The disk consists of songs recorded in Tikhoretsk in 1978. In their own time, these "concerts" were called "A. Severnyi, Magadanians, and the Ensemble 'Meeting'." But in a stricter sense only one participant in the recordings was from Magadan- the arranger and director of various ensembles, Anatoly Mezentsev (during different periods he worked with Shufutinsky, Gulko and Mogilevsky). It was he who was responsible for indirectly inviting Arkady Zvezdin to the recording. And thanks to him, the "Tikhoretsk concerts" were allowed to take place.
After over 20 years, the recording (re-mastered in 1998) sounds much fresher and more energetic than those of other veteran heroes of the "Russian chanson," and more authentic as well. Severnyi managed to combine and concentrate practically the entire intonational lexicon of the "prison song" genre. And although it was understood that all this is a stylization, the genre remained one of the most prominent in the 70's and 80's, in camouflage.
One more circumstance that comes to mind while listening to the album: the official culture of the Soviet "stagnation" period was not only countered by the light non-conformism coming from the direction of the intelligentsia, but also by the dark culture of the criminal world. Without its support- either material or ideological- it is unlikely that recordings like this one would have come about.