RADIO SILENCE
Last Tuesday (March 17,
1998) about a hundred young philosophers, artists and music fans gathered in
southern Moscow to mark the fourth birthday of their beloved indie radio
station, Radio Rakurs, which can rightfully be called a successor to Russia's
first post-perestroika independent radio project, SNC. But the celebration was
far less festive than last year's: few of the attendees believe that Rakurs,
off the air since January 1 due to non-payment for its transmitter, will
recapture its place on the dial. "A good party, but a little like dancing
on tombstones," joked a former disc jockey.
Rakurs' uniqueness - both
as a creative venture and a fledgling media project of Russia's early
capitalist era - hinged from the outset on its non-commercial status, which the
station managed to maintain for all four years of its existence. On one hand,
the station's birth was fantasy turned reality: the funding came from an
aspiring young businessman eager to promote Russian culture and willing to
afford the staff complete artistic freedom. On the other hand, it reflected an
interaction often encountered during the country's emerging-markets phase:
traditional Russian intellect meets new Russian capital, but neither has the
managerial know-how or entrepreneurial drive to fuse the two halves
synergistically and produce a sustainable project. That Rakurs survived as long
as it did is quite amazing in itself.
The station's pre-history
stretches back nearly a decade, to the time when Gorbachev's winds of change
started sweeping across Russia. Perestroika was in the air ... and gradually
reached the airwaves. In 1989, those whose ears were eager for more than
official radio could offer got a new alternative, Europa Plus, and this kept
the masses satisfied for a time. But two years later, those Muscovites who were
young at heart and in the know, and craved for less of a pop-music feel,
started tuning their receivers to a remote location on the AM dial. There, you
could hear the freshest music, from the latest underground Russian rock to
western retro unknown to the Soviet listener; or you might be lulled to sleep
with night-time reading, from new-wave poetry to "Lord of the Rings"
or Ursula LeGuin.
This elite listening
experience was part of the multifaceted music project known as SNC - Stas Namin
Corporation. Namin became widely known in the mid-70s as the lead man of the
unorthodox but state-sanctioned rock band Tsvety, or Flowers, which made its
name performing cover versions of hits by western rock giants such as Zeppelin,
Deep Purple and the like. Thanks to his renown, charisma and connections, Namin
was able to attract patrons to the project and, adding some of his own savings,
created the archetype of an alternative, not-for-profit rock station. But
Namin's first major attempt in the culture business apparently proved
unsatisfying and he soon moved on to greener pastures: after about two years,
Namin's enthusiasm fizzled, as did his fund-raising efforts, and in 1992 the
station folded.
Nonetheless, a core team of
SNC enthusiasts felt the need to carry on. Headed by Sergei
Golyamin, the
station's resident expert on Russian music, they actively searched for a
sponsor who would help them recapture the free, creative spirit of SNC and
eventually came upon their enigmatic young donor, Andrei Scherbakov, the
president of AO Kurs, a trader in industrial-capacity engines.
Why this dedicated
gentleman agreed to finance an independent radio station - and continued to
support it for nearly four years - remains something of a mystery. Oleg
Chilap, who
became the station's chief editor in May 1996, recalls kitchen-table guesswork
sessions on the reasons for Scherbakov's generosity: "'What does he want
from this?' we would ask ourselves. You don't run for president on AM..."
Some of those involved with the project speculate that Scherbakov's original
intention was to run for city government and to use the station as his
mouthpiece. But this goal seems to have remained in the theoretical stage.
First of all, the frequency occupied by Rakurs was expensive to rent, but
inaudible throughout most of Moscow and, hence, useless as an instrument of
wielding influence. Second, the station's broadcasts included no hint of
politics or economics, no lobbying for this or that oligarch; there were just
musical and cultural programs, from jazz to symphonies, from book reviews to
philosophy. Scherbakov occasionally protested that Rakurs was
"omnivorous," that it lacked a unified format, but he had agreed from
the very beginning not to interfere in the staff's "creative process"
and largely stood by his word. Finally, soon after the 1996 presidential
elections, AO Kurs and, consequently, its pet subsidiary Radio Rakurs started
experiencing financial difficulties. Wages - as small as they were - were held
up for months at a time and this state of affairs, albeit with some
fluctuations for better and worse, continued for a year and a half.
Mr. Scherbakov refused to
comment for this article; however, a company spokeswoman explained that her
employer funded Rakurs as a philanthropist, but currently intends to sell the
station due to the strain it places on Kurs' budget. "It just eats up
money," she complained. Taken together, comments by Rakurs staff and the
plaint by Mr. Scherbakov's assistant lead one to believe that the businessman's
support for the radio station may have been sincere, but was not very well
calculated.
Surely, the sponsor did not
want his new acquisition to become a permanent charity case and a hopeless
drain on his company's finances, yet no active efforts were made to turn the
station into a sustainable business venture. All promotional work was left in
the hands of the staff, who, by Chilap's admission, were "fantastic people,
but completely clueless about how to make money." Advertisements were
solicited via the barter system and a concrete person to head up this activity
was never appointed by management - when such an individual did appear, she
turned out to be a devoted listener who came to the station as a volunteer a
year and a half before it went off the air. Such a passive approach was clearly
suicidal, especially since competition had become much more intense since the
years of SNC, with hip FM stations proliferating like rabbits by the mid-90s.
The fate of Radio Rakurs as
an investment project is faintly reminiscent of the protracted conflict
surrounding the Literaturnaya Gazeta newspaper - fortunately, without the
scandal and bitter feelings. In both instances, commercial institutions without
major strategic interests in media decided to try their luck with a new area of
investment. And in both cases, capital failed to assess the effort required to
make the project a viable one.
Objectively speaking,
independent media in Russia is the rarest of anomalies, and Radio Rakurs was
one of the few examples. The station was tiny and apolitical and, for a time,
it occupied a particular niche among a small but promising audience of Moscow's
youth. While it is truly refreshing to learn that there are wealthy businessmen
willing to give creative, intelligent young people the proverbial fish
("Give a man a fish, he eats for a day..."), it would be even better
if there were experienced managers willing to teach them that time-honored art
of fishing, which would allow them to "eat for a lifetime."
Natalia EFREMOVA
(«Moscow News»,
issue 11, 1998)