On April 11, 1989, Sveta Stepanova's life changed.


That was when she heard rock'n'roll singer Joanna Stingray for the first time. Stepanova -- whose two-tone, split-level hair-do is an exact replica of Stingray's -- cannot give the exact time of day when she heard the recording, but she thinks it was around half-past seven.


"I remember that it was absolutely infectious," said Stepanova, who is 20. "I went nuts." Her two friends, who sport cantilevered variations on The Haircut, nod in tandem. "We do everything we can to be like her."


In one way or another, Stingray, 34, has changed a lot of lives here over the last 10 years. Even according to her fans, Stingray's premier role has been as a catalyst. By helping to mobilize the Leningrad rock underground in the early '80s, she lent international legitimacy to a rising generation of artists, and she has been making friends and influencing people ever since.


Last week at the S.P. Gorbunov Palace of Culture, Russia's rock legends showed up to honor the woman who began as an accidental tourist and ended as a glasnost scene queen.


In 1983, the Los Angeles-born Stingray was a recent college graduate coping with a discouraging professional setback: Due to a contract dispute with her agent, her first album had been pulled from the shelves after one day of sales.


She came to Russia to get her mind off her career, not to cultivate it. But a fateful phone call to Boris Grebenshchikov, lead singer of the group Akvarium, ushered her into a circle of unknowns who have now become legendary. Stingray set about organizing "Red Wave," a compilation of underground rock. "That's what Leningrad was for me from '84 to '87," Stingray recalled in an interview before the concert honoring her. She returned from that vacation with an id?e fixe. "I couldn't get it out of my head -- Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia."


After "Red Wave" came out in 1986, Stingray realized she was becoming a public figure. "I remember walking through Leningrad at about one in the morning. These kids walked by with their hands in the air and yelled 'Stingray, Stingray.'"


Stingray's star power has waned, but it was clear at last week's concert that her Leningrad friends remember. To the crowd's woozy delight, the musicians gave a series of energetic tributes to Stingray. Garik Shukachov, formerly of Brigada S, reeled around the stage in a raucous, hard-driving performance. DDT's Yury Shevchuk delivered an early set of ballads, and Mashina Vremeni's Andrei Makarevich stood alone in the spotlight with an acoustic guitar. Finally, Akvarium's Boris Grebenshchikov joined Stingray for a rendition of the Beatles' "Come Together." In the front row, a pre-teen in a black turtleneck fell off her chair.


Downstairs, the cult of Joanna was doing good business. Complimentary posters of a reclining Stingray were being snatched up, as were her albums "Rock Against Terror" and "Greenpeace Rocks" and the new "Joanna Stingray: 10 Years in Video" cassette. Later in the night, Stingray would auction off costumes from her video clips, and this week she is holding a contest for the grand prize. "Non-smoking, non-drinking and non-littering" teens are competing for a two-week trip to America with Stingray, to be immortalized in a 30-minute Ostankino documentary. Also available were novelty matryoshka dolls painted in her image and known as "Stingryoshkas."


Stingray's fans were joyful. "She is a very natural performer, and her voice is very beautiful, and she dresses with such good taste," said Olesya Zakhariya, 12. "I am so, so glad I came."