Russian language

Russian (ру́сский язы́к, russkiy yazyk, pronounced [ˈruskʲɪj jɪˈzɨk]) is an East Slavic language and an official language in Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and many unrecognised territories. It is an unofficial but widely-spoken language in Ukraine, Latvia, Estonia, and to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics of the Soviet Union and former participants of the Eastern Bloc. Russian belongs to the family of Indo-European languages and is one of the three living members of the East Slavic languages. Written examples of Old East Slavonic are attested from the 10th century onwards.

It is the most geographically-widespread language of Eurasia and the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages. It is also the largest native language in Europe, with 144 million native speakers in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. Russian is the eighth most spoken language in the world by number of native speakers and the seventh by total number of speakers. The language is one of the six official languages of the United Nations.

Viktor Tsoi

Viktor Robertovich Tsoi (Russian: Ви́ктор Ро́бертович Цой; Korean: 최빅토르; June 1962 – 15 August 1990) was a Soviet musician, singer and songwriter of Korean-Russian origin, leader of the post-punk band Kino.

He is regarded as one of the pioneers of Russian rock and has many devoted fans across the countries of the former Soviet Union even today. Few musicians in the history of Russian music have been more popular or have had more impact on their genre than Viktor Tsoi and his rock band Kino. Aside from that, Tsoi contributed a plethora of musical and artistic works, including ten albums. Viktor Tsoi died in a car accident on August 15, 1990, aged 28.

Early life

Tsoi was born in Leningrad, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union. He was the only child of Valentina Vasilyevna Tsoi (née Guseva) (8 January 1937 in Leningrad, Soviet Union – 28 November 2009 in Pushkin, Russia), a Russian schoolteacher, and Robert Maximovich Tsoi (born 5 May 1938 in Kyzylorda, Kazakh SSR, Soviet Union; today's Kazakhstan), a Soviet Korean engineer. Tsoi's Korean ancestry can be traced back to Songjin, Hamgyong, Korea (today's Kimchaek, North Korea), where his great-grandfather Choi Yong-nam was born.