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A peculiar movement that emerged on the verge of
bodybuilding mania and juvenile supervision program and because of that was
actively canalized down by the press since 1986, resulting in a certain fashion
and several waves of this movement. It was supported by the formalization of
the informal bodybuilding, going on at this time in Kubinka near Moscow and
staging of the first open bodybuilding contest in Lyubertsy, encouraged in a
large measure by Sergey Zaitsev and athletes from Moscow club “Atlant”. The name
“lyubera” was initially assigned to a group from suburban Lyubertsy frequenting
places of youth entertainment in Moscow, but since 1987 spread not only to
miscellaneous unrelated to each other groups, but also to bigger gangs, concentrated
then in the Gorky Park and Arbat. Gangs
from Zdanovskaya, Lytkarino, Sovkhoz Moskovsky, Podolsk, Karacharovo,
Naberezhnye Chelny, Kazan – that’s just a shortlist of “near-Moscow
brotherhood” who was trying to control not only the forenamed territories, but
also some of the bawdy places and station squares. Initially encouraged by the
authorities, who were hoping to put these formations within bounds of volunteer
order squads, these groups had no common dress-code except for the attraction
for sportswear, but they also had
conflicting interests, that have consolidated only in terms of aggression
against mods and “informals”. It’s worth noting that representatives of the
“first wave” hastily dissociated from the new fashion and continued to do bodybuilding and business
irrelevant to minor street crime and social pressure. Along with this the
common “lyubertsy” trend, that up to
1987 was expressed in relaxed fix pants, caps and sweaters, after the release
of series of articles in the press and a movie “The Publication” underwent
changes and assumed checked pants fashion. This fashion, supported by forming
of music band “Lyube”, lasted for almost a year, but was washed out along with
the formation, that has been criminalized and overwhelmed by stormy events on
the verge of the 90-s. At the same time special features inherent to local
groups like sportswear of the certain colour, wide wedged pants, sporty or
kiddy pomponed caps for identification of their “insiders” in this promiscuous
company, were left out of “Lyubertsy-fashion”and mythology that outlived the
movement itself by more than 5 years.
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