What makes Rammstein frontman fight a cosmonaut in the center of St. Petersburg? The sound of Kalinka seems to work (VIDEO)

The Palace Square in St. Petersburg has seen revolutions, parades and other historic events. But now it’s seen everything after providing the venue for a mock fight between Rammstein’s Till Lindemann and a bearded spaceman.

The bizarre clip, uploaded by Lindemann on his Instagram page, starts as a dance-off, but quickly escalates into an exchange of slaps and attempts to suffocate each other.

The interaction, set to the tune of the famous Russian “Kalinka” folk song, may seem absolutely meaningless to most, but there’s actually some background to it.

The hawkish cosmonaut is easily identified as Swedish actor, Peter Stormare, who made a name for himself in Hollywood by playing short but memorable parts in such films as ‘The Big Lebowski,’ ‘Minority Report,’ ‘Bad Boys II,’ and many others.

He is also responsible for one of the most cliched portrayals of a Russian person in movie history due to his role as Lev Andropov, a vodka-loving cosmonaut at the Mir space station in Michael Bay’s 1998 blockbuster ‘Armageddon.’ So, his latest appearance in a spacesuit may actually be a homage to that iconic performance.

But Stormare’s talents aren’t limited to acting alone. He is also a musician and, earlier this year, he joined Lindemann’s side project, modestly titled ‘Lindemann,’ as a guitarist.

His dance-fight with the German heavy-metal star was part of an online challenge, inspired by the band’s recent controversial ‘Steh Auf’ music video, which was actually shot at the Lenfilm studios in St. Petersburg.

Lindemann and Stormare simply repeated what they did to each other in that clip. But the funniest thing is that they weren’t the first to do so at the Palace Square.

The actors, who pose for tourists as Russian royals Peter the Great and Catherine the Great, published their own #stehaufchallenge last month. And that was also great.

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