School of Rock

Back in the Soviet era, Airat Yarullin had to negotiate with the Kremlin's houses of culture to get permission to play his beloved rock music. "As long as we performed all the 'correct' songs at official concerts," he recalls, "they let us play what we wanted." On occasions they were unable to reach agreement with the authorities, they would play in cellars. Even after the USSR crumbled, rock retained its subversive aura: when Time Warner sponsored a Moscow concert featuring heavy metal bands like Metallica and AC/DC, it was billed as a "celebration of democracy and freedom." More than 1,000 soldiers guarded the stage, and throughout the 150,000-strong crowd, authorities beat down head-banging teenagers with batons.

 

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New musical attitudes are hardly the most momentous changes experienced behind what used to be the Iron Curtain. But as a symbol of just how profoundly Russia and its former republics have shifted in the cultural as well as the political arena, you need go no further than the Russian city of Kazan, the capital of Tatarstan. Here in the precincts of School No. 5, the country's first state school of rock has opened alongside the traditional classes for classical music. Instead of violins, pianos, Beethoven, and Bach, there are students in bandannas, leather jackets, and torn jeans playing electric guitars and drums and learning the tunes of Jimi Hendrix and the Doors.

For Yarullin, now the 40ish principal of School No. 5, the rock school—known as The Road—is the realization of a dream. Yarullin was educated in the years when only the classics were taught in music school and those wanting to play more modern instruments had to learn the basics by word-of-mouth from older students and self-teaching guides. Now his venture takes up a third of School No. 5. Yarullin has plans to soundproof the walls, but for the moment the administration draws up the schedule of classes so that the screaming guitar riffs of "Purple Haze" don't interfere with the accordionists churning out traditional Russian folk tunes. As the teachers themselves joke, the classes are also broken up into shifts so that the nonconformists don't ruin the "domesticated" kids. "Intense drive, after all," they say, "is infectious."

Despite the fact Yarullin's program is teaching young Russians the ropes of rock, discipline is still strict. Tardiness has consequences: more than three violations and you're out. Vladislav Lebedev, an angular, long-haired teacher, explains the school's motto—Rock 'n' roll, yes. Sex and drugs, no—as he sits in one of the school's more traditional classrooms. Chintz curtains drape the windows. A portrait of Chopin hangs on the wall. But not for long. Rock-star posters are going up, and the city's best graffiti artists will be hired to paint the hallways. When The Road is finished, there will even be a recording studio.

The teachers are young and have an education in music. In their time, they learned to play rock through trial and error. Although many of them are only a few years older than their pupils, classroom rules still reign. Students address their instructors formally. "I wouldn't go to a regular school to teach music—it's boring," says Vladimir Sergeyevich, who teaches guitar. "Here the people are motivated. They burn for this music."