At the beginning of the 1960s Uzbek art music was flourishing in Tashkent. The Dance Orchestra of Uzbekistan and its soloists, especially National Artist of Uzbekistan Batir Zakirov, became hugely famous. But that all changed with the rise of the Beatles, who became the most popular group in the world, including Uzbekistan; imitators flourished, drowning out Uzbek music.

Then some students at Tashkent Theatrical Institute, with a little help from some of the staff,  decided to establish their own group to play Uzbek music. The founder members were students Shakhboz Nizamut-dinov, Bahodir Djurayev and Sergey Avanesov, with concert-master Aliaskar Fathullin, the head of the training theatre Herman Rozhkov, and the composer Yevgeny Shiryaev. The group was called Yalla.

Yalla became famous overnight and, like the Beatles before them, were imitated throughout Uzbekistan. Every-body wanted to be like Yalla, to look like Yalla, to dress like Yalla and to sound like Yalla. Fanmail was enormous, especially - predictably enough - from 9th-grade schoolgirls.

They found fame not only in Uzbekistan but in Russia too. Getting tickets for their concerts, even in the biggest stadiums, was well-nigh impos-sible simply because the songs were very, very good. The group enjoyed huge success, but it was well earned.

Farruh Zakirov: 'It's so nice that even now people want to see you perform, and that when you do, people listen, really listen, to what you're doing. And the audience applaud, you can see the warm looks on their faces and the sparkling eyes... you feel great. Thirty-five years have passed in a flash; it seems like yesterday that we took our first steps in show business. A lot of people have been in this group, some have died, some have left the country... but everyone remembers us, everyone remembers our songs'.