A fond high school memory

Unrelated photo, but they are singing something... 

Originally posted at Amazon. 

I don't have this product. But then, maybe I do... In senior high school, “our” Russian-language class actually visited Moscow! One of them brought back a Soviet album featuring the Soviet national anthem (the long version) plus 14 anthems representing various Soviet republics. It seems all republics except the Russian had their own anthems. My buddy gracefully gave yours truly a tape recording of the entire album, which I have studiously kept at a safe place ever since. (This would have been circa 1986.)

Since I know next to nothing about these anthems, I'll refer interested readers and prospective buyers to Andrew G. Lang's excellent review on this product page. From a purely musical standpoint, I admit that the Soviet anthem is pretty damn good and dramatic. (In Sweden, we call it “the ice hockey song”, since the Soviet hockey team usually won all world cups!) The anthems of the Ukrainian SSR and Byelorussian SSR are also quite good. I admit that I found the rest pretty boring. But then, that's me.

Of course, the Soviet “republics” didn't have real self-government, in contrast to U.S. states, Yugoslav republics or Swiss cantons. They were mostly administrative divisions on a map. Their flags were eerily similar, too, so I suppose the musical variation of their anthems might have been their only chance at *some* kind of autonomy!

Five stars...sort of unwillingly.