resolved first. Natalya became pregnant and had to go to the hospital. And as soon as she was discharged, Mike immediately took the girl to the registry office. He wanted to legitimize their relationship. Therefore, there was no preparation for the wedding; everything went quickly and chaotically.
In July, Natalya had a son. They originally planned to name the boy Mark, after Marc Bolan. But as soon as the baby was born, everyone immediately began to dissuade new parents from using this name. Therefore, they waited for a long time and decided, and in the end they gave their son the name Evgeniy.
Natalya Naumenko with her son
They lived extremely poorly, but, like everyone else in their youth, they did not realize their poverty. Moreover, then everyone in the country lived approximately the same. There were always guests in their communal apartment, among them the leader of the Kino group, Viktor Tsoi.
Unlike Mike, who had difficulty finding a common language with the baby, Victor often helped Natalya. He handled little Zhenya with such ease, as if he had already raised at least three children.
There is a version that there was an affair between Natalya and Victor. In 2007, the woman, at the request of Alexander Zhitinsky, who was writing a book about Tsoi, provided the writer with her diary entries. But initially Natasha agreed with Zhitinsky that her memories would be to help him, and not for publication.
Viktor Tsoi and Mike Naumenko
Later he assured her that everything looked noble and everything should be left in the book as she had written. The woman agreed. In an interview with Argumenty i Fakty, which Natalya gave in 2020, she said that it would have been much easier for her to live if she had not succumbed to Zhitinsky’s persuasion, but “now she’s unraveling.”
At that time, Tsoi constantly disappeared in Naumenko’s house; friendly and trusting relationships developed between Natasha and Vitya. They talked a lot, although in the company Tsoi was known as an eternal silent man. One day, before the girl’s 22nd birthday, she asked Mike to give her a gift - to allow her to kiss Tsoi. And although the husband was surprised by such a question, he allowed it.
On her birthday, Mike was at work: he left for a day and was absent from the celebration. Then their first kiss happened, but not the last. True, the woman describes their relationship as “kindergarten”; they even kissed as if they were classmates at a school party. According to Natalya Naumenko, for a short period they had a tender friendship, but nothing more. Although Mike believed that such friendships were much more dangerous than anything else.
Mike Naumenko and Natalia Naumenko
Natalya lived with Mike for 10 years. The couple divorced on August 15, 1991. They did this without scandals and unnecessary showdowns. Together with her son, the woman moved to Moscow. On August 27, 1991 - 12 days after the official divorce - Mike died. The cause of death was cerebral hemorrhage. But the circumstances under which it happened still remain unclear.
On her social network page, the woman wrote that she is married, has three children and two grandchildren. She is interested in knitting and creates dolls using the felting technique from wool. Spends a lot of time with his grandchildren.
“Mike Naumenko. Escape from the Zoo"
On April 18, Mikhail Naumenko, the leader of the Zoo group, one of the fathers of Leningrad and Russian rock, would have turned 65 years old.
This summer, the Vyrgorod publishing house will publish a book by writer, producer and author of COLTA.RU Alexander Kushnir, “Mike Naumenko. Escape from the Zoo." “In this documentary novel, poignant eyewitness memories are intertwined with analytical calculations, and personal impressions are side by side with indisputable archival materials,” says Kushnir. — Communicating a lot with the musicians of the Leningrad Rock Club, I devoted several chapters of the book “100 Magnetic Albums of Soviet Rock” to Naumenko’s work. Twenty years later, this research took on a new quality, when all stages of the work of one of the founders of the poetic school of Russian rock music were studied. Many facts from Mike's life will be made public for the first time, so they are unexpected and polemical. They debunk the mythology and add the necessary volume for a more complete perception of the legendary personality.”
We are publishing one chapter from this book, in which Mike meets his future wife Natasha and becomes a scandalous rock and roll star in Moscow.
© "Vyrgorod"
New horizons of freedom
Painting still needs to be invented.
Pablo Picasso
One day, Slava Zorin introduced Mike to his cousin Natasha Korableva. This short, pretty girl lived in a modest communal apartment on Vasilyevsky Island and Naumenko immediately liked her. A month later, they crossed paths again at the wedding of the “Overhaul” guitarist.
“Mike didn’t notice anyone that day,” Slava Zorin later recalled. “Except for my sister Natalia and a bottle of gin.”
Since this acquaintance largely determined Mike’s future fate, it was important for me to meet Natasha in order to write the book. Our conversation took place in a small cafe on Taganka, and in the first minutes I could not believe the reality of what was happening.
I’ll be honest: for many months I rushed about in search of arguments aimed at making this interview take place. But every time Natasha refused - it seemed to me that the proposal for a meeting was seen by her as part of a cunning plan related to the advertising hype around the film “Summer”. And only the persistent participation of friends - Oleg Kovriga, Isha and Lyuda Petrovsky - made this conversation possible. Now I feel embarrassed for the mistrust, but then it seemed completely justified...
But now all the fears are behind me, I give Natasha “The Crazy Mechanics of Russian Rock”, at the same time turning on the remains of my charm and an old Sony recorder. The interview begins with questions about getting to know Mike, and, of course, my interlocutor had a lot to share here.
“I first met him as a guy from Aquarium who writes his own songs,” Natasha began the story. — He was number two there, and the first was, naturally, Boris. And Mike, of course, wanted to perform his songs with his own lineup.”
Further events in their lives developed spontaneously, but with a clear touch of romance. First, Mike invited Natasha to a rehearsal with “Overhaul,” and then to the Puppet Theater, to the musical “Seize the Moment of Fortune,” which was fashionable at that time. Not without difficulty, he took out a countermark, he modestly sat the girl down on a side chair, and after the performance he invited her to take a walk around the city, entertaining her with theatrical tales.
In response, Natasha talked a little about her life. The daughter of a school teacher, she came to Leningrad from the Vologda region and worked as a calculating machine operator at the Almaz production association. Thanks to my brother, I periodically attended concerts of underground rock bands, but I knew the city itself and its history mainly from books and trips to museums. And it so happened that in matters of “broadening one’s horizons,” Mike turned out to be an indispensable guide.
Mike and Natasha - celebrating the New Year, 1982, in Kupchin with friends to the latest Iggy Pop album “The Party”. December 31, 1981© Alexander Bitsky
“Until 1973, the Naumenko family lived in a communal apartment on Zhukovsky Street,” Natasha recalled. “Then my sister Tanya stayed there, and Misha moved with his parents to Varshavskaya, into a three-room apartment. Mike had a separate room, it would seem, live and be happy... But he didn’t want to live there or be happy. And as soon as Tanya left for the dacha, he returned to Zhukovsky Street, from where it was a stone’s throw to Nevsky. He and I walked a lot and saw his favorite places. This was the same city of Dostoevsky that Mike loved, and he never got tired of showing it all. And I always walked in heels, so when I returned home, I simply fell into slippers... We never visited cafes, because there was no such culture, there were not so many coffee shops and there was not so much money. So I begged Mike to come into the park so I could sit for a while. He easily agreed and was generally a timid guy.”
It is generally accepted that the first impression of a person is the strongest. Therefore, the question about the key emotions received from communicating with Mike at the beginning of our acquaintance was important to me.
“Sometimes he had strange quirks, something about independence and being among the people,” Natasha said with a smile. — It would seem, what’s special about a theater “radio operator”? Mike was from a good professorial family. And he really was such a really good boy. And all his life he squeezed it out of himself in order to be closer to his favorite rock and rollers.”
Over time, their relationship became more trusting. Mike invited the girl to visit his sister Tanya, where they listened with bated breath to the new David Bowie album. Then he read the young lady poems by Ginsberg, samizdat prose by Venichka Erofeev, and one day he plucked up the courage and made an unexpected proposal to Natasha.
“I would dream of living with you in an ancient castle,” the “rock and roll star” said to his chosen one, slightly embarrassed. “But I can only offer you an apartment with your parents and the salary of a “radio operator” in the theater.”
One day, Mike asked Natasha to draw the cover for a tape album that had just been recorded at the Puppet Theater. It so happened that none of the design options for “Sweet N” suited him. Willy Usov's photo shoot was only suitable for the back of the reel, and the size 43 female leg drawn by Apraksina did not at all correspond to Mike's mood.
Naumenko clearly wanted something different. And then he offered to sketch the cover for his beloved.
“I’ve already heard the songs from the album,” Natasha said. — In some magazine, Mike found a small picture in which two ladies were drawn. And he says: “I need a young lady like this, and for me to look at her.” And I drew everything for him from memory. Despite the fact that I am not an artist and have not studied this anywhere. I don’t even know how he knew that I loved painting... He probably saw how I painted the Beatles.”
As soon as the album “Sweet N and Others” received canonical design, events around Mike began to spin with unexpected speed. Now he had a musical product that could be shown not only to friends, but also to organizers of all kinds of concerts.
The fact is that after Aquarium’s performance at the rock festival in Tbilisi in March 1980, Grebenshchikov made a fair number of new friends. One of them turned out to be the influential music critic Artemy Troitsky, who wrote numerous articles - both in the official press and in typewritten rock samizdat.
Soon the leader of “Aquarium” began to go to Moscow with concerts and once showed Troitsky a cassette with “Fleabag” and “Suburban Blues”. As the story goes, Artemy Kivovich was clearly impressed by what he heard.
“I really liked these recordings,” Troitsky summed up. — And, although I was passionate about Grebenshchikov at that time, I liked them more. What I told Boris frankly about, which, in my opinion, slightly embarrassed him. Grebenshchikov vaguely said that this was his friend from Leningrad, writing songs. He didn’t give his last name, he only said that his nickname was Mike. I loved these songs so much that I simply tortured Borya so that he would introduce me to Mike, come to Moscow with him, and so on.”
Soon Artemy invited Grebenshchikov to an acoustic festival, which was organized by his friend Kostya Moiseev somewhere in Northern Chertanovo - “a muddy place without identification marks, among some garages and new buildings.” From Ostankino we managed to arrange a Czech mobile tone studio for the Yunost radio station, which recorded this event using professional equipment.
Underground Moscow managers at a sound check in Northern Chertanovo. Konstantin Moiseev (in smoky glasses) is at the center of events. Subsequently, it was he who rented the “Time Machine” equipment for the legendary “Zoo” concert at the Moskvorechye cultural center, on which the album “Blues de Moscou” was recorded© From the archive of Konstantin Moiseev
The line-up of musicians who were scheduled to perform on October 25, 1980 promised a lot of fun: Andrei Makarevich, Konstantin Nikolsky, “Last Chance”, “Aquarium”, as well as the bearded Lithuanian bard Virgas Stakenas, who calmly sang songs in his native language.
Grebenshchikov's group, which was filmed by Finnish television at a rock festival in Tbilisi, was already known a little in Moscow, but mainly at the level of rumors. Neither the Blue Album nor the Triangle existed in nature, so underground rumors glorified their exploits at the level of elemental mythology.
It is curious that in St. Petersburg “Aquarium” in those years was perceived as “an ensemble that played several concerts together with “Time Machine.” According to the wonderful Kolya Vasin, during Grebenshchikov’s performances, “the audience was terribly languishing, waiting for this tediousness to finally end.”
In Moscow, everything was completely different. Like, this is the same gang that almost fucked on stage in Georgia. I remember how my fellow students told me that “Aquarium” is a group that has one cool song, something like “Come to me, I’m a cool man!” Give me my shoe, push the fuzz! Washcloth, hey, run to me quickly..."
Naturally, against this fabulous background, no one in the capital had heard of Mike, who at that time was “between heaven and earth.” But the cunning Troitsky structured the program in such a way that Naumenko played last, and accompanied by the Aquarium musicians: Grebenshchikov, Gakkel, Fan, Dyusha, Bassoon and the new guitarist Sasha Kozhevnikov.
Artemy Troitsky introduced Mike Naumenko as “boy Mike.” October 25, 1980, Northern Chertanovo© From the archives of Konstantin Moiseev
Vaguely anticipating a scandal, Artemy invited the entire progressive intelligentsia of Moscow to Northern Chertanovo: from his friend Sasha Lipnitsky, playwright Viktor Slavkin and poet Alexei Didurov to the writer Lyudmila Petrushevskaya, shy animator Yuri Norshtein and jazzman Alexei Kozlov, who came to the event in a leather jacket and with his wife in an evening dress.
At the end of the road from the Kaluzhskaya metro station, a real futuristic paradise awaited the guests: a brand new music school building with an assembly hall for 300 seats, in which there was a first-class apparatus of the Autograph group. The windows were covered with heavy curtains, daylight did not penetrate into the room - the spectators were cut off from the socialist paradise by twilight and thick brick walls.
Word of mouth did its job, and by the beginning of the festival at school there was nowhere for the apple to fall. According to Kostya Moiseev, about three hundred and fifty people gathered in the hall: all the aisles were packed with excited fans of Moscow and Leningrad rock.
“Boy Mike,” as Troitsky familiarly announced him, appeared on stage with an unfinished bottle of Havana Club and a smoking Belomor.
By putting Naumenko as the headliner, Troitsky and Moiseev took a certain risk - but it paid off.
“This was not only Naumenko’s first public performance in Moscow, but, as Mike assured me, his first performance with his own program,” Troitsky later admitted. — Before that, he only played in an apartment setting. It was the first time Mike had performed in such a large hall, and the first time it was “electric.”
Naumenko’s appearance was preceded by an acoustic set from “Aquarium”, which included all the action films of that time: “My Musician Friend”, “Stick to Your Roots”, “Road 21” and “Looking at the TV”. It seemed that it was impossible to surpass Grebenshchikov's team: the audience literally groaned after each composition. Meanwhile, Mike, very worried, was drinking Cuban rum in the toilet. At that historical moment, he had to go on stage to accomplish a feat. And he did it.
Mike Naumenko and Aquarium guitarist Sasha Kozhevnikov. October 25, 1980, Northern Chertanovo© From the archives of Konstantin Moiseev
“Boy Mike,” as Troitsky familiarly announced him, appeared on stage with an unfinished bottle of Havana Club and a smoking Belomor. Wearing dark glasses and an elegant scarf around his neck, he naturally looked like a Western rock artist. He carried himself with confidence, sang nasally and commented on songs like Bob Dylan at a drunken jam in Greenwich Village. Without any sound check, Naumenko announced the song cycle “Sweet N and others,” immediately indicating that “this is not a lady from an English-speaking country, but a character with the Latin N... I don’t know whether she exists or not, but I really like this woman.” Then he called on the audience to drink a wonderful drink - Cuban rum, and also smoke Belomor, preferably from Leningrad.
Deathly silence was his answer.
The program was short and consisted of eight compositions, which Naumenko performed in a more aggressive manner than on the album. The vocals sounded a little lower, the tempo was faster, and the arrangements turned out to be truly “dirty.” There was real chemistry between the musicians and Mike. Moreover, in both directions. For the first time, the capital’s stage performed not songs about castles in the air and “roads of disappointment,” but provocative punk rock with daring lyrics. And after the line about “the five hundred and second abortion,” the air in the hall froze, and flies could be heard kissing.
“Mike stood up very straight, even arrogantly, the musicians tensed up and hit whatever they could,” Lyudmila Petrushevskaya recalled in one essay. - Some simple game started, and Mike shouted in an even, precise, impudent tone under this ringing mumble. It was, of course, singing; there was even some very ancient melody, like that of a sexton in a church. But Mike did something with our souls, it seemed he saved them, took them into his flourishing world, where his great love reigned in various forms, including in such a form as a mournful repetition of “you are rubbish,” a powerless spell against the one who brings you down. the mind of a sweet woman..."
- Boy Mike - he's so cute!
Until this moment, everything at the concert looked peaceful, and the people did not show any excitement. But after the poignant performances of “Fleabag” and “Suburban Blues,” the audience stopped sublimating and divided into two camps. It is known for certain that Lipnitsky, Didurov and Petrushevskaya were in the first, and Andrei Makarevich and several musicians from Moscow groups were in the second. The first looked at Naumenko's mouth with delight, the second scolded him with the last words.
“A quiet, unusually intelligent man with a big nose and dark glasses approached the mixing console,” the leader of “Time Machine” said in one interview. — I explained to the sound engineer for a long time and politely what the sound should be like. Then he went on stage, and suddenly something changed in his face, his lower jaw moved forward, and with surprisingly unpleasant intonations he began to say: “You are rubbish!” I really didn’t like this metamorphosis. I was then a champion of total purity and believed that if a person is alone in life, but on stage pretends to be something else, then in one of two cases he is lying.”
When there was a buzz in the hall, Mike said into the microphone: “I can whistle too!” - and, turning his head to the musicians, ordered: “Play as loud as possible! As loud as you can!” After which Mike and Boris famously burst out in unison “If you want,” further fueling the fire of the painful reflection of the capital’s elite.
“The reaction to this concert was unique,” Troitsky later stated. “Even though the audience was refined, something was going on in the hall, and after going outside everyone continued to argue. And someone even got into a fight - there was some kind of massacre between the people who accepted Mike and the people who were greatly outraged by him.”
“Looking after the St. Petersburg residents, hung with tools and bags, the pseudo-educated capital city at the bus stop squealed something about vulgarity and abomination, about anti-aesthetics and the violation of the laws of beauty by “these boorish Leningrad provincials,” poet Alexey recalled in the book “A Quarter of a Century in Rock” Didurov. “Petrushevskaya immediately got involved in a scandal with these connoisseurs of beauty. I barely pulled Lucy away. She stared at me with her almost always amazed and always sad eyes: “Okay, they don’t understand a thing about art, they’re unfortunate, but that’s not why I feel sorry for them most of all!” Boy Mike - he's so cute! And even this doesn’t bother them! Living young corpses."
Returning home, “dear Mike” immediately met with Natasha Korableva and, ahead of her questions, said in a tired voice: “In principle, I am pleased with how I was received in Moscow. My own performance - not very good. Because, in fact, everything could be better.”
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Mike Naumenko and his Hour of the Bull: a fragment of the new documentary novel by Alexander Kushnir
Natalya Naumenko now
In 2020, director Kirill Serebrennikov will present the film “Summer” at the Cannes Film Festival. The events of the film unfold in the summer of 1981 in Leningrad. The plot centers on the lives of Viktor Tsoi, Mike Naumenko and Natalia. The woman was played by Irina Starshenbaum, known to viewers from Fyodor Bondarchuk’s blockbuster “Attraction.” The roles of musicians went to Theo Yu and Roma the Beast.
Irina Starshenbaum and Roman Bilyk as Natalia and Mike Naumenko
However, even before the screening, a scandal erupted around the film. Boris Grebenshchikov, the founder of the Aquarium group, after reading the script, said that it was all a lie from beginning to end. According to him, the characters in Serebrennikov’s painting have nothing in common with the people he knew personally.
Documentary director Alexander Lipnitsky was also skeptical about the film. He believes that the plot is “sucked out of thin air.” At one time, he made a documentary about the Kino group and talked with Alexander Zhitinsky.
Alexander Zhitinsky
From their conversation, he realized that between Natasha Naumenko and Viktor Tsoi there was an easy romantic relationship, at the level of flirting. Lipnitsky noted that he doesn’t really believe in this whole story with the novel, and even if it’s true, it clearly doesn’t fit into the plot of the film.
Natalya answered the question about the current situation around the film ambiguously. She liked what she saw on the set; she believes in director Kirill Serebrennikov. But I don’t think it’s right to express my opinion about a picture without seeing it.
Career development
At the beginning of his creative activity, the young man collaborated as a bass guitarist with various Leningrad rock groups. Having met BG in 1974, he sometimes played along with Aquarium. In 1978, they released a joint album, “All Brothers and Sisters,” dedicating it to the birth of Boris Borisovich’s daughter Alice. The recording of the compositions took place on the banks of the Neva. Many of these compositions - “Daughter”, “The Ballad of Kroki, Nishtyak and Karma”, “The Seventh Chapter”, “Ode to the Bathroom”, later became hits.
Mike Naumenko received his guitar for his 16th birthday
During the same period, Mike Naumenko gave his first underground concert in the capital, which literally blew up the audience. Listeners were especially impressed by the blues song “Fleabag,” in which the hero rudely ridicules a frivolous girl. Not only did heated debates arose in the hall, but even a fight broke out between those who sided with the newly minted rock minstrel and those whom he outraged. Andrei Makarevich, who was present at the performance, allegedly described the musician’s performance with the words “simply disgraceful.”
Mike Naumenko and Boris Grebenshchikov
In 1980, with the assistance of BG, Naumenko recorded his debut solo disc “Sladkaya N and others.” Its track list includes 16 songs, including “If You Want”, “Light”, “Morning Together”, “Suburban Blues”, “Goodbye Baby!”, “All Night”. Irony, attention to everyday details and the desire to call things by their proper names captivated listeners. The author began to be called “Leningrad’s Bob Dylan.”
According to experts, the formation of the rock performer’s musical style was significantly influenced by his communication with the artist and writer Tatyana Apraksina. As journalist and creator of musical projects Alexander Kushnir later stated, Mike once admitted that all his compositions are dedicated to her.
The Zoo group and its leader Mike Naumenko
At the end of 1980, Naumenko decided to create his own group “Zoo”. When asked about the symbolism of the name of the group, Mike himself usually laughed it off, but for many it was obvious that he felt himself to be one of the animals of the zoo (which for him personified not only the USSR, but also more broadly - general conservatism, people’s desire for lack of freedom and narrow-mindedness .
The group's debut performance took place on a suburban dance floor. In the spring of 1981, they were already accepted into the Leningrad rock club, where their debut concert took place, which caused a sensation. In the same year, the debut concert record was released, co-recorded in the capital at the group’s performance at the Moskvorechye Palace of Culture with the appropriate name “Blues de Moscou”. The author of all twenty songs performed was the lead vocalist and founder, Mike Naumenko.
Record by Mike Naumenko and the group “Zoo” - “District City N”
In 1982, he released the solo album “LV” (“Fifty-five” is the last digit of his year of birth). He dedicated three compositions from there to his colleagues: “Summer” - Viktor Tsoi, “Song of the Guru” - Yuri Morozov, “I don’t know why (Boo-Boo)” - Andrey Panov. A year later, the first studio disc of the Zoo group was presented - “County City N” with a song of the same name, which turned out to be unique in its kind. Its duration is about 15 minutes - Mike was never afraid to experiment and was inspired by one of his idols - Lou Reed's Velvet Underground, who were also not afraid of non-standard solutions.
In 1984, the rock hero pleased fans with the new album “White Stripe”. The first number was the instantly famous “Boogie-Woogie Every Day”, which was later included in their repertoire by “Alice”, “Secret”, “Zero”, and was also performed in Valery Todorovsky’s musical comedy “Hipsters”.
Then “Zoo” toured a lot, and in 1987 it was registered at Lenconcert. However, the group leader soon began to suffer from depression and problems with alcohol.
Mike Naumenko and Viktor Tsoi
In addition to music, Mikhail was involved in translations of articles about English-language rock performers, science fiction works by Eric Frank Russell, etc.
