IMO, one of the best songs ever written yet not much commercial appeal. It’s almost eight hours long with amazing high and low notes that you can truly enjoy in a full stereo mode. A true masterpiece.
The main character in the song fights for dear mother Russia in WWII only to have been briefly captured by the Nazis and, because his life is disposable to the Kremlin and he might possibly have been converted to a spy, the rest of his life is spent in a cold, soulless gulag with other prisoners. He really doesn’t understand what his country has done to him.
Oops. Eight minutes long, not hours. For the main character, it probably seemed like eight years.
Yes, it’s an intense, under-appreciated masterpiece, and heart-wrenching in the end. It’s sickening to imagine the song’s character’s fate, the faithful soldier betrayed by his country.