MOSCOW: Nineteen-year-old Yuri, standing outside the Luzhniki Stadium in his red volunteer shirt, knows Jimmy. “Everyone knows him,” he says. “Me and my brother are big fans. Let me show you which one of his songs is my favourite,” he offers as he takes out his mobile.
Thirty-four-year-old Robert, sitting under the statue of poet Vladimir Mayakovsky at the Triumfalnaya Square here also knows Jimmy. “We’ve grown up hearing those songs. My grandmother and uncle are big fans,” he says, before breaking into an impromptu rendition of Jimmy’s biggest hit in Russia. “Jimmy, jimmy, jimmy. Aaja, aaja, aaja.”
No, Jimmy is not an American rockstar or someone from the Britpop wave which started gaining popularity around the same time as the Soviet Union’s breakup. Jimmy is from the 80s — 1984 — to be exact and he is Indian. Bollywood fans from the 80s and the 90s know him as Mithun Chakraborty.