In 1984 after Irina Danilova graduated from Art School in her native Ukrainian city Kharkov and before moving to Moscow, a symbolic cutting of her hair, the length of the time spent at school, was performed marking the beginning of a new Moscow time. Two friends from art school, Lena Kudinova and Masha Glushchenko were going to give the haircut. They chose the night of August 31. It coincidently fell on the date of the influential Russian poet, Marina Tsvetaeva’s suicide (1941). In her honor initially a one-time symbolic haircut became a quadrennial performance. 1984 was a leap and Olympic year. The next performance was scheduled for the next leap year, on August 31st with no haircuts in between. The cut off hair was traded next day for a kilogram of butter.