Cliff Richard in the USSR (1976).Cliff Richard was the first western rock artist ever to tour Russia.After discovering that his records were now sold officially in the USSR, Cliff received an invitation from the Official State Entertainment Department to perform a series of concerts in the then-communist country.Cliff Richard toured in 1976 to a grand welcome, playing eight concerts in Moscow and twelve in Leningrad. Cliff's reception in Russia was extremely warm, with every one of the 91,000 tickets to his twenty concerts sold out. On the first night in Leningrad the orchestra pit even had to be opened up to prevent enthusiastic fans from jumping onto the stage!Cliff was asked after the tour why Gosconcert (the official musical concert agency) had invited him to tour, "he speculated that it was because he was 'safely middle of the road, with a clean-cut image and no drug rap. They're still miles away from inviting the Rolling Stones.'"Cliff was amazed at how much young Russians know about the rock scene. "Many have pirated tapes of all sorts of U.S. and English music. There is a big audience there," he said.

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