The Soviet Space Dog Project / VOSTOK 1

Vostok-1 is the name that identified the first mission in space by a human crew, successfully carried out by the Soviet Union in 1961. The undisputed protagonist of that feat was Yuri Gagarin, who became a celebrity all over the world. Less well known is the name of the mission’s chief engineer and main architect of its success: Sergei Korolëv.

The preparations for Vostok-1 were a race against time due to pressure from the Soviet government, engaged in rivalry with the US in the space dominance. On the night of April 11, 1961, Sergei did not sleep a wink; the next morning he was so upset that he had to take a heart pill. In fact, his health had been faltering for some time, due to the suffering he suffered in the Kolyma Gulag, in Siberia; in the 1930s Korolëv, at the time of Stalin’s Terror, was sentenced as a spy to 10 years of forced labour in the ice hell of Siberia. It took him six months in those extreme conditions to report permanent physical damage. He was then rehabilitated precisely because, as a talented scientist that he was, he worked on the Soviet space program. He did it with brilliant results. However, after the triumph of the Vostok-1, in 1966, Sergei Korolëv died precisely because of the health problems that occurred during his stay in the Gulag.

After his death, the Soviet space program slowed down sharply, because there was no one who had the skills to carry on Sergei’s work and for this reason it was not the Russians, but the Americans who first set foot on the Moon. The Soviet space program of the 1960s was boycotted by the ghost of Josef Stalin.

After the success of “Starcity” (HDK 91), Andy Bloyce returns to the HDK catalog with a new monumental collection of songs entitled “Vostok-1”. In the background, as always, the utopian dimension and the crude reality of the Soviet Space Program; the dreams, the anguish and the exploits of men launched towards the unknown, towards the mysteries of deep space and those of human existence.

If you have loved the sidereal rides contained in “Starcity”, you will go crazy for this new album: an abundant hour of cosmic music in its most noble and crystalline form. Pure kosmische poetry!