Kutuzov Prospect
The track Kutuzov Prospect is dedicated to the victory of the Russian Army led by Mikhail Kutuzov in the Russian campaign of 1812.
The French invasion of Russia, also known as the Russian campaign (French: Campagne de Russie) and in Russia as the Patriotic War of 1812 (Russian: Оте́чественная война́ 1812 го́да), was initiated by Napoleon with the aim of compelling the Russian Empire to comply with the continental blockade of the United Kingdom. Widely studied, Napoleon’s incursion into Russia stands as a focal point in military history, recognized among the most devastating military endeavors globally. In a span of fewer than six months, the campaign exacted a staggering toll, claiming the lives of nearly a million soldiers and civilians.
On 24 June 1812 and subsequent days, the initial wave of the multinational Grande Armée crossed the Niemen River, marking the entry from the Duchy of Warsaw into Russia. Employing extensive forced marches, Napoleon rapidly advanced his army of nearly half a million individuals through Western Russia, encompassing present-day Belarus, in a bid to dismantle the disparate Russian forces led by Barclay de Tolly and Pyotr Bagration totaling approximately 180,000–220,000 soldiers at that juncture. Despite losing half of his men within six weeks due to extreme weather conditions, diseases and scarcity of provisions, Napoleon emerged victorious in the Battle of Smolensk. However, the Russian Army, now commanded by Mikhail Kutuzov, opted for a strategic retreat, employing attrition warfare against Napoleon compelling the invaders to rely on an inadequate supply system, incapable of sustaining their vast army in the field.
The fierce Battle of Borodino, located 110 kilometres (70 mi) west of Moscow, concluded as a narrow victory for the French although Napoleon was not able to beat the Russian army and Kutuzov could not stop the French. At the Council at Fili Kutuzov made the critical decision not to defend the city but to orchestrate a general withdrawal, prioritizing the preservation of the Russian army. On 14 September, Napoleon and his roughly 100,000-strong army took control of Moscow, only to discover it deserted, and set ablaze by its military governor Fyodor Rostopchin. Remaining in Moscow for five weeks, Napoleon awaited a peace proposal that never materialized. Due to favorable weather conditions, Napoleon delayed his departure, hoping to secure supplies through an alternate route. However, after losing the Battle of Maloyaroslavets he was compelled to retrace his initial path.
As early November arrived, snowfall and frost complicated the retreat. Shortages of food and winter attire for the soldiers and provision for the horses, combined with relentless guerilla warfare from Russian peasants and Cossacks resulted in significant losses. Once again more than half of the soldiers perished on the roadside succumbing to exhaustion, typhus and the unforgiving continental climate. The once-formidable Grande Armée disintegrated into a disordered multitude, leaving the Russians with no alternative but to witness the crumbling state of the invaders.
During the Battle of Krasnoi, Napoleon faced a critical scarcity of cavalry and artillery due to severe snowfall and icy conditions. Employing a strategic maneuver, he deployed the Old Guard against Miloradovich, who obstructed the primary road to Krasny, effectively isolating him from the main army. Davout successfully broke through, Eugene de Beauharnais and Michel Ney were forced to take a detour. Despite the consolidation of several retreating French corps with the main army, by the time they reached the Berezina, Napoleon commanded only around 49,000 troops alongside 40,000 stragglers of little military significance. On 5 December, Napoleon departed from the army at Smorgonie in a sled and returned to Paris. Within a few days, an additional 20,000 people succombed to the bitter cold and diseases carried by lice. Murat and Ney assumed command, pressing forward but leaving over 20,000 men in the hospitals of Vilnius. The remnants of the principal armies, disheartened, crossed the frozen Niemen and the Bug.
Napoleon’s initial force upon entering Russia exceeded 450,000 men, accompanied by over 150,000 horses, approximately 25,000 wagons and nearly 1,400 artillery pieces. However, the surviving count dwindled to a mere 120,000 men (excluding early deserters); signifying a staggering loss of approximately 380,000 lives throughout the campaign, half of which resulted from diseases. This catastrophic outcome shattered Napoleon’s once-untarnished reputation of invincibility. Sources. French invasion of Russia, from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Lenin Prospect
The track Lenin Prospect is dedicated to the victory of the Red Army and the Bolshevik Party led by Lenin in the Russian Civil War of 1918-1923.
The Russian Civil War (17 May 1918 — 19 June 1923) was a multi-party civil war in the former Russian Empire sparked by the overthrowing of the social-democratic Russian Provisional Government in the October Revolution, as many factions vied to determine Russia’s political future. It resulted in the formation of the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic and later the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics in most of its territory. Its finale marked the end of the Russian Revolution, which was one of the key events of the 20th century.
The Russian monarchy ended with the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II during the February Revolution, and Russia was in a state of political flux. A tense summer culminated in the Bolshevik-led October Revolution, overthrowing the Provisional Government of the new Russian Republic. Bolshevik seizure of power was not universally accepted, and the country descended into civil war. The two largest combatants were the Red Army, fighting for the establishment of a Bolshevik-led socialist state headed by Vladimir Lenin, and the loosely allied forces known as the White Army, which functioned as a political big tent for right- and left-wing opposition to Bolshevik rule. In addition, rival militant socialists, notably the Ukrainian anarchists of the Makhnovshchina and Left Socialist-Revolutionaries, were involved in conflict against the
Bolsheviks. They, as well as non-ideological green armies, opposed the Bolsheviks, the Whites and the foreign interventionists. Thirteen foreign nations intervened against the Red Army, notably the Allied intervention, whose primary goal was re-establishing the Eastern Front of World War I. Three foreign nations of the Central Powers also intervened, rivaling the Allied intervention with the main goal of retaining the territory they had received in the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk with Soviet Russia.
The Bolsheviks initially consolidated control over most of the former empire. The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was an emergency peace with the German Empire, who had captured vast swathes of the Russian territory during the chaos of the revolution. In May 1918, the Czechoslovak Legion in Russia revolted in Siberia. In reaction, the Allies began their North Russian and Siberian interventions. That, combined with the creation of the Provisional All-Russian Government, saw the reduction of Bolshevik-controlled territory to most of European Russia and parts of Central Asia. In 1919, the White Army launched several offensives from the east in March, the south in July, and west in October. The advances were later checked by the Eastern Front counteroffensive, the Southern Front counteroffensive, and the defeat of the Northwestern Army.
By 1919, the White armies were in retreat and by the start of 1920 were defeated on all three fronts. Although the Bolsheviks were victorious, the territorial extent of the Russian state had been reduced, for many non-Russian ethnic groups had used the disarray to push for national independence. In March 1921, during a related war against Poland, the Peace of Riga was signed, splitting disputed territories in Belarus and Ukraine between the Republic of Poland and Soviet Russia. Soviet Russia sought to re-conquer all newly independent nations of the former Empire, although their success was limited. Estonia, Finland, Latvia, and Lithuania all repelled Soviet invasions, while Ukraine, Belarus (as a result of the Polish–Soviet War), Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia were occupied by the Red Army. By 1921, Soviet Russia had defeated the Ukrainian national movements and occupied the Caucasus, although anti-Bolshevik uprisings in Central Asia lasted until the late 1920s.
The armies under Kolchak were eventually forced on a mass retreat eastward. Bolshevik forces advanced east, despite encountering resistance in Chita, Yakut and Mongolia. Soon the Red Army split the Don and Volunteer armies, forcing evacuations in Novorossiysk in March and Crimea in November 1920. After that, anti-Bolshevik resistance was sporadic for several years until the collapse of the White Army in Yakutia in June 1923, but continued on with the Muslim Basmachi movement in Central Asia and Khabarovsk Krai until 1934. There were an estimated 7 to 12 million casualties during the war, mostly civilians. Sources. French invasion of Russia, from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Dubrovka
The track the Dubrovka is dedicated to the VChK also known later as the KGB of the Soviet Union and the FSB of the Russian Federation for combating counter-revolution and sabotage during the Civil War 1918-1923.
Revolution Square
The track Revolution Square is dedicated to the 65th Anniversary of the victory of the Cuban Revolutionary Army led by Ernesto “Che” Guevara in the Cuban Revolution of 1959.
When writing this track, we were inspired by the very beautiful metro station Revolution Square and Red Square in Moscow as well as the revolution in Cuba in 1959 and its commander Ernesto Che Guevara.
The Cuban Revolution (Spanish: Revolución cubana) was a military and political effort to overthrow the government of Cuba between 1953 and 1959. It began after the 1952 Cuban coup d’état which placed Fulgencio Batista as head of state. After failing to contest Batista in court, Fidel Castro organized an armed attack on the Cuban military’s Moncada Barracks on July 26, 1953. The rebels were arrested and while in prison formed the 26th of July Movement. After gaining amnesty the M-26-7 rebels organized an expedition from Mexico on the Granma yacht to invade Cuba. In the following years the M-26-7 rebel army would slowly defeat the Cuban army in the countryside, while its urban wing would engage in sabotage and rebel army recruitment. Over time the originally critical and ambivalent Popular Socialist Party would come to support the 26th of July Movement in late 1958. By the time the rebels were to oust Batista the revolution was being driven by the Popular Socialist Party, 26th of July Movement, and the Revolutionary Directorate of March 13.
The rebels finally ousted Batista on 1 January 1959, replacing his government. 26 July 1953 is celebrated in Cuba as Día de la Revolución (from Spanish: “Day of the Revolution”). The 26th of July Movement later reformed along Marxist–Leninist lines, becoming the Communist Party of Cuba in October 1965.
The Cuban Revolution had powerful domestic and international repercussions. In particular, it transformed Cuba–United States relations, although efforts to improve diplomatic relations, such as the Cuban thaw, gained momentum during the 2010s. In the immediate aftermath of the revolution, Castro’s government began a program of nationalization, centralization of the press and political consolidation that transformed Cuba’s economy and civil society. The revolution also heralded an era of Cuban intervention in foreign conflicts in Africa, Latin America, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East. Several rebellions occurred in the six years following 1959, mainly in the Escambray Mountains, which were suppressed by the revolutionary government.
Ernesto “Che” Guevara (Spanish: Ernesto Guevara; Rosario, Argentine 14 June 1928 – La Higuera, Bolivia 9 October 1967) was an Argentine Marxist revolutionary, physician, author, guerrilla leader, diplomat, and military theorist. A major figure of the Cuban Revolution, his stylized visage has become a ubiquitous countercultural symbol of rebellion and global insignia in popular culture.
As a young medical student, Guevara traveled throughout South America and was radicalized by the poverty, hunger, and disease he witnessed. His burgeoning desire to help overturn what he saw as the capitalist exploitation of Latin America by the United States prompted his involvement in Guatemala’s social reforms under President Jacobo Árbenz, whose eventual CIA-assisted overthrow at the behest of the United Fruit Company solidified Guevara’s political ideology. Later in Mexico City, Guevara met Raúl and Fidel Castro, joined their 26th of July Movement, and sailed to Cuba aboard the yacht Granma with the intention of overthrowing U.S.-backed dictator Fulgencio Batista. Guevara soon rose to prominence among the insurgents, was promoted to second-in-command, and played a pivotal role in the two-year guerrilla campaign that deposed the Batista regime.
After the Cuban Revolution, Guevara played key roles in the new government. These included reviewing the appeals and firing squads for those convicted as war criminals during the revolutionary tribunals, instituting agrarian land reform as Minister of Industries, helping spearhead a successful nationwide literacy campaign, serving as both President of the National Bank and instructional director for Cuba’s armed forces, and traversing the globe as a diplomat on behalf of Cuban socialism. Such positions also allowed him to play a central role in training the militia forces who repelled the Bay of Pigs Invasion, and bringing Soviet nuclear-armed ballistic missiles to Cuba, which preceded the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. Additionally, Guevara was a prolific writer and diarist, composing a seminal guerrilla warfare manual, along with a best-selling memoir about his youthful continental motorcycle journey. His experiences and studying of Marxism–Leninism led him to posit that the Third World’s underdevelopment and dependence was an intrinsic result of imperialism, neocolonialism, and monopoly capitalism, with the only remedies being proletarian internationalism and world revolution. Guevara left Cuba in 1965 to foment continental revolutions across both Africa and South America, first unsuccessfully in Congo-Kinshasa and later in Bolivia, where he was captured by CIA-assisted Bolivian forces and summarily executed.
Guevara remains both a revered and reviled historical figure, polarized in the collective imagination in a multitude of biographies, memoirs, essays, documentaries, songs, and films. As a result of his perceived martyrdom, poetic invocations for class struggle, and desire to create the consciousness of a “new man” driven by moral rather than material incentives, Guevara has evolved into a quintessential icon of various leftist movements. In contrast, his critics on the political right accuse him of promoting authoritarianism and endorsing violence against his political opponents. Despite disagreements on his legacy, Time named him one of the 100 most influential people of the 20th century, while an Alberto Korda photograph of him, titled Guerrillero Heroico, was cited by the Maryland Institute College of Art as “the most famous photograph in the world”. Sources. Cuban Revolution & Che Guevara, from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Tibetan Wanderer
The composition for guitars the Tibetan Wanderer is dedicated to our bass guitarist and close friend Michael V. Usachev.
The action of the TibetanWanderer is set in the mountains of Tibet where our hero gets hit by a rockfall.
Loch Ness Fisherman
The action of the Loch Ness Fisherman is set on Loch Ness lake in Scotland where our hero, a fisherman from Germany, is fishing when suddenly the Loch Ness monster attacks him.
*The Loch Ness Fisherman is our new composition for guitars which is currently being recorded.
The Moscow Central Circle
At present we are also recording tracks for our new album The Moscow Central Circle some of which you can listen to on this site, Bandcamp & SoundCloud.
*The Moscow Central Circle is our experimental album in which we’re trying different sounds, tempos and the interaction of different musical instruments.
*The Moscow Central Circle is a ground-based Moscow metro whose stations are located in Moscow in the form of a ring.