The Moscow Music Peace Festival was a historic rock festival held August 12-13, 1989, at the Luzhniki Stadium in Moscow. It was the first full-scale international rock festival in the USSR, marking a new era of freedoms and often called «the Russian Woodstock.» Held under the slogan «Rock Against Drugs,» it was broadcast to 59 countries with a television audience of around one billion people.
The organizers were the Soviet Peace Committee, the Moscow «Stas Namin Center» music organization under the USSR Fund for Social Inventions, the American «Make A Difference Foundation,» and the firm «Cramer Music.» Tickets officially cost 15 rubles, though right before the show they were being sold for as little as 3 rubles.
The festival featured legendary Western bands: Bon Jovi, Mötley Crüe, Ozzy Osbourne, Scorpions, Cinderella, Skid Row, along with the Soviet band Gorky Park. Bon Jovi headlined the first day, Scorpions the second — and the trip to the USSR became the inspiration for the Scorpions’ famous song «Wind of Change.»
About 120,000 spectators attended over the two days, despite skeptical predictions from the Moscow press. The festival was remembered for its outrageous moments: Ozzy Osbourne dousing the front rows of fans with water, Jon Bon Jovi wading into the crowd across the entire stadium field wearing a police cap. Extravagant stunts from the foreign performers shocked the Soviet audience.
The festival had a charitable purpose — raising funds for treating drug addicts and financing anti-drug programs in the USSR. Later, in 2008, the concert was reissued on 4 DVDs, preserving this landmark event of the late Soviet era for history.