Victor Tsoi (1962-1990) was leader of Kino, arguably the USSR's most successful rock band. Noted for the political content of his lyrics, his band came out of the shadows to widespread prominence with the liberalisation introduced by Mikhail Gorbachev from 1985. He died in an horrific car crash in 1990 aged 28 but is still revered by many Russians. In many respects you might say Tsoi provided the rock soundtrack to Perestroika (restructuring) and Glasnost (openness) introduced by Gorbachev which paved the way to the collapse of Soviet communism.