0:00:09 > 0:00:10'It's The Beatles!'
0:00:25 > 0:00:28In August 1962, I made a little film
0:00:28 > 0:00:32with four unknown kids in a Liverpool cellar.
0:00:32 > 0:00:38# Some other guy now Taking my love away from me... #
0:00:38 > 0:00:42Soon, The Beatles had conquered much of the world.
0:00:46 > 0:00:53But back in the USSR, the repressive old men in the Kremlin tried to resist the Fab Four.
0:00:55 > 0:00:58They were defeated by their children.
0:00:58 > 0:01:03This is the untold story of how The Beatles helped to destroy Communism.
0:01:16 > 0:01:21# While in the west a Beatle stepped on all the rules
0:01:21 > 0:01:26# '60s beat was echoing throughout all the Soviet schools... #
0:01:26 > 0:01:32The Beatles turned tens of millions of young people into
0:01:32 > 0:01:35another religion, and the understanding that
0:01:35 > 0:01:39we're living in a monster state, and we needed an alternative.
0:01:39 > 0:01:44# Every Russian schoolboy wants to be a star
0:01:44 > 0:01:51# Playing Beatles music, making a guitar... #
0:01:51 > 0:01:56They changed everything, and they opened the whole world.
0:01:56 > 0:01:59It was all brought by them, by The Beatles.
0:02:06 > 0:02:08# The teachers loved to follow this
0:02:08 > 0:02:11# As if it were a sin
0:02:11 > 0:02:15# We were building communism but the Beatles bought it in... #
0:02:15 > 0:02:20They destroyed the Communism more than Gorbachev, by the way,
0:02:20 > 0:02:22the change of the Soviet Union.
0:02:22 > 0:02:24Beatles, it was the key
0:02:24 > 0:02:27that opened the door to the West culture.
0:02:28 > 0:02:32The West culture produced cultural revolution.
0:02:32 > 0:02:36Cultural revolution destroyed the Soviet Union.
0:02:36 > 0:02:44# Even comrade Brezhnev sadly shrug his hea-a-a-a-d
0:02:44 > 0:02:48# Each comrade's child was in a band yeah, yeah
0:02:48 > 0:02:51# Byron swept the land, yeah, yeah,
0:02:51 > 0:02:54# Byron swept the land Things were getting out of hand... #
0:02:54 > 0:02:59They put the first hole in the Iron Curtain, the song of Beatles.
0:02:59 > 0:03:07The Beatles were always looked upon as very dangerous, bourgeois, somehow undermined the system itself.
0:03:07 > 0:03:12# What could they do? What could they say? A generation gone astray... #
0:03:12 > 0:03:14The Beatles, it was like a fresh air.
0:03:14 > 0:03:20In Russia, it was amazing power because they had this free spirit.
0:03:27 > 0:03:31# What could they do? What could they say?
0:03:31 > 0:03:36# They walked away. #
0:03:36 > 0:03:38It was Beatles generation.
0:03:38 > 0:03:41Beatles, Beatles, Beatles, Beatles, da!
0:03:42 > 0:03:5025 years after that first film in the Liverpool Cavern Club, I began to make documentaries in the USSR.
0:03:56 > 0:03:58Over the years, I heard stories,
0:03:58 > 0:04:00incredible at first,
0:04:00 > 0:04:04about how The Beatles had changed the lives of millions of kids
0:04:04 > 0:04:09and how their music helped to destroy official culture and the communist system.
0:04:09 > 0:04:16In today's Moscow, the vast Socialist experiment feels like a dream.
0:04:16 > 0:04:23But how could four lads from Liverpool have played a part in defeating the Cold War enemy?
0:04:30 > 0:04:33I knew The Beatles had never been able
0:04:33 > 0:04:35to play behind the Iron Curtain.
0:04:36 > 0:04:41A repressive and puritanical youth culture was strictly enforced by
0:04:41 > 0:04:45a state which feared what the Beatles might bring.
0:04:45 > 0:04:48But wherever I went, people insisted
0:04:48 > 0:04:52The Beatles had a more profound impact on rocking the Kremlin
0:04:52 > 0:04:56than the threat from the West of nuclear missiles
0:04:56 > 0:04:58or anti-communist crusading.
0:05:00 > 0:05:08In the big, bad West, they've had whole huge institutions
0:05:08 > 0:05:12which spent tens of millions of dollars
0:05:12 > 0:05:17for undermining the Soviet system.
0:05:17 > 0:05:23I'm sure that the impact of all those stupid Cold War institutions
0:05:23 > 0:05:31has been much, much smaller than the impact of The Beatles.
0:05:31 > 0:05:36If you look at all the factors that led to the ultimate
0:05:36 > 0:05:40loss of belief
0:05:40 > 0:05:44in the system, which was its downfall.
0:05:44 > 0:05:49It was held together by fear and by belief.
0:05:49 > 0:05:54The Beatles played a role in first of all overcoming the fear
0:05:54 > 0:05:59and in showing that the belief was actually stupid.
0:05:59 > 0:06:01# She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah #
0:06:01 > 0:06:04# She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah
0:06:04 > 0:06:07# Let it be, let it be... #
0:06:07 > 0:06:11Across the USSR, The Beatles virus spawned hundreds of tribute bands.
0:06:11 > 0:06:17# Wearing the face that she keeps in a jar by the door
0:06:18 > 0:06:24# Who is it for? All the lonely people... #
0:06:24 > 0:06:28Their music was my soundtrack as I went looking for The Beatles
0:06:28 > 0:06:31generation to follow the story of an improbable revolution.
0:06:31 > 0:06:37# Won't you please, please help me
0:06:37 > 0:06:40# Help me, help me ooh. #
0:06:42 > 0:06:46Kolya Vasin is Russia's ultimate Beatles fan.
0:06:46 > 0:06:50Adventures. Beatles gave me adventures all my life.
0:06:50 > 0:06:57For more than 40 years, he's been building his John Lennon temple of love in St Petersburg.
0:07:08 > 0:07:10Another life. With The Beatles, another life.
0:07:20 > 0:07:24- Flying with The Beatles. - # Do you want to know a secret?
0:07:25 > 0:07:28# Do you promise not to tell? #
0:07:35 > 0:07:40Since 1964, when he first heard a bootleg Beatles tape, he has been
0:07:40 > 0:07:44amassing his horde of Beatles treasure.
0:08:36 > 0:08:39For Kolya Vasin and millions of other kids,
0:08:39 > 0:08:44it was never easy to be a Beatles fan in the Soviet Union.
0:08:44 > 0:08:48Reviled by the Communist authorities as Western pollution,
0:08:48 > 0:08:51Beatles records were banned.
0:08:51 > 0:08:58Vigilantes patrolled the streets rounding up rock 'n' roll fans and shaving off their long hair.
0:09:01 > 0:09:07Police at airports kept a look-out for smuggled records.
0:09:07 > 0:09:11You just bring it into the country, actually, it's like contraband.
0:09:11 > 0:09:13Just - you bring in this album.
0:09:13 > 0:09:16"No, you're not supposed to bring this stuff into the country,"
0:09:16 > 0:09:20and they will find it in your luggage. They will scratch it.
0:09:20 > 0:09:27It was a device like three nails together just to scratch it, because it should be done in a proper way.
0:09:30 > 0:09:35Official Soviet culture ignored The Beatles' invasion,
0:09:35 > 0:09:40preferring accordions and folk dancing to guitars and the Fab Four.
0:09:52 > 0:09:56Being a young radical man,
0:09:56 > 0:10:02I just hated all of this because it was all square, totally uncool.
0:10:02 > 0:10:06All the singers had the wrong haircuts.
0:10:06 > 0:10:10They were dressed like office clerks,
0:10:10 > 0:10:15and they sang like Brezhnev at the Communist Party Congress.
0:10:18 > 0:10:22Soviet culture has been totally unsexy,
0:10:22 > 0:10:26very rigid, too limited.
0:10:26 > 0:10:32There was nothing bright and free and funky and sexy
0:10:32 > 0:10:36and funny about it, and, of course,
0:10:36 > 0:10:42these qualities were exactly the vitamins that our bodies needed.
0:10:42 > 0:10:46In the mid '60s, ingenious Beatles fans found
0:10:46 > 0:10:49a way to make their own bootlegs.
0:10:49 > 0:10:53Their secret weapons were street-side recording booths,
0:10:53 > 0:10:58where homesick soldiers could make sound letters for their mums.
0:10:58 > 0:11:03After hours, fans would turn up with tapes of Beatles songs
0:11:03 > 0:11:07illicitly recorded from Radio Luxembourg.
0:11:08 > 0:11:10And you could do
0:11:10 > 0:11:13a recording of Beatles songs.
0:11:14 > 0:11:19At the beginning, they did it on the used X-rays, which they collected
0:11:19 > 0:11:24from trash in the medical institutes or in clinics or in hospitals.
0:11:24 > 0:11:28There was the machine with the needle,
0:11:28 > 0:11:33which was scratching grooves on this X-ray.
0:11:35 > 0:11:40A black market mushroomed fed by records on ribs.
0:11:42 > 0:11:47So kids could listen to I Feel Fine on Uncle Sergei's lungs.
0:11:50 > 0:11:52I used to buy ribs when I was a kid.
0:11:52 > 0:11:55There was a guy keeping it in a sleeve.
0:11:55 > 0:11:58Flexible, flexi-disks
0:11:58 > 0:12:03because it was prohibited, in his sleeve, flexis, three rubles.
0:12:07 > 0:12:10OK. You want shakes. You want rock 'n' rolls?
0:12:10 > 0:12:13Shake was dance, you know, shake.
0:12:13 > 0:12:17You want some rock 'n' rolls? You want some shakes?
0:12:17 > 0:12:19Three rubles.
0:12:19 > 0:12:21"What's this?"
0:12:21 > 0:12:23"It's good rock 'n' roll."
0:12:23 > 0:12:28This was very dangerous for people who sold it. It was prohibited.
0:12:34 > 0:12:40Shrugging off official disapproval, the Beatles virus raged across the Soviet empire.
0:12:45 > 0:12:51In Minsk, 500 miles from Moscow, Yuri Pelushonok caught the bug.
0:12:51 > 0:12:58But Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, the song is so good and so nice that you fell in love when you hear this.
0:13:01 > 0:13:03You can just feel it. You know? It's in the air.
0:13:03 > 0:13:08I can't explain you, but everybody knows it. It's an icon.
0:13:08 > 0:13:12If my mum would like to tell me to have a haircut, she would say,
0:13:12 > 0:13:14"You're worse than a Beatle."
0:13:33 > 0:13:37In Kiev too, The Beatles virus was unstoppable.
0:13:38 > 0:13:42Nikolai Poturaev was a schoolboy back then.
0:13:43 > 0:13:46They opened the whole world,
0:13:46 > 0:13:50and my decision to go to the university to
0:13:50 > 0:13:54the faculty of English language and literature and my interest to
0:13:54 > 0:13:59English spoken culture, it was all brought by them,
0:13:59 > 0:14:03by The Beatles, and this feeling of freedom.
0:14:03 > 0:14:10You meet friends after long period of being alone.
0:14:10 > 0:14:14# Listen, do you want to know a secret... #
0:14:14 > 0:14:21In St Petersburg, Sergei Ivanov caught The Beatles virus.
0:14:21 > 0:14:25The boy who would grow up to be Russian Defence Supremo
0:14:25 > 0:14:28and Vladimir Putin's Deputy Prime Minister
0:14:28 > 0:14:32confesses he still has symptoms of the infection
0:14:32 > 0:14:34he caught more than 40 years ago.
0:14:38 > 0:14:42That was '62, '63.
0:14:42 > 0:14:44I was a kid
0:14:44 > 0:14:47around 10, 11 years age,
0:14:47 > 0:14:50average Soviet kid,
0:14:50 > 0:14:55and I tuned to the radio station and heard a music.
0:14:55 > 0:14:57I suspect it was Love Me Do.
0:14:57 > 0:14:59I still remember that.
0:14:59 > 0:15:02Then the Beatle harmonia started
0:15:02 > 0:15:04including the Soviet Union by the way.
0:15:04 > 0:15:09In that sense, the Soviet Union was a normal European country,
0:15:09 > 0:15:12except one thing, The Beatles didn't come.
0:15:12 > 0:15:16Of course the Soviet Union was far from a normal country,
0:15:16 > 0:15:23and the young Ivanov was probably tuned illicitly to Radio Luxembourg.
0:15:23 > 0:15:26But ignoring official hostility,
0:15:26 > 0:15:31Soviet kids continued to track down Beatles' music.
0:15:31 > 0:15:32I became a Beatles fan.
0:15:32 > 0:15:34I know most of their songs.
0:15:34 > 0:15:36I still remember them.
0:15:36 > 0:15:42Hearing The Beatles music, I'm sure it helped me to
0:15:42 > 0:15:45learn English language properly.
0:15:45 > 0:15:51Woke up and made my bed, dragged a comb across my head.
0:15:51 > 0:15:54That was the first time I learned what the word "comb"
0:15:54 > 0:15:57means in Russian.
0:15:57 > 0:15:59By the way, I still remember that.
0:16:15 > 0:16:19In the Soviet Union, official propaganda was one thing,
0:16:19 > 0:16:22but real life was totally different.
0:16:28 > 0:16:33The Beatles became such a phenomenal thing in the Soviet Union because
0:16:33 > 0:16:39they came in the very right time with the very right kind of music.
0:16:39 > 0:16:41The timing has been perfect
0:16:41 > 0:16:46because, if it happened two or three years earlier,
0:16:46 > 0:16:49in the very beginning of the '60s,
0:16:49 > 0:16:54I think that their music would fall on a less fertile ground.
0:16:57 > 0:17:04In '61, '62, we had a very powerful agenda of our own in the Soviet Union.
0:17:12 > 0:17:15We've had our own global superhero, Yuri Gagarin,
0:17:15 > 0:17:17the first man in space.
0:17:22 > 0:17:24And we have had, you know,
0:17:24 > 0:17:31these also long-haired and bearded romantic revolutionaries in Cuba.
0:17:32 > 0:17:37We had our own charismatic leader Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev
0:17:37 > 0:17:41who promised to bury the United States and to build communism
0:17:41 > 0:17:44in 20 years' time.
0:17:44 > 0:17:50Communism, of course, was a kind of ideally utopian society, and we believed it.
0:17:53 > 0:17:59So at that time, it was really cool to be a Soviet.
0:17:59 > 0:18:06Then in 1964, of course, Mr Khrushchev has been kicked out
0:18:06 > 0:18:11and replaced by a bunch of much more boring guys.
0:18:11 > 0:18:18This is how the decades of so-called stagnation have started.
0:18:18 > 0:18:23This is exactly when The Beatles' music started slowly
0:18:23 > 0:18:28to infiltrate the Soviet mass consciousness.
0:18:31 > 0:18:37And it was then that Kolya Vasin began his long obsession with the Beatles.
0:19:07 > 0:19:12Here in an article about Beatles in the Russian press, they say
0:19:12 > 0:19:16shooting Beatles, very bad article, very bad article.
0:19:16 > 0:19:20That's communist, communist.
0:19:20 > 0:19:24When I saw this article,
0:19:24 > 0:19:28I say, Soviet is bad state,
0:19:28 > 0:19:34and I make immigration to free territory
0:19:34 > 0:19:37of Russia in '64 year.
0:19:37 > 0:19:44I say to me in my soul, I will live without Soviets,
0:19:44 > 0:19:48only in my room with The Beatles.
0:19:48 > 0:19:54To young people they say Beatles is bad.
0:20:58 > 0:21:02Fans in search of Beatles' music faced serious threats
0:21:02 > 0:21:04from the Soviet state.
0:21:06 > 0:21:09Going to the black markets, it was real danger,
0:21:09 > 0:21:11because if you were caught,
0:21:11 > 0:21:14and you could be caught every time you are there.
0:21:14 > 0:21:20They organised special militia operations
0:21:20 > 0:21:24trying to catch people, those who sold and those who bought.
0:21:24 > 0:21:31If you were caught with the discs, it automatically meant that you were thrown out from the university.
0:21:35 > 0:21:38And that is why tape recorders played so important role.
0:21:38 > 0:21:43You went to the black market together with your friends, and you decided "OK. I will buy this disc.
0:21:43 > 0:21:50"You'll buy this. You'll buy this, then we exchange, and we will record it from player to the tape recorder."
0:21:52 > 0:21:57This is how it worked, and the Soviets can do nothing, and it was great!
0:21:59 > 0:22:03These tapes, they played a very important role in our history.
0:22:03 > 0:22:05This is something that hang
0:22:05 > 0:22:08the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
0:22:14 > 0:22:19Near the centre of Kiev, I came upon unexpected evidence of the Beatles' legacy.
0:22:22 > 0:22:26# She wouldn't dance with another
0:22:26 > 0:22:30# Ooh, when I saw her standing there
0:22:33 > 0:22:35# Well, my heart went boom... #
0:22:35 > 0:22:41The Kiev Cavern Club sent me curious echoes of that cellar in Liverpool
0:22:41 > 0:22:43where I first met the Fab Four.
0:22:51 > 0:22:54I started this place because I love The Beatles,
0:22:54 > 0:22:56and I did it mostly for fun.
0:22:56 > 0:23:00When I started, I think that most of customer
0:23:00 > 0:23:03will be person over the 40, 50 years,
0:23:03 > 0:23:07and I make a mistake.
0:23:07 > 0:23:11A lot of young men come in here and listen to the music.
0:23:11 > 0:23:17They know all the words of Beatles' song, so a lot of people.
0:23:21 > 0:23:25Vova Katzman told me he actually got the idea for his club
0:23:25 > 0:23:27after seeing that little film I made in Liverpool.
0:23:30 > 0:23:34He was only able to open this place after the collapse of communism,
0:23:34 > 0:23:40and he has his own stories of the long years when The Beatles were taboo in the Soviet Union.
0:23:40 > 0:23:42It was not permitted.
0:23:42 > 0:23:46It was illegal. There is no records in the store.
0:23:46 > 0:23:49Information about Beatles was closed.
0:23:49 > 0:23:52It was something
0:23:52 > 0:23:55of different work.
0:23:55 > 0:23:57I was arrested some time
0:23:57 > 0:24:00by Ukrainian, Russian police.
0:24:00 > 0:24:04They cut my hair, take me along. I don't care.
0:24:04 > 0:24:07I love Beatles.
0:24:07 > 0:24:09It was illegal.
0:24:09 > 0:24:12If something illegal, people want it more and more.
0:24:12 > 0:24:14It means a piece of freedom.
0:24:16 > 0:24:19# Lady Madonna, children at your feet...#
0:24:19 > 0:24:25I suppose they changed the world and they destroyed the communism,
0:24:25 > 0:24:28more than Gorbachev, by the way.
0:24:28 > 0:24:31They changed the Soviet Union.
0:24:36 > 0:24:41When my mother and father listen that first time, Beatles music,
0:24:41 > 0:24:47they don't like it, because I hear it in a maximum volume,
0:24:47 > 0:24:49and it was very strange for them.
0:24:49 > 0:24:55They born before revolution, the product of Russia.
0:24:55 > 0:24:57They a product of communism.
0:25:01 > 0:25:04They told me, "Don't listen this music.
0:25:04 > 0:25:05"Teach the mathematic."
0:25:05 > 0:25:12So that's why I wrote this word on this wall,
0:25:12 > 0:25:15and I told to my mother,
0:25:15 > 0:25:16"Look at John. Look at Paul,
0:25:16 > 0:25:18"because they was a poor boy,
0:25:18 > 0:25:21"and they became a millionaire."
0:25:21 > 0:25:26My mother listen to the music of Beatles right now, and she like it.
0:25:28 > 0:25:31Everything changes.
0:25:32 > 0:25:36For Beatles super-fan Kolya Vasin in Saint Petersburg,
0:25:36 > 0:25:40this is a big day, John Lennon's birthday.
0:25:41 > 0:25:46For more than 30 years now, Kolya and his friends
0:25:46 > 0:25:50have staged musical celebrations for each of the Beatles' birthdays.
0:25:52 > 0:25:57For us, that's like native music, native.
0:25:57 > 0:25:59It's our music.
0:25:59 > 0:26:02John Lennon is a Russian man for us.
0:26:04 > 0:26:08Over almost four decades, Kolya Vasin has paid the price
0:26:08 > 0:26:10of his obsession with The Beatles
0:26:10 > 0:26:13in his battles with hostile authorities.
0:27:41 > 0:27:46Everywhere I went people told me myths about The Beatles.
0:27:48 > 0:27:53Starved of real information kids spun stories about the Fab Four.
0:27:53 > 0:27:57They swapped fables which became smudged and fantastic,
0:27:57 > 0:28:01like the photographs they copied and copied
0:28:01 > 0:28:06until they were as mysterious and revered as the Turin shroud.
0:28:10 > 0:28:17In Minsk, Yuri Pelushonok remembers sharing Beatles' stories in the schoolyard with his friend Yakov.
0:28:17 > 0:28:20Everybody who is bringing the rumours in class,
0:28:20 > 0:28:23everybody listening to him, and he's enjoying all the attention.
0:28:23 > 0:28:31Do you know that English Queen gave John Lennon a gold car, pure gold? No, it's not.
0:28:31 > 0:28:36It couldn't be pure gold because it would be too heavy for John Lennon to escape from his fans. No, it's not.
0:28:36 > 0:28:39No, it was silver, no gold. No, silver.
0:28:39 > 0:28:44But the most persistent myth is the story of the secret concert.
0:28:44 > 0:28:50In towns and cities across the Soviet Union, millions of fans convinced by the song,
0:28:50 > 0:28:58Back In The USSR, believed the Beatles' plane touched down near them to refuel on the way to Japan.
0:29:00 > 0:29:04Then the legend tells how the Fab Four emerged from the plane
0:29:04 > 0:29:08to play an impromptu concert on the wing.
0:29:08 > 0:29:14We came to conclusion that Beatles' plane probably put on some military airport not far from here.
0:29:14 > 0:29:18We went to see this actual airport where just they were landed,
0:29:18 > 0:29:23and then a soldier approached and say, "What are you doing here?
0:29:23 > 0:29:24"What's your business here?"
0:29:24 > 0:29:27Yes, top secret here. There was a Kalashnikov.
0:29:27 > 0:29:30We say, "Oh, we are only people. Just don't shoot us!"
0:29:30 > 0:29:33And then, "What are you doing here?" basically.
0:29:33 > 0:29:35But it was a first-year soldier.
0:29:35 > 0:29:37It was very understanding to us.
0:29:37 > 0:29:39He say, "Come on, guys.
0:29:39 > 0:29:42"Beatles played near Leningrad
0:29:42 > 0:29:47"when they landed and played on the wing of the plane acoustic guitars.
0:29:47 > 0:29:48"It's shameful not to know this."
0:29:50 > 0:29:56It was religion, you know, some bright light in a dreary life.
0:29:57 > 0:30:00It was a quiet revolution.
0:30:00 > 0:30:03Something sacred, you have it in your heart.
0:30:06 > 0:30:11Like so many other Soviet kids, Andrei Makarevich filled his
0:30:11 > 0:30:16school books with doodles and daydreams about the Beatles.
0:30:16 > 0:30:20I'm absolutely sure that it was a lesson of mathematics or something
0:30:20 > 0:30:27that I hated and it was very dull, and my hands did it, just itself.
0:30:30 > 0:30:34Makarevich also recalls fantasies about a secret visit
0:30:34 > 0:30:37to a Moscow hotel by John Lennon.
0:30:37 > 0:30:39A guy from our school,
0:30:39 > 0:30:43he spent two days and nights in the bushes
0:30:43 > 0:30:48without food and water, watching the entrance.
0:30:48 > 0:30:53And he came back and he said, "I saw John Lennon."
0:30:53 > 0:30:55We had to believe.
0:30:55 > 0:30:59I knew schoolboys, people
0:31:01 > 0:31:02who convinced...
0:31:04 > 0:31:11..everyone that they had seen John Lennon on...Gorky Street, it was called, Gorky Street.
0:31:12 > 0:31:16And I personally seen him
0:31:16 > 0:31:17buying some bread.
0:31:17 > 0:31:25We were so crazy that I saw a dream three or four times,
0:31:25 > 0:31:30that Beatles come and I meet them and I show them Moscow,
0:31:30 > 0:31:33and I even bring them to school.
0:31:33 > 0:31:36And that teachers begin to worry.
0:31:36 > 0:31:41"Who are these guys? They are from what country? Why long hair?"
0:31:41 > 0:31:44So it was a big scandal. I woke up in a cold sweat.
0:31:46 > 0:31:50Andrei Makarevich turned his schoolboy dreams into reality,
0:31:50 > 0:31:57becoming one of the Soviet Union's first rock stars with his band, Mashina Vremeni, Time Machine.
0:31:58 > 0:32:01Playing only underground venues,
0:32:01 > 0:32:05Time Machine became skilful at avoiding police harassment.
0:32:05 > 0:32:09But they were never filmed until the late '70s,
0:32:09 > 0:32:13when Russia had moved on to big hair and bad shirts.
0:32:19 > 0:32:24I can't say that we made music the first two years,
0:32:24 > 0:32:29we just tried to look like Beatles, to sound like Beatles.
0:32:29 > 0:32:35But we played every night, we sat in the room and just played,
0:32:35 > 0:32:39we listened and played, listened and played, listened, tried to sing...
0:32:42 > 0:32:44And we moved on.
0:32:48 > 0:32:5240 years later, Andrei Makarevich and Time Machine
0:32:52 > 0:32:56were to make a record at the Beatles' Abbey Road studios.
0:33:09 > 0:33:14The legendary Beatles producer George Martin came to say hello.
0:33:24 > 0:33:27All you need is love!
0:33:27 > 0:33:31For his John Lennon birthday party in St Petersburg, Kolya Vasin
0:33:31 > 0:33:33has assembled a dozen tribute bands
0:33:33 > 0:33:37to play once again the music which seduced a generation.
0:33:39 > 0:33:41# Do you promise not to tell? #
0:33:44 > 0:33:48Almost 50 years after the Beatles virus first infected
0:33:48 > 0:33:55the Soviet Union, it lives on in the thousands of fans who still keep the faith and play the old songs.
0:33:56 > 0:34:00# I get by with a little help from my friends
0:34:00 > 0:34:03# Gonna try with a little help from my friends... #
0:34:03 > 0:34:08# Help me if you can I'm feeling down
0:34:08 > 0:34:13# And I do appreciate you being round... #
0:34:13 > 0:34:17# Whoo! She loves you yeah, yeah, yeah
0:34:17 > 0:34:20# She loves you yeah, yeah, yeah
0:34:20 > 0:34:23# And a love like that, you know you should be glad... #
0:34:25 > 0:34:28# Money don't get everything it's true
0:34:29 > 0:34:33# What it don't get, I can't use So give me money
0:34:33 > 0:34:37# That's what I want... #
0:34:37 > 0:34:42I sometimes had a feeling on my journey that I was slipping in time,
0:34:42 > 0:34:45lost in an era which is hardly a memory back in my world.
0:34:48 > 0:34:52# And I saw her standing there... # One more time!
0:34:53 > 0:34:57# And I saw her standing there. #
0:35:09 > 0:35:11Being with that audience in St Petersburg,
0:35:11 > 0:35:18it was obvious that the Beatles songs still connect with kids as well as with their grandparents.
0:35:18 > 0:35:24But I kept remembering how tough it was for earlier generations to make this music their own.
0:35:34 > 0:35:40In Minsk, Yuri Pelyushonok decided the only way he could follow the Beatles was to build his own guitar.
0:35:54 > 0:35:58If you're lucky, you know, you have actual photograph of the Beatles
0:35:58 > 0:36:02guitar, and then you draw it on a table or something.
0:36:02 > 0:36:06I sawed the table myself, my grandma's table.
0:36:06 > 0:36:11I built all the guitars at home, or sometimes in the school shop.
0:36:11 > 0:36:13We just pretended it was to build something else.
0:36:13 > 0:36:16The biggest challenge was to make a pick-up,
0:36:16 > 0:36:18to get that rock and roll sound.
0:36:18 > 0:36:22I think it was Yank Technician magazine,
0:36:22 > 0:36:23someone shared the idea
0:36:23 > 0:36:27of how to build the pick-up out of a telephone receiver.
0:36:27 > 0:36:31So the next day, receivers gone, all around the country.
0:36:31 > 0:36:34It was just like that. Gone.
0:36:34 > 0:36:38Then there was the problem of finding a speaker.
0:36:38 > 0:36:40Propaganda should sound loud.
0:36:43 > 0:36:47If a militiaman or a policeman was not watching you, yeah, you would just climb.
0:36:51 > 0:36:54And you have a decent speaker.
0:36:54 > 0:37:01Equipped with his home-made guitar, Yuri was ready to follow the Beatles to rock and roll heaven.
0:37:01 > 0:37:03You just hear it and you want to do it.
0:37:03 > 0:37:05You want to be part of it.
0:37:05 > 0:37:09You want to be like them. You have never seen them, but you want to be.
0:37:09 > 0:37:13You join together with your band, you play and you're happy.
0:37:49 > 0:37:54In Minsk, Yuri Pelyushonok brings his band together for the first time in 30 years.
0:37:56 > 0:37:59Nobody changed too much, except for me.
0:37:59 > 0:38:07The last time we played, in 1978, but we just met in Jacob's apartment.
0:38:07 > 0:38:15He grabs guitar, I grabbed guitar and Jacob grabbed this empty canister and we created this song.
0:38:15 > 0:38:20And it was quite amazing, as if we went for a smoke in 1978
0:38:20 > 0:38:24and then we just returned back, just 15 minutes later.
0:38:26 > 0:38:32Yuri wrote a song to recall those days when Soviet kids were hungry to make rock and roll.
0:39:43 > 0:39:48You have something in your heart that you don't let anyone touch, you know, it's yours.
0:39:48 > 0:39:53It's official, life is going on in its official way and you have an unofficial life.
0:39:53 > 0:39:56It's a huge separation, it's a huge gap.
0:39:56 > 0:40:01By the early '70s, Soviet authorities began to waver.
0:40:01 > 0:40:04It was time to make some cautious compromise
0:40:04 > 0:40:09with the Beatles generation, or at least make some money.
0:40:09 > 0:40:12State factories churned out guitars.
0:40:12 > 0:40:16The state recording monolith, Melaudia,
0:40:16 > 0:40:21released a few Beatles tracks, identified at first as folk songs
0:40:21 > 0:40:25played by an anonymous vocal instrumental group.
0:40:28 > 0:40:31Copyright fees were ignored.
0:40:31 > 0:40:35The Communist Party went into the bootleg business.
0:40:37 > 0:40:40Not we won the victory, they lost.
0:40:40 > 0:40:43And they say, "At least we'll squeeze some money out of it."
0:40:43 > 0:40:50Make a virtue of necessity, you know, you couldn't win, you make money.
0:40:54 > 0:41:01Andrei Tropillo made a reputation in St Petersburg recording the first Russian rock bands.
0:41:01 > 0:41:06He funded his passion by making bootleg Beatles records.
0:41:10 > 0:41:15These days, Tropillo turns out legitimate CDs and DVDs.
0:41:15 > 0:41:18It's a very clever process.
0:41:18 > 0:41:22But in Soviet times, Tropillo became a director with the state
0:41:22 > 0:41:28record company, Melaudia, duplicating Beatles albums for the Soviet masses.
0:41:30 > 0:41:35Actually, all homes in those times had Beatles records.
0:41:35 > 0:41:37All, believe me.
0:41:37 > 0:41:44Of course, when I became the Melaudia director, I produced many hundreds of thousands of albums of Beatles.
0:41:44 > 0:41:48People have the right to use it, to listen.
0:41:51 > 0:41:53I support not copyright but copyleft.
0:41:56 > 0:42:01Because I'm sure that in Russia we should support musical piracy,
0:42:01 > 0:42:05because musical piracy was the key to have freedom in Russia,
0:42:05 > 0:42:08to have free information.
0:42:08 > 0:42:13Andrei Tropillo confirmed his place in Soviet Beatles mythology
0:42:13 > 0:42:18by inserting his face into the iconic Sergeant Pepper album sleeve.
0:42:20 > 0:42:25As Beatles music became more available in the 1970s,
0:42:25 > 0:42:29Beatles style began to obsess a generation,
0:42:29 > 0:42:31ten years after it had faded in the West.
0:42:31 > 0:42:33They influenced everything,
0:42:33 > 0:42:36they influenced our music,
0:42:36 > 0:42:42they influenced our life, our way of living, our dress, how we dress,
0:42:42 > 0:42:45they influenced everything, actually.
0:42:45 > 0:42:48All the hairstyles, you know,
0:42:48 > 0:42:51cowboy boots and everything.
0:42:51 > 0:42:55So it was like an amazing power,
0:42:55 > 0:42:58because all the youngsters, all young people,
0:42:58 > 0:43:01they started to imitate, they started to feel more free.
0:43:01 > 0:43:06What was available, bad quality photos of the Beatles,
0:43:06 > 0:43:11God knows taken from where, from which album or cover
0:43:11 > 0:43:13or newspaper and so on.
0:43:13 > 0:43:17And you can buy these pictures for 50 kopecks.
0:43:17 > 0:43:21And it was a choice, either to have breakfast
0:43:21 > 0:43:23or to buy these Beatles pictures.
0:43:23 > 0:43:29They wouldn't be able to buy any kind of clothes in Soviet shops,
0:43:29 > 0:43:32and just with some imagination
0:43:32 > 0:43:38and a pair of scissors, we would turn an ordinary school jacket
0:43:38 > 0:43:41into a collarless Beatles jacket.
0:43:42 > 0:43:45And of course Lennon's glasses.
0:43:45 > 0:43:48Lennon's glasses is just fashion.
0:43:48 > 0:43:51All 22 square million kilometres of the Soviet Union, Lennon glasses.
0:43:51 > 0:43:57There were several specially trained guys who would be a transforming army boots, real army boots,
0:43:57 > 0:44:02very heavy and ugly and so on, into some kind of elegant Beatles style.
0:44:02 > 0:44:07Each and every person who had a guitar and moptop hairstyle
0:44:07 > 0:44:09was a Russian Beatle.
0:44:09 > 0:44:11I was.
0:44:11 > 0:44:15I was skinny, huge hair, guitar,
0:44:15 > 0:44:17Paul McCartney playing bass.
0:44:17 > 0:44:25I spent like two or three hours just trying to stretch my hair
0:44:25 > 0:44:31and made myself a haircut to make myself look like the Beatles.
0:44:31 > 0:44:37So not only the boys were copying the Beatles' hairstyle, but the girls as well.
0:44:37 > 0:44:43So it was like a fairy-tale, and a lot of people just having a glimpse,
0:44:43 > 0:44:46a small window out from the West.
0:44:46 > 0:44:51By the early 1980s, the gap between the Beatles generation
0:44:51 > 0:44:55and their geriatric leaders had become unbridgeable.
0:44:57 > 0:44:59As a huge country stagnated,
0:44:59 > 0:45:05millions of young people defected into their own world.
0:45:05 > 0:45:10If we talk about the historical impact of the Beatles,
0:45:10 > 0:45:17they have alienated a whole generation of young,
0:45:17 > 0:45:20well-educated, urban Soviet kids
0:45:20 > 0:45:24from their communist motherland.
0:45:24 > 0:45:28They wanted to live in an alternative world,
0:45:28 > 0:45:34consuming alternative culture, pursuing alternative lifestyle.
0:45:34 > 0:45:37You're a stranger in your own country.
0:45:37 > 0:45:40You can live behind the Iron Curtain,
0:45:40 > 0:45:43you can pretend to be a young communist,
0:45:43 > 0:45:48but at the same time, you can be someone totally different.
0:45:49 > 0:45:54Liberated by the Beatles, Soviet rock confronted the system.
0:45:54 > 0:45:59Viktor Tsoi's song, Changes, became an anthem for the early-'80s.
0:46:18 > 0:46:24In March 1985, Mikhail Gorbachev became the Soviet leader.
0:46:27 > 0:46:31The man who would be called the USSR's first rock and roll President.
0:46:31 > 0:46:36I always like to quote the words said by Mikhail Gorbachev,
0:46:36 > 0:46:40quote, "I do believe the music of the Beatles has taught the young
0:46:40 > 0:46:45"generation of the Soviet Union that there is another life, there is freedom somewhere."
0:46:45 > 0:46:51And of course this feeling has put us on towards perestroika, towards the dialogue with the outside world."
0:46:51 > 0:46:56# The minute your let her under your skin... #
0:46:57 > 0:47:02In the heady days of the late '80s, even Joseph Kobzon, for decades
0:47:02 > 0:47:07the official voice of patriotic socialism, sang Beatles hits.
0:47:07 > 0:47:13# Any time you feel the pain, hey, Jude, refrain
0:47:13 > 0:47:16# Don't carry the world
0:47:16 > 0:47:20# Upon your shoulders... #
0:47:33 > 0:47:40As the Berlin Wall was torn down in November 1989, triggering revolutions across the Soviet Union,
0:47:40 > 0:47:43the communist empire began to collapse.
0:47:47 > 0:47:52You can smell that the communism is already gone in the Baltic countries
0:47:52 > 0:47:56and it's on its last legs in Moscow, Belarus, the Ukraine.
0:47:56 > 0:48:01So they say, "Let's do something interesting for kids, finally."
0:48:01 > 0:48:02And what would be interesting? Beatles.
0:48:02 > 0:48:05Well, OK, let's make a programme.
0:48:10 > 0:48:14With the help of a school friend who was now working in TV,
0:48:14 > 0:48:19Yuri recorded the first ever programme about the Beatles.
0:48:19 > 0:48:23He persuaded a Beatles fanatic, Vladimir Sevitsky,
0:48:23 > 0:48:26to share the responsibility.
0:48:26 > 0:48:29And it was really a surprise for everyone that it was possible.
0:48:29 > 0:48:33We were so inspired by this opportunity
0:48:33 > 0:48:37to talk at last about this music.
0:48:37 > 0:48:41But in the chaos surrounding the collapse of communism,
0:48:41 > 0:48:45fearful TV bosses wiped the tape before it could be shown.
0:48:49 > 0:48:54Yuri's friends smuggled a copy to him and 30 Minutes With The Beatles
0:48:54 > 0:48:57was finally broadcast across the Soviet Union.
0:48:59 > 0:49:03By then, Yuri had given up on his home country
0:49:03 > 0:49:08and stowed away on a ship to Canada to start a new life.
0:49:10 > 0:49:13Since the ending of communism and the collapse of the USSR,
0:49:13 > 0:49:19the Beatles generation have become grandads and babouskas.
0:49:24 > 0:49:28The consummation of the 40-year love affair
0:49:28 > 0:49:32came on May 24 2003 in Red Square.
0:49:33 > 0:49:35# I'm back in the USSR
0:49:35 > 0:49:40# You don't know how lucky you are, boy
0:49:40 > 0:49:42# Back in the USSR
0:49:44 > 0:49:48- # Well, the Ukraine girls really knock me out- Ooh, ooh, ooh
0:49:48 > 0:49:50# They leave the West behind
0:49:51 > 0:49:54# And Moscow girls make me sing and shout
0:49:54 > 0:49:59# That Georgia's always on my mind On my mind! #
0:50:11 > 0:50:15# Flew in from Miami Beach BOAC Didn't get to bed last night... #
0:50:15 > 0:50:21Across the republics of the former Soviet Union, Back In The USSR is an enduring anthem.
0:50:21 > 0:50:24# Back in the USSR
0:50:24 > 0:50:26# Don't know how lucky you are, boys... #
0:50:26 > 0:50:30For the people who were there when Paul McCartney brought the Beatles'
0:50:30 > 0:50:35music to Red Square, the memory of that night stays with them.
0:50:36 > 0:50:40It was actually like a huge
0:50:40 > 0:50:42religious ceremony.
0:50:42 > 0:50:44# Back in the USSR... #
0:50:47 > 0:50:50It was like a real holy day.
0:50:51 > 0:50:55# Well, the Ukraine girls really knock me out
0:50:55 > 0:50:56# They leave the West behind... #
0:50:56 > 0:51:00Is it a reality or not?
0:51:00 > 0:51:05Or we are happy that we lived to the time when it became possible.
0:51:05 > 0:51:07# I'm back in the USSR
0:51:07 > 0:51:11# You don't know how lucky you are, boys... #
0:51:11 > 0:51:15They were rivers and waterfalls of tears,
0:51:15 > 0:51:20something that sums up your whole life.
0:51:20 > 0:51:23# You don't know how lucky you are, boys
0:51:23 > 0:51:25# Back in the USSR... #
0:51:25 > 0:51:29The Beatles revolution changed a superpower
0:51:29 > 0:51:33and still today, somewhere across the former Soviet Union,
0:51:33 > 0:51:37someone will be replaying The Beatles one more time.
0:51:42 > 0:51:46Beatles! Hey, Beatles! Ho, Beatles!
0:51:47 > 0:51:54In Gorky Park, Moscow's Krishna community celebrate George Harrison's music.
0:51:56 > 0:52:00# Here comes the sun, here comes the sun
0:52:00 > 0:52:02# And I say, it's all right... #
0:52:07 > 0:52:10At the Catherine Palace in Saint Petersburg,
0:52:10 > 0:52:15guests arrive for the Pushkin Ball, the social highlight of the year.
0:52:18 > 0:52:20With music by the Beatles.
0:52:33 > 0:52:36It's like talking about what does Pushkin mean to Russian poetry.
0:52:36 > 0:52:40The Beatles to popular Western and popular music
0:52:40 > 0:52:44of the world is like saying, "What is Pushkin to Russian literature?"
0:52:50 > 0:52:55On the same evening as the Pushkin Ball, in a Saint Petersburg club,
0:52:55 > 0:52:59a new punk band are playing John Lennon's Power To The People.
0:53:03 > 0:53:09For their leader, Igor Salnikov, his passion for Lennon is life-changing.
0:53:14 > 0:53:18It is my plan to change my name to John Lennon,
0:53:18 > 0:53:24but I have my Russian second name after my father,
0:53:24 > 0:53:29and so it's going to be John Vladimirovich Lennon.
0:53:32 > 0:53:36In the Ukraine, the peasants of a village called Beatli
0:53:36 > 0:53:41have relished the accident of their name and adapted their folk songs.
0:53:48 > 0:53:51In Saint Petersburg, Beatles superfan Kolya Vasin
0:53:51 > 0:53:57is still holding on to his dream of building a temple to John Lennon.
0:53:57 > 0:54:01He's found his perfect place on the edge of the city.
0:54:01 > 0:54:05Whoo-hey!
0:54:05 > 0:54:09And he's lobbying the city council for funding to make his dream a reality.
0:54:54 > 0:54:57# We all live in the yellow submarine
0:54:57 > 0:55:00# Yellow submarine, yellow submarine... #
0:55:08 > 0:55:13I went to Kiev for Paul McCartney's first ever concert in Ukraine.
0:55:13 > 0:55:17In a city where the Fab Four had once been banned
0:55:17 > 0:55:18and their fans hounded,
0:55:18 > 0:55:21the arrival of a long awaited Beatle
0:55:21 > 0:55:25is bringing thousands onto the streets.
0:55:25 > 0:55:28I've come to understand that the Beatles mattered far more
0:55:28 > 0:55:32behind the Iron Curtain than they ever did for us in the West.
0:55:34 > 0:55:38In the Kiev Beatles Museum, I can feel the force
0:55:38 > 0:55:43of the repressed yearning which ultimately changed a generation.
0:55:50 > 0:55:53To celebrate McCartney's arrival, kids from across the country
0:55:53 > 0:55:56are competing for the best Beatles performance.
0:55:56 > 0:55:59# Can't buy me love
0:55:59 > 0:56:03# Can't buy me love
0:56:03 > 0:56:05# No, no, no, no
0:56:05 > 0:56:10# Yeah, yeah, yeah, let it be,
0:56:10 > 0:56:13# Let it be, let it be
0:56:22 > 0:56:25# Got to be good looking cos it's so hard to see
0:56:25 > 0:56:32- # Come together, right now - Over me... #
0:56:34 > 0:56:38It's hard to reconcile the freshness and dedication of those kids
0:56:38 > 0:56:42with the invasion of an international rock spectacular
0:56:42 > 0:56:45shut away behind its security battalions.
0:56:45 > 0:56:51I keep thinking about those four lads in a Liverpool cellar long ago.
0:56:59 > 0:57:02And then it begins to rain.
0:57:09 > 0:57:12Five hours later, it's still raining.
0:57:15 > 0:57:18There are fears that Paul McCartney's concert
0:57:18 > 0:57:19might have to be abandoned.
0:57:31 > 0:57:35# Asked the girl what she wanted to be
0:57:35 > 0:57:37# She said "Baby, can't you see?"
0:57:37 > 0:57:41# "I wanna be famous, a star on the screen"
0:57:41 > 0:57:44# But you can do something in between
0:57:45 > 0:57:48# Baby, you can drive my car
0:57:48 > 0:57:52# Yes, I'm gonna be a star
0:57:52 > 0:57:57# Baby, you can drive my car and, baby, I love you. #
0:57:57 > 0:58:01Beep-beep, beep-beep, yeah!
0:58:01 > 0:58:05I could imagine myself to be a cosmonaut in the open space
0:58:05 > 0:58:08but I would never think that one day somebody
0:58:08 > 0:58:11from Beatles would be playing right here in the heart of Ukraine.
0:58:13 > 0:58:16In order to understand what really happens here,
0:58:16 > 0:58:18you have to be born back in USSR.
0:58:18 > 0:58:21# I told the girl I could start right away
0:58:21 > 0:58:25# But she said "Listen, babe, I've got something to say"
0:58:25 > 0:58:29# "I've got no car and it's breaking my heart"
0:58:29 > 0:58:32# "But I've got a driver and that's a start"
0:58:32 > 0:58:34# Baby, you can drive my car
0:58:36 > 0:58:40# Yes, I'm gonna be a star... #