The whole meeting had the air of an illegal gathering. There were about 25 of us sitting in a small attic room in St. Petersburg, Russia, watching black and white Beatles movies and surrounded by massive Beatles flags, posters and memorabilia. Occasionally a giant John Lennon or Paul McCartney board would drop from its hinges onto the head of some unsuspecting guest.In fact, until around 20 years ago, this kind of thing was illegal here. The organiser, Kolya Vasin, is a Soviet underground legend who converted his St. Petersburg apartment into a Beatles museum in 1966 and has never looked back. He was the only Russian to exchange correspondence with John Lennon, and a founding member of the first Soviet Association of Rock Musicians in 1971 (which collapsed when one of its members was arrested and imprisoned). Now he’s spent the last couple of decades trying to get the world’s first Beatles Temple built on Vasilievsky Island at the mouth of the River Smolenka. In the meantime, his office/apartment is the temporary home of the temple.
With grey hair, wild eyes and a big Woodstock-style beard, Vasin takes the microphone and rambles on cheerfully about John Lennon for a bit. He uses Russian diminutives, affectionate nicknames for friends and family, when referring to the Beatles. Johnik, Paulchik, Georgeik and Ringochik. In Vasin’s worldview, John Lennon was sent by God and now lives in a monastery in northern Italy. (This theory, if it were ever proven, would have interesting legal repercussions for Mark David Chapman, his killer). Then he suddenly emits an ear-splitting yelp into the microphone; the audience’s collective heads practically explode. Everyone ducks and winces. Vasin grins. If you’re the type of person who dedicates their life to building a Beatles Temple, I guess you’re allowed to do things like scream annoyingly into microphones without people getting too upset.
Then the musical entertainment appears, an American named Jan Britten Owen who plays Beatles tunes on a 12-string guitar. He’s all decked out in a Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band suit, and would seem rather eccentric himself were he not sharing a stage with Kolya Vasin. After an hour or so of belting out the hits, the show is over and the guest star is besieged with requests for autographs and photos. I’m introduced to Mr Vasin, who tells us that they’re going to the temple in a minute and we’re welcome to drop by. “Sounds fun,” Olya tells me. “Expect indoctrination, though.”
I wasn’t quite sure what form Beatles indoctrination would take. Enforced ingestion of LSD? Sticking pins into Yoko Ono voodoo dolls? As we trudged down the 5 flights of stairs and back into the snow, we resolved to find out. At any rate, it wasn’t far to walk. The gig, like the makeshift temple, was on John Lennon Street. Vasin successfully convinced the local government to rename the city’s smallest street in his hero’s honour. The sign on the little door announced:
In the name of peace, love, music, and John Lennon
We knocked and it swung open from the inside. It was a bit like the scene from Being John Malkovich where he steps inside his own head. Every single spare inch of the small office was covered with Beatles pictures, life-size cut-outs of every member of the band, a papier-mâché model of the proposed temple on Vassilievsky Island, badges, stickers, tapes, books, coffee cups and homemade memorabilia. Jan Britten Owen, tonight’s guest of honour, sat in the VIP armchair at Vasin’s insistence. Another member of the church gathered up some mugs and filled them with dry red wine. It’s difficult to find good red wine in Russia- if they drink the stuff at all here they usually go for the sickly sweet variety- but then I suppose you’d expect good taste at a Beatles Temple. They handed drinks to everyone and we drank the health of the Italian monk John Lennon and his associates.
The American guest jammed some more classics on an old acoustic guitar and then our hosts turned the stereo on. Even Beatles fans need a bit of variety sometimes, so this time it was a John Lennon solo record. If you had told me when I was 17 years old that at some time in the future I would be dancing around in a temple with a bunch of hippies banging tambourines and singing Give Peace a Chance, I would have probably thrown myself under a bus. But back then I was younger, so much younger than today. Tonight I was drinking the blood of Christ, or Harrison, or one of the other Lads from Liverpool, and happily singing away.
I glanced around. There was a badge on the wall that said, “We have the temple, now we just need to build it.” Paul McCartney stood behind me, frozen in 1963, observing everything through his black fringe. He looked on with his cardboard gaze as the VIP guest stood up to say his goodbyes. Kolya Vasin hugged him vigorously.
The architect refilled our mugs and chatted a bit about the design of the future temple. Vasin announced that anyone who wanted to catch the last metro had to leave now. We hung around a bit longer. After all, there are last metros every night, but how often there are Beatles religious ceremonies?
And then, finally, it was time to quit. We thanked our hosts and put on our coats, scarves, hats, gloves, thermal shirts and all the rest of our arsenal for keeping the Russian winter at bay.
I shook Vasin’s hand and felt like I should say something profound. I am English, after all, a son of the Mother country that spawned the Fab Four. I decided to stick to the rules and repeat something I’d heard earlier.
“All you need is love,” I said, as soulfully as I could.
“Love is all you need!” Vasin exclaimed.
Not a bad mantra, I must admit. Then the door closed and we were left outside in the snow. Cold has a very sobering effect, both physically and emotionally. Had it all been a dream? We walked out towards the main road, past the giant, three-dimensional yellow submarine and the Revolver-era Beatles images engraved into the walls of John Lennon Street, past the proclamations of peace, love and music. It was definitely real, and it’s still there if you want to find it. I guess, to paraphrase the English World War 1 poet Rupert Brooke:
There’s some corner of a foreign field
That is forever Beatles.
Weirdly, that’s quite a reassuring thought.
(First printed as a column in the Queensday Festival 2010 fanzine)
