The Gulag Orkestar

Gulag is the government agency that ran the penal labour camps in Soviet Union. In a vain attempt to purify the socialist ideology, Stalin thought of correcting the so-called imperfections by starving people in the outskirts of Soviet Union to death (among other war crimes committed that were not exclusive to Communism at that time, despite what many people may believe). Many concentration camps were filled with those people snatched from their homeland of Eastern Europe, better known as the Eastern or the Soviet Bloc. It was a tormented region that didn't share the feigned glamour of Soviet Russia. "Orkestar" is of course a "band" in Eastern European folk culture. If you listen to the song, you put them all together and find that it's perhaps a Balkan dirge to those who perished in the Gulags at that time.

So, if Linus is right (and he makes a damn fine argument), then I guess my brother was being actually quite perceptive when he said this sounded like "funeral music," and not (like I thought) a total douchebag.

As a person from Russia I do feel the horrid fear when something refers to GULag. Actually, in USSR this word was use not only for the Agency which controlled all the force labor camps but the very camps which ment the way to grave. So I do support the view that it sounds like "funeral music". Being in a camp usually ment finishing your life in a camp. Over 1 million people died there. Over 1 million people lost their hopes, dreams and ways there.

It seems to me that the "I" in this song is the prisoner who is totally sure what his life is going to be, he knows what the way he is going and what waits him in the end of this way. But it doesn't make him less intrepid, although he has already realised that the morning will never come.

They call it night.

"They call"! But it's clear for him is not a night, because after the night the day will come, but their day will not begin. He knows it well. Despite that he isn't going to persuade anyone, to make them think in his way, because the loss of hope is the loss of humanity. May be they call it night but even they know it's not. I feel it through the music. It is clear that the prisoner isn't the only one who plays. There is the orchestra - Оркестр ГУЛага. And i feel it through the history. I live in the town where the force labor camp was placed from 1947 to 1951. That is still in the air. If you want to try to realise the horror of the catastrophe I advise you to attempt to read The Gulag Archipelago by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. To tell the truth, it is next to impossible to read. We should be thankful we live in quite humane time

"and i know it well" should be "and i call it mine"

he says it clearly in videos and live

the instruments are simply fantastic in this, though.

the instruments are simply fantastic in this, though.

This song makes me cry

the vocal melody zach does at the beginning of this song makes me want to cry. something about it just grabs my heart and starts squeezing really hard.

and he clearly says "and i call it mine"

So, if Linus is right, then I guess my brother was actually quite perceptive when he said this sounded like "funeral music," and not a total douchebag.

What is 'Gulag Orkestar'? Or where? Or who? The lyrics sort of aren't much help on that...