Dolgaya Schastlivaya Zhizn

Dolgaya Schastlivaya Zhizn (Russian: Долгая Счастливая Жизнь, lit. 'Long Happy Life') is the 21st album by the Russian punk band Grazhdanskaya Oborona. It is the first part of the dilogy "A Long Happy Life/Reanimation". The album was released on September 10, 2004, on Yegor Letov's birthday.

The album cover is a painting by Croatian naive artist Ivan Večenaj called "Napustino Grobje".

The album became the first album after "The Unbearable Lightness of Being" containing the band's own songs. The source of inspiration for the album was Yegor Letov's admission to intensive care. The idea for the new cycle:

This is a state of war. A state of unprecedented passions, a sensual, energetic, spiritual, psychological, physiological, mental nightmare. A kind of war, overcoming existence. An absolutely extreme state.

— Yegor Letov

The album was recorded with a harder sound than the previous Zvezdopad. According to Letov, the sound was made simpler, without musical "delicacies", so as not to complicate the perception of the material.^[1]

In 2004, in an interview with Maxim Semelyak, Letov said that the album's title coincided with the title of the film A Long Happy Life. According to Letov, this could have come "from the subconscious somehow".^[2]

The album was met with great interest by music critics. Most of them reviewed the album positively.

Andrei Bukharin, a columnist for Rolling Stone Russia, compared Grazhdanskaya Oborona to The Doors and called the album a "breakthrough to the other side," describing the new compositions as hymns "oozing with a downright otherworldly light."^[3]

Maxim Semelyak for Afisha gave an enthusiastic assessment of the album: "This album is reminiscent of Letov's the best of, only tailored from completely new and unheard of things" calling it "Art with a capital letter" and "undoubtedly the best Russian album of the year." He described the album's impact as "stunning", particularly noting the composition “Order No. 227,” which, in his opinion, was stronger than "Pryg-skok" (a song from Letov's album of the same name, which he called one of the pinnacles of his creativity).^[3]

Kommersant gave a negative review of the album, criticizing the lyrics and melody of the album, describing the sound of the album as "the sound of antediluvian gadgets, boringly straightforward drum parts and, of course, vocals that evoke associations with singing minced meat" and advised at the end of the review: "…still, if "GO" is not an axiom for you, you need to make one simple move – return the CD to the shelf. <…> You haven't lost anything".^[4]