There's an eerily sinister tone to this now. The whole context of the concert, being the first of its kind at the time. The songs they chose to perform were all about the hopefulness for future of West and East together. It's all gone now. Those were the days indeed, we thought they'd never end. And indeed we're old now but no wiser and still hold on to the same dreams - the same dreams of war, in Putin's case. And the original Alexandrov Ensemble is gone, too.
@@wwondertwin On 25 December 2016, a Russian Defence Ministry Tupolev Tu-154 carrying 64 members of the Alexandrov Ensemble Choir went down 1.5 km (0.93 mi) off the coast of Sochi, Russia while en route to Latakia, Syria for a Christmas celebration with the troops deployed at Khmeimim military base.[citation needed] The plane crashed with no survivors.
There's one man to thank for the destruction of the dreams these men on the stage represented - Putin. Most of them died under his command, long before there was war.