Mikhail Gorbachev’s Mixtape. He Sings.
On my first trip to Russia about six years ago, the first thing I learned was that if you pour enough vodka into an individual, singing will soon follow. This apparently applies to everyone, including giant Soviet reformers like Mikhail Gorbachev. The Daily Beast reports:
We did not know that the man who changed the world could also sing. At Mikhail Gorbachev’s 85th birthday party last week, many jaws dropped in surprise as he crooned of love and peace.
Russians had no idea that their former president and the great reformer of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics from 1986 to 1991, who brought the wind of freedom into the country 30 years ago, could also intone romantic ballads. But that was not the only surprise.
At his gala party on Wednesday, Gorbachev was singing to the accompaniment of a dissident musician, rock star Andrei Makarevich. And that in itself was a political statement: over the last two years authorities have cancelled Makarevich’s concerts all across the country because of the musician’s support for Ukraine.
There might even be an album in the offing, and if the sample we hear is any indication (watch and listen the video here), then it will be easy listening for everybody but the Kremlin.
You can read the rest of the story here. Meanwhile, have a listen to this future hit from Gorby.
He’s quite good!
He was leader of the USSR from 1985 to 1991.