In Search of Vadim Kozin

The Documentary Podcast

BBC

Society & Culture, Documentary, Personal Journals

4.3 • 2.6K Ratings

🗓️ 27 December 2015

⏱️ 50 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Marc Almond travels to Moscow in search of the marvelous Russian tenor Vadim Kozin, tango-singer and superstar. The darling of the Soviet Union, Kozin melted hearts by the tens of millions in the 1940s, playing to packed concert halls and rallying Red Army troops in World War Two. But he vanished one day in 1944 when the secret police arrested him and sent him to the Gulag for homosexuality

Transcript

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0:00.0	Thank you for downloading from the BBC.
0:04.0	The details of our complete range of podcasts and our terms of use, go to BBCWorldServis.com slash podcasts.
0:15.0	Now on BBC World Service, in search of Vadim Kosen.
0:18.0	I live in oblivion.
0:20.0	Kosen was a singing superstar in the Soviet Union, but at the height of his success he was disappeared to exile in Siberia from where he never returned.
0:30.0	When you think that once the name Kosen thundered across the country, I'm like a dead man, body and soul.
0:37.0	The British pop star, Mark Armand goes to Moscow to unravel the mystery of one of his
0:47.4	musical heroes Vadim Kosen. For me it's all in the voice. I love Vadim Cosin's pure beautiful voice with his
0:58.8	expressive lyrical quality. I first heard it 20 years ago and it changed my life.
1:08.0	Open a door to a new world for me. I spent three years in Moscow soaking in
1:23.0	recording.
1:24.0	I spent three years in Moscow soaking up this music, singing and playing and recording.
1:34.7	And they even had Cosin songs translated into English and I made an album. than love can ever give in times of joy, in times of sadness.
1:50.6	I became drawn into Kosen Story back in 1992. The Soviet Union had collapsed and I was
1:57.0	invited on a tour of Russia. Somewhere I'd never dreamt of going, especially its Far East.
2:03.0	When I arrived in Siberia and going to some of the towns like Omsk and
2:10.0	Novusarbirsk, all the trees were dead.
2:12.7	You'd see things like burnt out aircraft.
2:14.5	I just remember lots of rust.
2:16.1	It was freezing cold.
2:17.7	A bare stage, one single spotlight.
2:20.3	It but a piano that was out of tune. But what I loved was just the audience
	...

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