A tale from the Taiga...

First, a bit of personal history... When I was in my late teens, very early twenties, this was my going-out song....



Know what I mean by a going-out song? If that's it, the world is about to go KA-BOOM and you've got time to listen to just one more song.... this was mine.... a heartbreakingly sad tale about betrayal on grand grand scale... the song is about a group of Russian soldiers returning home victorious to a horrible, horrible 'reward....
To quote from the last verses (lyrics by Mike Scott of the Waterboys)

But I never got to kiev
We never came by home
Train went north to the taiga
We were stripped and marched in file
Up the great siberian road
For miles and miles and miles and miles
Dressed in stripes and tatters
In a gulag left to die
All because comrade stalin was scared that
Wed become too westernized!

Used to love my country
Used to be so young
Used to believe that life was
The best song ever sung
I would have died for my country
In 1945
But now only one thing remains
But now only one thing remains
But now only one thing remains
But now only one thing remains
The brute will to survive!

I am posting this today, because the song has an odd echo in a piece added to the Smithsonion's website yesterday.... a tale of survival from the Taiga...

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/For-40-Years-This-Russian-Family-Was-Cut-Off-From-Human-Contact-Unaware-of-World-War-II-188843001.html


Please visit the link and read the absolutely awe-inspiring tale of what it's like, not to die, but to live in the Taiga... as the Lykov family did for more than forty years...