Then, in 1994, Pavlov thought he had solved the problem for good: he bought a satellite dish, and climbed to the top of his apartment building in southwest Moscow to install it so that he could pick up MTV.

"I was up on the roof with a walkie-talkie, and my dad was down in my room watching TV so he could tell me when I had the angle right," says Pavlov. "You have to have the satellite at just the right angle, otherwise you pick up Turkish TV, or Italian or some other weird stations.

"But I couldn't hear my dad over the walkie-talkie -- all I could pick up was all these conversations on people's cellular telephones. Two guys talking about girls, one guy who had just bought a boat. I even picked up the police radio. It took two weeks of going up and adjusting the dish until I finally got it just right."

At long last -- MTV! And VH-1, CMC and other music channels as well-- Pavlov was in music heaven. For six months, anyway. Then MTV scrambled its signal, and all Pavlov can see now is the snowy screen and skipping black lines of a thwarted dream. But he hasn't given up yet.

"I just talked to a guy about buying another antenna that he says will pick it up again, even scrambled. It costs a hundred bucks, but I've got to do it," he says. "I have to have 'Yo! MTV Raps!'"