Joanna Stingray – Californian musician who smuggled punk rock out of the USSR

In seems like ancient history, but Guardian's story about smuggling rock'n'roll from the USSR actually says a lot about today's spies and politics, the only difference now being delicacy in spy's methods. The article's hero is Joanna Stingray, who in 1980s visited USSR, found there an underground rock scene, and published, in USA, a compilation album 'The Red Wave LP' featuring four Russian groups. That album helped end the Kremlin’s censorship of homegrown groups, Mikhail Gorbachev reportedly asked “Why is it that such albums come out in America, but not here?”.