Witness History
Witness History
BBC World Service
Rock Concert for Chernobyl
9 minutes Posted Jun 1, 2017 at 2:22 am.
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On May 31st 1986 a small group of musicians staged the first charity rock concert ever held in the USSR. It was organised in less than two weeks to raise money for the victims of the Chernobyl disaster. The nuclear reactor accident had happened just a month before in Ukraine. Some of the artists who played at the concert had been previously banned by the Soviet authorities, so the concert was a social revolution, as organiser - Artemy Troitsky explains to Rebecca Kesby.

(PHOTO Credit TASS: Soviet pop star Alla Pugacheva performs at a concert for the victims of the Chernobyl disaster)