Cargo No. 200. Bloody Afghan. "Black Tulip" "Black Tulip"

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

A huge concert hall. On stage, a shaven-headed man in rectangular glasses hugs a twelve-string with strong arms. He is harsh and soft at the same time, he is hard and sensual, and in a word, he is “real”. Skip to the legendary "Pilot's Monologue…" without introduction.

A hall of many thousands rises, paying tribute to the Afghan soldiers and the bright talent of the author of the song. People are wiping away tears, passing sedative and heart drops down the rows. Hall employees say: “Don’t go to a fortuneteller: if Rosenbaum sings, and you can hear the smell of medications in the hall, this is the Black Tulip …

Seen in Afghanistan broke my heart into pieces

For reasons known only to the then authorities, Alexander Rosenbaum was not allowed into Afghanistan for a long time. The singer did not stop doing everything possible from him in order to get to the land scorched by fire, and until that time he tried to realize what was happening in that terrible war. Heard, read, watched, met. The first song about Afghanistan appeared.

She will have a veryshort fate: after Rosenbaum still visits Afghanistan (Iosif Kobzon will help the singer in this), he will refuse to perform his “Afghan first-born” - what he hears from others and what he sees with his own eyes will painfully differ. According to Rosenbaum, he tore his heart to pieces, changing his perception and filling his soul with pain, Afghanistan. The song "Black Tulip" will appear very soon…

In my heart there are two of them: the Afghan who took thousands of lives, and the Afghan of courageous people

Alexander Rosenbaum visited Afghanistan three times with concerts, and those who saw his performances remember them with warmth decades later.

Maybe because this man is remembered not only on stage with a guitar in his hands. "Black Tulip" would never have come out the way millions of listeners know it, if Rosenbaum had limited himself to performances alone. Together with the soldiers, the singer traveled on armored personnel carriers, cut through the air on airplanes, and flew on "turntables". Yes, there were different people among the Soviet army, says the author who created the Black Tulip, not everyone looked like courageous heroes, but there were dozens of them and they were not the true face of the contingent.

Once Alexander Rosenbaum saw zinc coffins being loaded into the An-2 military transport aircraft. The soldiers called the plane "black tulip", the coffins - "cargo 200". It became unbearably hard. The singer was shocked by what he saw: when his head cleared up, he decided to write a song. This is how the Black Tulip was born.

Unique Rosenbaum: talent is everything

One of the features of the outstanding talent of Alexander Rosenbaum is the ability to immerse the listener in that environment, those events about which he sings. Many are surprised: how can a person born in the early 50s be listed as “in his own” among those who were repressed in the 30s and fought in the 40s? His chanson has become a classic of the "thieves" genre, and his Cossack chants smell of the steppe and freemen. And although Rosenbaum never wrote in "cycles", the number and inner content of his Afghan songs allow Afghan veterans to consider the singer their comrade-in-arms and comrade-in-arms. "I tried never to entertain people with 'dummies'," says Alexander Rosenbaum. The "Black Tulip", which has become one of the song symbols of the war in Afghanistan, served, serves and will serve as confirmation of this.