Shakeup in the Republics Songs

The Caucasus that the new cadre regime wanted to export to Moscow sounded like this. Orera's «Song of Tblisi» was the signature track of Georgia's premier VIA, the ensemble that gave Vakhtang Kikabidze his start before he became Mimino. Polad Bul-Bul oglu was Azerbaijan's pop face under Aliev and eventually his Minister of Culture. Rashid Beibutov, the foundational tenor who built Soviet Azerbaijani song from the 1940s, received the Hero of Socialist Labor under Aliev in 1980. Nani Bregvadze, Orera alumna turned solo, was the Caucasian romance singer Soviet Russians actually listened to. Four conventional songs, four state-prize careers, the friendship-of-peoples embodied in song.