Vladimir Central (song)

The song makes an attempt to reflect the experiences of a person in prison, who is not meeting the first spring in captivity. The lyrical hero reinterprets the past years, recalling his youth and first love . The leitmotif of the song is the famous Vladimir Central Prison, breaking the fate of people. There is almost no thieves' jargon in the text.

The initial version of the refrain was: “Vladimir Central, Sasha Severny, stage from Tver ...” and the song itself was written in honor of one of the friends of Mikhail Krug, a well-known Tver criminal authority , kingpin Alexander Severov , known by the nicknames “Sasha Severny” and “ North ” ^[1] . Severov asked the Circle not to use the phrase "Sasha Severny" in the song. These words were replaced by “north wind” ^[2] .

Severov is the real author of the first hit of the Circle - the song "Autumn Rain" from the album "Zhigan-Lemon". The thief in law asked the performer not to mention his name, as a result, the singer himself recorded the chansonnier ^[3] . Some sources indicate that the text of the song "Vladimir Central" was also written by Severov himself.

In the book “The Life and Death of Mikhail Krug” by Evgeny Novikov and Galina Zhirnova, it is stated: in 1995, the Circle came to Vladimir Central to visit his friend Severov. After this meeting, the song was written ^[4] .

At the funeral of Mikhail Krug in 2002, among other wreaths was a wreath “From Alexander Severov” ^[5] .

In the magazine "City" №50 12/29/2003. ^[6] Evgeny Nikolaev claims that it was him in 1997. gave Mikhail Krug the idea of ​​the song "Vladimir Central".

The song has gained wide popularity in various circles of Russian society, although it causes an ambiguous reaction, because it romanticizes the thieves' world. Cassettes with the song were distributed abroad, including in Spain, France, the Netherlands and Portugal ^[7] .

In 2005, the director Alexander Podolsky shot the film Vladimir Central .

Covers and song references

• Cover versions of the song were performed by many famous performers - from Sergey Lazarev ^[8] to the rock group Kukryniksy ^[9] .
• Noize MC has a song “Don’t Threaten the Vladimir Central ...”, which, in addition to “Vladimir Central”, also refers to the film “ Don’t Threaten the Southern Central ”, songs of Viktor Tsoi and Eminem .
• Orest Lyuty - “Luk'yanivsky SІZO”.

Translations of the lyrics to other languages

There are translations of the song into other languages. The text was translated into Hebrew by Shaul Reznik ^[10] . The author of the Belarusian translation is the writer Sergei Balakhonov ^[11] .

Number Albums

• Madame ( 1998 )

Collections

• Legends of the Russian chanson. Volume 1 ( 1999 )
• Vladimir Central ( 1999 )
• After the third walk ( 2001 )
• Boys ( 2001 )
• I passed Siberia ( 2002 )

Concert recordings are also common.

• Male Vocal: Mikhail Krug , Timur Schekaturin (Gordeev)
• Strings: Valery Gareev (in the studio), (at concerts - Nikolai Chekhov)

• List of songs by Michael Krug