The deaths that shocked me

The first one will be unknown to most Western readers. I was ten. We were in a hotel — on vacation in Estonia, then still part of the USSR — when the evening news showed details of a car crash killing Victor Tsoi, the leader of Kino, Russia’s most prominent rock band. The band’s reach was huge. Tsoi’s music had a social message, but he was not about politics. It was — and is still — beautiful modern rock. The music connected with candor and boldness, and the singer himself was an enigma — asocial and unorthodox in his Asian appearance.