The Road (Doroga) (Russian: Дорога) is a song by the Russian rock band Auktyon from their sixth studio album, (the Bird), released in 1993. The song was composed by and written by Dmitry Ozersky in the same year. In 2004, the encyclopedia Estrada Rossii. 20 vek (Russian Pop Music. 20th Century), edited by Doctor of Arts Elizaveta Uvarova, described the album Ptitsa and highlighted Doroga as a hit. The encyclopedia used the song's lyrics to illustrate how the album encapsulated "nearly a decade of struggle for self-determination, marking the journey of the whole generation of disillusioned romantics and revolutionaries who burned their bridges and embarked on a long and joyless road".
In 1995, Doroga became the first Auktyon song in years to be featured in a music video. The video starred the band's frontman, Oleg Garkusha, and was directed by Sergey Zezyulkov. In 2000, the song was included in the soundtrack of the cult Russian crime film Brother 2, directed by Aleksei Balabanov and starring Sergei Bodrov Jr.
The newspaper RBK Daily noted that, despite being written during the "turbulent times" between 1991 and 1993, the song gained renewed relevance through its inclusion in Brother 2. An anonymous author from the newspaper remarked that it "found a new generation" and "retained its meaning and edge", remaining "entirely modern and timely" even in 2013. Russian journalist and producer Anton Chernin described Doroga as the most famous song from the album. The song has also been referenced multiple times in studies of Russian rock poetry by Doctor of Philology, Yury Domansky.
Content of the song Writer and former left-nationalist political figure Andrey Aktsynov in his novel The Duelist (2016) describes the meaning of the song Doroga as follows: "A person is lonely and abandoned in this world full of ghosts and illusions, and they themselves are just such a ghost. Therefore, it is foolish to cling to anything here. It is better to fly, as if in a dream, marveling and enchanted, in search of new passions and adventures". However, the song's composer, Leonid Fyodorov, commented on the lyrics of Auktyon's songs, stating: "There is no verbal meaning in any of our songs. The meaning lies in a certain state created by these songs".
Among the artistic imagery in the song's lyrics, notable elements include "foolish foreign cities" where the lyrical hero was loved, though it was not truly them; a long "joyless" road "flying into the skies as dust"; the heavy earth holding them by the legs; and a "hopeless" zone "tensely" awaiting them. The phrase "I am my own sky and moon" appears three times in the lyrics. It is followed twice by "A naked, content moon", but the final iteration changes to "I am flying somewhere, but it is not me".
History of the song's creation and initial recording
The band on the eve of the song's creation In the early 1990s, the band Auktyon developed the image of the "little man" in their work, portraying a figure "born under a dome and living in the confined spaces of a totalitarian society, as well as their own fears and delusions". The heroes of their albums during this period were often "mute, foolish, unlucky outcasts, Ivan who doesn't remember his kin, walking a razor's edge between life and death while laughing at themselves and the world around them". These characters existed outside societal systems, living by "breaking through the bars of their cage, tearing their skin, bleeding, and soaring like birds into the free sky". The band was actively engaged in both studio and live performances, frequently touring beyond the borders of the Russian Federation. According to the 2004 encyclopedia Estrada Rossii. 20 vek (Russian Pop Music. 20th Century), Auktyon achieved significant success on tours in France, Germany, Denmark, Switzerland, Austria, the Netherlands, and the Czech Republic. In Paris, the musicians met and began collaborating with poet, artist, and bard Aleksei Khvostenko. Within the band, changes were also occurring: showman Vladimir Vesyolkin left, and collaboration with artist Kirill Miller ceased.
Russian journalist and rock historian Mikhail Margolis noted the contradictory position of Auktyon in the Russian pop scene. A symbol of the band's financial success was their purchase of a used Mercedes bus for 20,000 German marks at a "Turkish flea market" in Germany. However, the bus was driven not by a professional driver—due to lack of funds—but by bass guitarist Viktor Bondarik. The bus became a home on wheels for the musicians and served them for ten years. While Auktyon performed series of 10–15 concerts in European countries, in Russia, as saxophonist Nikolai Rubanov put it, "things were a complete mess, with performances happening once every six months".
Semantics of the word road in Russian rock poetry This theme was explored in a scholarly article by Nadezhda Nezhdanova, Candidate of Philology, and associate professor at the Department of Literature and Folklore at Kurgan State University. She noted that the "idea of movement without a defined destination constitutes an archetypal concept in Russian consciousness", and its essence lies in "the notion of the intrinsic value of movement, not the destination". The semantics of the word "road" in Russian rock poetry represents an antinomy to "rest, stagnation, sleep, and desolation." It embodies "the free movement of the subject in time and space, the unpredictability of transitions and associations", and serves as a recurring motif in rock poetry. The road often takes on the meaning of confession and is interpreted as a metaphysical path.
Candidate of Philology and associate professor at the Department of Russian Language and Literature at Amur State University of Humanities and Pedagogy, Ivan Avdeenko, in the Road chapter of his monograph Spatial Symbols of Russian Rock Poetry (2014), attempted to define the semantic content of the road symbol in Russian rock poetry. According to him, it represents the earthly journey of the human soul, combining the "spiritual and material worlds". On this path, a person experiences torments as the physical difficulties that reflect the complexity of life. Avdeenko emphasized the importance of spirituality in relation to the road in rock poetry, a quality absent in Russian chanson. In his monograph, he clarified the meaning of "road" in rock poetry: the path is iterative, "from one step or action to the next". Avdeenko wrote: "The road is largely abstract, visible but intangible, and contradictory in its essence: it offers opportunities yet restricts, controls, and confines. Nevertheless, a person is drawn to the roadas the very movement of life, even without the ability to identify the road as their own".
In a later article, Content analysis of rock poetry texts in describing the symbols path and road (2021), Avdeenko contrasted these two symbols. He noted their similarities in cross-association and shared contextual meanings, including "their extension relative to the starting point, the stepwise and staged nature of movement, and the combination of possibilities and limitations". However, the differences between the two symbols in rock poetry typically relate to opposing attitudes toward various worldview categories. Concepts such as "certainty, controllability, repeatability, standardization, and practicality" are characteristic of the "road" symbol, while "uncertainty, independence, uniqueness, alternativeness, and spirituality" are associated with the "path" symbol.
Song's creation
The primary work on creating the song Doroga took place during Auktyon's tour in Germany.Anton Chernin clarified tha after the album was recorded, Fyodorov translated the song in Hamburg and re-recorded the vocals there. The song's composer, Leonid Fyodorov, recounted that it was a pleasant summer, the musicians stayed in Hamburg for a week, housed in private apartments, as they were invited to tour by a Danish taxi company run by former hippies. The band members lived separately, with Fyodorov staying with drummer Boris Shaveynikov and keyboardist and lyricist Dmitry Ozersky at the apartment of two women. With few concerts scheduled, the musicians had ample free time. Fyodorov recalled stepping out for a walk or shopping, describing the area as a "jouful, commuter neighborhood with bars and stuff like that". Upon returning, he told Ozersky about a new melody that had come to him. In two hours, Fyodorov and Ozersky drafted the song's lyrical framework, finalizing it two months later upon returning home. In this interview, Fyodorov described the songwriting process as quick, dating it to 1992 or 1993. Former Auktyon member Evgeny Dyatlov, who continued to follow the band's projects after leaving, recalled visiting Fyodorov in Saint Petersburg in 1993 when Fyodorov was "sitting in the kitchen composing Doroga". Fyodorov played the melody for Dyatlov, who later remarked that he knew immediately it would be a hit.
Fyodorov provided a different account of the song's creation in a March 1995 interview with Rock-Fuzz. He stated that during the year-long work on the album Ptitsa, the band members frequently argued, pushing the group to the brink of dissolution, and were dissatisfied with both themselves and their creative output. Fyodorov described Doroga as the only song from the album that required additional mixing in France, an event the interviewing journalist dated to late spring 1994.
Recordings
The song Doroga (with a duration of 3:43 due to the guitar intro) was included in the 1993 album Ptitsa, released in Germany. The album featured 11 tracks and was released by the record label Dyadyushka RecordsRock music historian Andrey Burlaka wrote in the first volume of Rock Encyclopedia. Popular Music in Leningrad that this label was created by Auktyon and their German manager Christoph Carsten. in vinyl format. Doroga appears on the album's Good Side (Dobraya Storona), with the second half of the songs recorded on the Evil Side (Zlaya Storona). The album was recorded at SNC Studio in Moscow (sound engineer: Sergey Dolgov, with assistance from Alexander Martisov and Mikhail Rappoport). Doroga was mixed at Altona Ton Studio in Hamburg. The song also appeared in the Ptitsa album released on audio cassette (11 tracks, Euro Records label, catalog no. 141, unofficial release, duration 3:17). It was included in the Ptitsa album released on CD in 1994 by TAU Produkt (11 tracks, TAU 00067, duration 3:30). By July 2023, Discogs listed 17 editions of the album by various labels (Euro Style, Manchester Files, Moroz Records, Misteriya Zvuka, Geometriya, Mirumir, and Western Thunder Records), all including Doroga.
In 1993, Dyadyushka Records also released two shortened versions of the Ptitsa album, containing only four songs, including Doroga (duration 3:31), but excluding the title track Ptitsa. The shortened album included It's not too late (Eshche ne pozdno), My love (Moya lyubov), and All spins around (Vsyo vertitsya).
In 2001, Auktyon, in collaboration with Misteriya Zvuka, released three editions of the album Doroga (MZ-041-4, MZ-041-2, MZ-041-9), where the song was the closing track. The song Doroga also appears in other Auktyon albums, including the self-titled album Auktyon, where it is the penultimate track (SNC Records, released on CD in 1995, SNC5053).Российская дискографическая энциклопедия. М.: Информация, публикация, связь, 1996. V. 1. Все диски России 1988—1996 годы. P. 117.
When asked why the Ptitsa CD exists in two different designs, Leonid Fyodorov explained to Dmitry Ivanishin that it was due to financial constraints: the initial Russian release had poor artwork by Kirill Kuvyrdin. "The second disc we released ourselves with our own design in Germany. It has a slightly different master, and one song —Doroga— was re-sung and re-mixed", Fyodorov stated.
The recording of the song included in the album featured: