Korean by blood, Tsoi was born to an engineer and a physical education teacher in the Russian city of Leningrad, Now St. Petersburg. He initially trained as a craftsman at a local school, but became a self-taught musician, playing rock and punk with a group of friends. He eventually achieved national fame as the leader of his own band, Kino.
A symbol of his generation, Tsoi predicted his early death long before it took place. In his first and last cinema role in "Igla," or "The Needle," he plays a man who comes to his native city to save his ex-girlfriend from drug addiction. He dies at the end of the film, stabbed to death on his way home.
Viktor Tsoi died on Aug.15, 1990.
