Leningrad Cowboys Meet Moses 1994

Picking up where Leningrad Cowboys Go America left off, the group has settled in Mexico after scoring a top-ten hit there. The party has spiraled into hard living, and alcohol dominates most days until tragedy strikes: more than half of the band members have died from drinking. The four remaining players and their road manager, Igor, have become naturalized Mexicans, sporting mustaches and bright, mariachi-inspired wardrobes as they try to keep going.

A glimmer of possibility arrives when an anonymous telegram invites them to perform at a hotel on Coney Island, New York. There they reconnect with their former manager Vladimir, who now lives as a born-again figure and goes by Moses. Moses gathers the group and lays out a plan to head back toward the “Promised Land” (Siberia), a mission that unfolds with layers of faith, luck, and hard-nosed pragmatism. Four band members start assembling a makeshift boat for the first leg of the journey; the fifth—one they met in Texas—chooses to stay behind. In a bold twist, Moses stows away on a plane, taking with him the nose of the Statue of Liberty as a bizarre souvenir that will follow them on the road.

That stolen piece of the Statue of Liberty does not go unnoticed. A CIA agent, Johnson, spots the nose and starts to close in. Moses, who falls off the plane, ends up on a beach where the group is soon joined by newly recruited members from Siberia, who arrive in a rented bus. To keep the trip moving and the money flowing, Moses pushes to secure gigs along the way, turning the trek into a creeping, improvised road show.

In Amiens, the chase speeds up. Johnson, posing as a record producer, tries to lure the band into a hotel show so he can reclaim the nose, but Igor foils the plan and knocks him unconscious. The next day, Moses learns the agent’s true identity and confiscates the bullets from his gun, signaling that this journey will be as dangerous as it is unpredictable.

Their trouble continues in Frankfurt, where a gas-station attendant recognizes Moses from a wanted-poster and the band is briefly arrested. Igor orchestrates a daring breakout with help from local troublemakers, and the troupe plays a small gig before pressing on. In Leipzig, a moment of odd, prophetic humor arrives as Moses and a fellow band member exchange lines from sacred texts—one reading from the Bible, the other from the Communist Manifesto—and they slip back into their divided identities, recounting the mythical birth of a sacred calf back home that motivates their odyssey.

Meanwhile, a former associate who has adopted the name Elijah reappears in the Czech Republic after a tense detour, proving to be a capable singer and a useful ally once he joins the troupe. The group also finds time to visit a tractor factory and perform for a local family, infusing a sense of everyday life into their nomadic trek.

Across Poland, both Moses and Elijah reveal lingering signs of their old selves. When a sick band member needs care, Moses claims there isn’t enough money for a hospital, fleeting trust from the others. Elijah, feeling the pressure, even taunts the band at gunpoint to ditch the nose—but he is knocked out before any real harm is done. After continuing to perform to earn more cash, the band finally leaves their sick comrade at a hospital doorstep and Moses goes to a billiard hall at a hotel to earn enough to cover the hospital bill by the next morning.

At the Russian frontier, Moses declares that, by the Holy Bible, he never reaches the promised land. Vladimir—still traveling in the background—turns in empty bottles to the customs office as a distraction, allowing the others to sneak the bus across the border. Home at last, the band leaves gifts for a newborn calf and hosts a celebratory party that evening. Elijah stays behind with the nose, a silent reminder of the strange voyage that carried them back to the heart of their homeland.

In the end, the journey—part myth, part travelogue, part road show—renders a strange tableau of friendship, faith, and the stubborn endurance of a band that refused to stay down, even when luck, bodies, and borders pushed back at every turn.