Job Discussion Forums

scot47 · Joined: 10 Jan 2003 Posts: 15343

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X7P1dvTXuHA

teacher X · Posted: Mon Aug 05, 2013 6:02 pm Post subject:

What am I looking at and why am I looking at it?
This is beyond me.

scot47 · Joined: 10 Jan 2003 Posts: 15343

The song is about going to Magadan, a desolate and remote part of the Soviet Union, where salaries were high but conditions tough.

I thought Comrade Sasha might have responded.

maruss · Joined: 18 Mar 2003 Posts: 1145 Location: Cyprus

'Twelve months of winter and summer all the rest...'
Dalstroy,Butygychag ,Elgin etc etc. the graveyards of the innocent and often their captors......but the scenery is often incredibly beautiful in Kolyma and when the snow melts you can sometimes see their remains, almost perfectly preserved......'Magadan, where the sun has no warmth, the flowers have no scent and the girls have no heart!'-is what they used to say in the Soviet era but as I have several close friends who knew the place then and now, it is not actually that bad any more!

Sashadroogie · Posted: Tue Aug 06, 2013 8:00 am Post subject:

Scot, I couldn't respond because I was incapable of doing so, so moved was I by this tune, and the depth of soul in the singer's delivery. Quite unlike anything the Piggies can produce from their plastic pop factories, hic!

scot47 · Joined: 10 Jan 2003 Posts: 15343

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mask_of_Sorrow

BenE · Joined: 11 Oct 2008 Posts: 321

You made my wife happy. She said that he's a famous singer with a beautiful voice and her Mother was in love with him back in her soviet teenage years.

I'm still not convinced to go and work there tho.

maruss · Joined: 18 Mar 2003 Posts: 1145 Location: Cyprus

Although several people I know who go there regularly or even live there say that the economy is much better nowadays and people are working etc. it is still very remote and VERY cold in winter! There is no railway and only local roads, plus the notorious 'route of bones' to Yakutia which needs military off-road vehicles to use most of it......Ai r-fares to Moscow are several hundred dollars one way and even though its working and living small city nowadays, you can't forget the fact that most of those who built it died in the process in the same way as other hell-holes like Norilsk and Vorkuta etc!But if faced with a choice out of those three I suppose I would opt for Magadan because at least the air is cleaner and won't kill you before your time , although the cold probably will!!Interestingly enough , many of todays inhabitants are descendants of former Gulag prisoners and sometimes their guards-who stayed there after they were freed because they had lost all contact with their past.

Sashadroogie · Posted: Thu Aug 08, 2013 12:45 pm Post subject:

Aw, Maruss! Barrel. Laughs. C'mon!