“Survival Instructions” is a music album by the Civil Defense group, which includes 15 songs of the Survival Instructions group, the authorship of which is mostly owned by Roman Neumoev. Egor Letov says:

The idea arose after a telephone conversation with Romych, the supreme head of the IPV - in which he extremely eloquently disowned everything that he godlessly created in the field of rock and roll, and categorically, flatly refused to ever and in any way participate in recording his own, composed in 87-88 years, but never recorded, or recorded ridiculously unsuccessfully, wonderful songs (“Continuous suicide”, “Motherland-Death”, “Everything will pass”, “H.y”, etc.). To my question: “Can we, G.O., use all this motley and bitter belongings in this case?”, Romych answered not only in the affirmative, but also gave his full and absolute permission to do anything with his material, which was translated into reality literally over the next few days - no one had time to open their mouths. I have seldom in my life sung with more high and release. After almost every take, the voice broke and I had to literally BURN my throat with red-hot boiling water in order to proceed to the next one. After the next recorded song, a new repetition of a very painful procedure followed. In the end, my throat swelled up that Jeff had to sing “H.y”, which he performed so GREATLY that even the most authoritative Author later had to admit it. The album turned out to be extremely lively and colorful, despite the fact that it was recorded blatantly simply.

Egor Letov, September 1990
(from the article "Official albumography of GrOb Records")

List of tracks:

1. Dedication to A. Kruchenykh (M. Nemirov / R. Neumoev / A. Kruchenykh)

All songs - "Instruction for Survival" 1986-1988
Staging, arrangement, etc. - Egor Letov and Igor "Jeff" Zhevtun
Material used with personal permission Roman "Romycha" Neumoev.

Recorded from March 31 to April 1, 1990 at GrOb Studio Egor Letov with assistance from Kuzi Wo and Jeff.
Mixed for the first time in this version 4 April 1990 Egor Letov in GrOb-studio.
Dedicated with deep and sincere feeling to Romych-Pomych, "Instructions for Survival", her surroundings and in general those good, bitter, naive and legendary times in Tyumen when these songs were born there.

Igor "Jeff" Zhevtun- vocals (2.14), vocals, electric guitar, bass
Egor Letov- vocals, vocals. bass (13), electric guitar (14), acoustic guitar, drums
Kuzya Wo- metallophone (3.7), saxophone (6), vocals (3), effects

Producer: Egor Letov
Registration: Egor Letov
Mastering: Sergey Letov
Graphics: Georg Gross

© 1990 GrOb Records
© 2002 hor-music

Civil Defense "Survival Manual"
The first album of CIVIL DEFENSE of the 90s...
In 1989, 6 numbered albums were released under the GO brand alone, in 1990, only the Survival Manual was intended to personify the first half of the year.
It is clear to everyone that something is happening with the domestic underground, to be more precise, it simply does not exist. Naturally, this fact could not but be reflected in the work of Letov, who, from the moment he began his activity in 1982, for many personified the very left wing of the counter-movement. The breakdown of consciousness that happened to many former leaders made Yegor and his like-minded people "go down into the cellars" even deeper. All these cataclysms led to the fact that we have only one album in half a year - for GO this is undoubtedly extremely small. There is no doubt that Letov's songwriting intensity hasn't waned, but he's waiting...
It is also symbolic that this only album is not the fruit of Egor's creativity, but only versions of the songs INSTRUCTIONS FOR SURVIVAL. On the one hand, this fact can be regarded as the desire of the master to convey to the audience the work of his lesser-known brothers in faith, but if we take into account all of the above, the situation looks very deplorable. What Letov did before no longer satisfies him: you can bring the sound of instruments to the limit, but this is not yet a new quality. And the Instruction for Survival was written exactly at the moment when Egor was in a state of searching for a new form, rethinking what had been achieved.
For many fans of GO, Egor's work shone with a new facet after the appearance of the acoustic Russian Field of Experiment - "electric acoustics", - but Jah himself disowned him as a semi-finished product. Concluding the near-musical ranting, I would like to draw attention to the fact that Yegor is a man of ideas, and such a collapse will mean death for him - not only morally, but also physically, because such people do not have a double life. And here I really get scared for Yegor.
But closer to the music. On the 50-minute cycle, very diverse songs are collected: on the one hand, naive sketches such as "Rock and Roll Front", "Knife in the Back", "House" and the frankly strange thing "My X ...", the presence of which on the album does not justify the fact that almost all the songs were recorded before the 88th year; and on the other - "Continuous Suicide", "My Northern Country", "Everything Will Pass", "Crown" and especially "Hour Until Midnight", which in terms of emotional impact can only be compared with "Everything Goes According to Plan" - although the structure of these two songs are completely different from each other.
I repeat that the texts of some songs are of very poor quality, and the idea that their authorship does not belong to Yegor is of little consolation, because in this case it is possible to justify all the cheap pops singing songs to the verses of the Union of Composers - they say, "not they wrote." In a number of compositions ("Afghan Syndrome", "Rock and Roll Front", "I Want to Be Loved") there is a so-called "fuzzy solo", characteristic of the early GO albums of the 85-86 period, Jeff remembered the old- good times. The album was recorded with the personal consent of Roma Neumoev, who owns all the musical and textual material, and who decided to leave the world of rock and roll forever.
But do not take all of the above too seriously: in the end, before the end of the year, Letov will most likely release more than one full-blooded GO album, and then everything will fall into place.

01.1991, "Vinyl Addict"

I do not believe in anarchy (Collected articles) Egor Letov

CIVIL DEFENSE "SURVIVAL INSTRUCTIONS"

The first album of CIVIL DEFENSE of the 90s… In 89, 6 numbered albums were released only under the GO brand, in 90, only the Survival Manual was called upon to personify the first half of the year.

It is clear to everyone that something is happening with the domestic underground - more precisely, it simply does not exist. Naturally, this fact could not but be reflected in the work of Letov, who, from the moment he began his activity in 1982, for many personified the very left wing of the counter-movement. The breakdown of consciousness that happened to many former leaders made Yegor and his like-minded people "go down into the cellars" even deeper. All these cataclysms led to the fact that we have only one album in half a year - for GO this is undoubtedly extremely small. There is no doubt that Letov's songwriting intensity hasn't waned, but he's waiting...

It is also symbolic that this only album is not the fruit of Egor's creativity, but only versions of the songs INSTRUCTIONS FOR SURVIVAL. On the one hand, this fact can be regarded as the desire of the master to convey to the audience the work of his lesser-known brothers in faith, but if we take into account all of the above, the situation looks very deplorable. What Letov did before no longer satisfies him: you can bring the sound of instruments to the limit, but this is not yet a new quality. And the Instruction for Survival was recorded at the very moment when Egor was in a state of searching for a new form, rethinking what had been achieved.

For many fans of GO, Egor's work shone with a new facet after the appearance of the acoustic Russian Field of Experiments - "electric acoustics", - but Jah himself disowned him as a semi-finished product.

Concluding the near-musical ranting, I would like to draw attention to the fact that Yegor is a man of ideas, and such a collapse will mean death for him - not only morally, but also physically, because such people do not have a double life. And here I really get scared for Yegor.

But closer to the music. The 50-minute cycle contains very diverse songs: on the one hand, naive sketches such as "Rock and Roll Front", "Knife in the Back", "House" and the frankly strange thing "My X ...", the presence of which on the album is not justifies the fact that almost all the songs were recorded before the 88th year; and on the other - "Continuous Suicide", "My Northern Country", "Everything Passes", "The Crown" and especially "Hour Until Midnight", which in terms of emotional impact can only be compared with "Everything Goes According to Plan" - although the structure of these two songs are completely different from each other.

I repeat that the texts of some songs are of very poor quality, and the idea that their authorship does not belong to Yegor is of little consolation, because in this case it is possible to justify all the cheap pops singing songs to the verses of the Union of Composers - they say, "not they wrote." In a number of compositions ("Afghan Syndrome", "Rock and Roll Front", "I Want to Be Loved") there is a so-called "fuzzy solo", characteristic of the early GO albums of the 85-86 period, Jeff remembered the old- good times. The album was recorded with the personal consent of Roma Neumoev, who owns all the musical and textual material, and who decided to leave the world of rock and roll forever.

But do not take all of the above too seriously: in the end, before the end of the year, Letov will most likely release more than one full-blooded GO album, and then everything will fall into place.

01.1991, "Vinyl Addict".