Cultured Russians!

[dispatch]

http://www.tothepointnews.com/content/view/3114/85/

as much as this kills my hopes of going back to the cold war that made so much more sense than this terrorism crap, this is something ya just gotta see to believe.

The Red Army choir and a Finnish rock band covering a classic American rock song

[Plaidman]

....?? I don't get what so shocking about someone playing a song? Just because they're foreign, doesn't mean they can't/won't play an /american/ song, or any song for that matter just cause its in English.

[dispatch]

I just think it's an odd mix, and 20 years ago who would have thought that the Russian Army choir would be happily singing and American rock song???

[Jaden]

To be fair, that is rather strange. Not only are they performing a distinctly American patriotic song, but American music wasn't permitted in the Soviet Union until Communism fell, and that song, obviously, came out before that point. So it is a little strange, though I don't see how that makes them any more "cultured".

[dispatch]

I concede that it was poorly titled, but I still think it's interesting to see with or without a stoli martini

[edible_hat]

but American music wasn't permitted in the Soviet Union until Communism fell

Like American music in 1940s Germany, it probably got in anyway via the underground.

The Leningrad Cowboys are actually from Finland.

eta: Since the fall of Communism, the Red Army Choir's done a bunch of things like this. When they came to my part of the world about 10 years ago they performed "Back in the USSR" among others.

[Andara Bledin]

This is the sort of thing that was completely inconceivable in the '80s.

How times change.

^-.-^

[Yfandes]

I had the pleasure of sailing with a mariner who was about my age (mid 40's) and had been a submariner for the USSR, and before that a harpooner on a whaling ship as a teenager

as much as this kills my hopes of going back to the cold war that made so much more sense than this terrorism crap, this is something ya just gotta see to believe.

We had many a good conversation over drinks - contrasting and comparing our upbringing. What we were fed versus what was really happening. And yes, we both lamented the end of the cold war - just because everything seemed so much easier then. But what was funny was that his taste in music almost exactly matched my own (classic rock, some '80's music). Yeah, the music was always there.

The under 30 east block sailors? Except for the accents you'd have a hard time picking them out of a crowd of Americans. Maybe better dressed and a little more cynical.

[Gawdzillers]

It was surprisingly toe-tapping.