Russia

Think you'll ever play in the Soviet Union?
Frank Zappa: "We've had chances to do some dates there but I didn't want to go."

They asked you?
Frank Zappa: "At one point we were asked to spend six weeks in the Soviet Union in exchange for a children's theater group. I like potatoes but a person can eat only so many Potatoes, and I respect cockroaches, because they've been around longer than people and I think they must know something that keeps them on top, but I don't want to spend six weeks surrounded by potatoes and cockroaches." - Frank Zappa in Frank Zappa: America's Weirdest Rock Star Comes Clean, John Swenson, High Times #55, March 1980.

"Well, usually when you see stuff about Russia on TV in the United States, it's pictures of Red Square with tanks, y'know, and all that kind of stuff. It ain't like that. There's, like, regular people doing regular stuff. There's musicians, and painters, and film directors, and all different kinds of stuff there, and they're nice people. So, I hope to do some interviews with all different kinds of guys, and just take the camera around the places I've been, some of the art galleries, and let you know what the US media has not shown you all these years." - Frank Zappa - They're Doing the Interview of the Century, Part 2, Den Simms, Eric Buxton, Rob Samler, Society Pages, June 1990.

"Until the Soviet Union folded, we spent 50 years of Cold War cash convincing American that we needed to fight against the Evil Empire. Hey, I traveled to Russia five times right when it was on the cusp of glasnost. The place was a fucking disaster area. These people couldn't even deliver milk. The CIA knew that, but why didn't they say the Cold War was for shit and Russia wasn't a threat to us? If we had been working with the Russians to develop what they knew, we all would have been better off. The Russians may not have the money, but they have the brains. My idea with Why Not? was to work with the co-ops of inventors, helping them to license their inventions of industrial processes and equipment design in the West. When I got sick, I had to shut down my plans. It's difficult enough for me to travel, but it's no vacation going to Russia. The conditions are grim there. It's hard to find something to eat, the transportation is a nightmare and since there's no Russian phone book, it's nearly impossible to get in touch with people unless they've given you their telephone number beforehand." - Frank Zappa, Pulse Interview, August 1993.

"I'm very upset about what's happening in Russia and in Eastern Europe, with this new change-over to Western-style economies. They are the ones who are the most vulnerable to this kind of chicanery, because all of these so-called experts that are going in there to help them set up their new economies are people from this MBA school of thought. And having visited these areas and seen what great culture they have, it saddens me to see that now it's all going to die. And it's all going to be stopped by the MBA mentality. There's only one thing that's worse than our exploitation by so-called financial experts. That's evangelical missionary work. These two things are the most anti-cultural acts that a nation can take against another nation." - Frank Zappa in The Mother of All Interviews (Part 1), Don Menn, 1994.

References to Russia in Frank Zappa's work

• Zappa made greeting cards in the early 1960s. One read: "Captured Russian Photo Shows Evidence of American Presence on Moon First on the front and if you opened it, it depicted a lunar crater with: Jesus Saves inscribed on it.
• In Zappa's list with influences in the sleeve of Freak Out!, composer Igor Stravinsky is mentioned.
• German Lunch: "He is a Russian spy. He is a Russian I think."
• Joseph Stalin is a character in Dio Fa.

Zappa associates from Russia

• Uri Balashov
• Huun-Huur-Tu
• Kongar-ool Ondar
• Nicolas Slonimsky

Classical Composers

• Irving Berlin (born in Russia, later moved to the United States)
• Boris Grebenshchikov
• Nicolas Slonimsky
• Igor Stravinsky
• Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

Other

• Cold War
• Communism
• Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev
• KGB
• Das Capitalist
• Zappa!