With the threat of the Cold War now assigned to the pages of history books and the once-mighty Soviet Union taking the capitalist road, the threat of an imminent invasion by the Soviet Red Army is all but a memory.
Not that today's Russian military hierarchy has ceased organizing soldierly jaunts to faraway lands. Units of the Russian army still travel quite extensively. Only nowadays the troops that are transported across international boundaries need to ensure their passports and visas are valid, rather than simply dropping in unannounced.
The fact that the arrival of a company of Russian troops in Taiwan earlier this week received little attention had nothing to do "stealth." It had more to do with the fact that the complement of troops were not of the weaponry-toting variety.
PHOTO: CHIANG YING-YING, TAIPEI TIMES
Under the command of a very friendly Colonel Vladimir Veprintsev, the squad which arrived in Taiwan instead came armed with a collection of brass instruments.Which is not really surprising, as they were all members of The Russian Red Army Brass Band.
While the members have all served in the Russian military at one time or another, with the exception of Colonel Veprintsev and his deputy, Major Andrei Kapralov, none of the members who arrived in Taiwan longer serve the mighty Russian Bear in a military capacity.
"Sure, they have all done military service, but that was it militarily for most of the members," explained Major Kapralov via the groups' manager-cum-translator, Serguei Bortkevitch in an interview with the Taipei Times. "They are all professional musicians who have played with one of more of Russia's multitude of military bands and were asked to join [the Russian Military Brass Band] because of their professionalism."
Formed in 1995, the Russian Red Army Brass Band originally consisted of members of the Russian National Red Army Military Band, which was disbanded that same year in order to form a series of smaller military bands. Nowadays, however, the band mainly recruits its members from civilian orchestras and ensembles.
As well as seeing the formation of several dozen brass bands, the breakup of the Russian National Red Army Military Band also saw the creation of the Russian Military Jazz band, a group which not only performs at military ceremonies, but has also appeared at international jazz festivals.
Not that the Russian Red Army Brass Band hasn't basked in its own glory. Ranked as one of the worlds' top military bands -- the German and Hungarian national military bands being ranked first and second respectively -- the hard-blowing men of the Russian Red Army Brass Band have enjoyed hugely successful tours of Europe, the Americas, Asia and Australia.
"It's not only in Russia where the band is popular. The band is well-known throughout Europe and have performed in San Francisco, where they were made to feel welcome and proved very popular," said the young Russian major.
While Russian youth has been wearing Levis and openly listening to music as diverse as the Sex Pistols and Sting since the Iron Curtain came down, the fall of the Soviet Union and militaristic communism hasn't dampened Russia's appetite for stirring militaristic harmonies. According to Bortkevitch, there are over 100 military bands in Russia, all of which include both military and civilian personnel and are still very popular.
"Obviously this type of band is not as popular as it once was, but all the 100 military bands are still kept quite busy," explained Bortkevitch. "Russia is a big place after all." Bortkevitch admits, however, that the band has had to adapt its repertoire somewhat in recent years. Instead of performing solely military tunes and traditional Russian numbers, the band is no longer averse to bursting into a Beatles track, and even modern rock n' roll gets a Russian military facelift on occasion.
For its inaugural tour of Taiwan, the band only dispatched a 24-member platoon. Back home in Mother Russia, however, the band makes full use of it's complement of over 120 full-time members whenever it performs.
"We have a couple of female vocalists and several male ones, but the contract for this series of concerts was for men only, so we had to leave the women at home," said Bortkevitch. "But we don't mind as we can still perform a wide range of music without them." Although it is a female-less ensemble that has blown into Taiwan this week, Colonel Veprintsev still plans to maintain discipline within the ranks and keep listeners on their toes by treating local audiences to a very mixed bag of tunes.
The band will be performing pieces ranging from rousing Russian Army marching numbers, such as Grenadier, The Saber Dance and Missing the Motherland, to more sedate tunes like O Sole Mio and an interesting piece entitled Song in the Style of Edith Piaf.
It's also rumored that the starched-dress-uniform wearing members of the band might also burst into big-band-style rock n' roll.
JUNE 30 to JULY 6 After being routed by the Japanese in the bloody battle of Baguashan (八卦山), Hsu Hsiang (徐驤) and a handful of surviving Hakka fighters sped toward Tainan. There, he would meet with Liu Yung-fu (劉永福), leader of the Black Flag Army who had assumed control of the resisting Republic of Formosa after its president and vice-president fled to China. Hsu, who had been fighting non-stop for over two months from Taoyuan to Changhua, was reportedly injured and exhausted. As the story goes, Liu advised that Hsu take shelter in China to recover and regroup, but Hsu steadfastly
Taiwan’s politics is mystifying to many foreign observers. Gosh, that is strange, considering just how logical and straightforward it all is. Let us take a step back and review. Thanks to the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), starting this year people will once again have Christmas Day off work. In 2002, the Scrooges in the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) said “bah, humbug” to that. The holiday is not actually Christmas, but rather Constitution Day, celebrating the enactment of the Constitution of the Republic of China (ROC) on December 25, 1947. The DPP and the then pan-blue dominated legislature
Focus Taiwan reported last week that government figures showed unemployment in Taiwan is at historic lows: “The local unemployment rate fell 0.02 percentage points from a month earlier to 3.30 percent in May, the lowest level for the month in 25 years.” Historical lows in joblessness occurred earlier this year as well. The context? Labor shortages. The National Development Council (NDC) expects that Taiwan will be short 400,000 workers by 2030, now just five years away. The depth of the labor crisis is masked by the hundreds of thousands of migrant workers which the economy absolutely depends on, and the
If you’ve lately been feeling that the “Jurassic Park” franchise has jumped an even more ancient creature — the shark — hold off any thoughts of extinction. Judging from the latest entry, there’s still life in this old dino series. Jurassic World Rebirth captures the awe and majesty of the overgrown lizards that’s been lacking for so many of the movies, which became just an endless cat-and-mouse in the dark between scared humans against T-Rexes or raptors. Jurassic World Rebirth lets in the daylight. Credit goes to screenwriter David Koepp, who penned the original Jurassic Park, and director Gareth Edwards, who knows
RSS