Who was Sergei Kuryokhin? The ‘Lenin Was a Mushroom’ hoaxer who electrified the Soviet underground and, at the very end, embraced fascism and occult politics.

July 9 marked 30 years since the death of Sergei Kuryokhin, one of the most important figures in the Soviet and Russian underground of the 1980s and 1990s. Few people defined that era more vividly. Kuryokhin, known by the nickname “the Captain,” moved effortlessly through every sphere of cultural life, winning over those he encountered and setting the tone wherever he went. He collaborated with the Soviet Union’s finest jazz musicians, recorded with the bands Kino, Aquarium, and Alisa,…