Tula has been forging weapons for centuries, She looked like a gun herself — The sound of war metal is heard In the ancient names of its streets:
Chorus:
Kurkova Street, Bayonet Street, Both Powder and Cartridge, Muzzle, Trunk, Arsenal, — Any street is defensive!
The evil hordes tried to break through To the heart of Russia, to Moscow dear; Covering the capital with his chest, They joined the militia one after the other:
Chorus.
We are guards in battle and in work, Our valiant work is renowned everywhere. There are young craftsmen in the new workshops New glory is being forged for the people.
The song "Tula Defense" became the official Tula anthem only in 2001. But even before that, it was a kind of business card of Tula - it was broadcast every morning as the call signs of the regional radio, and it was played at various major city celebrations and holidays.
Tula Defense Academy was created by a poet and composer, whom the whole country knew.
The composer who composed the music for the Tula Defense, Anatoly Novikov, was known in the Soviet Union as the author of the melodies of the songs “Smuglyanka” (1940) and “Eh, Roads” (1946), as well as the “Anthem of Democratic Youth" (1947).
In 1957, the Moscow poet Vladimir Saulovich Guryan, along with composer Anatoly Novikov, became the winner of the international competition for the song "Let's Be Friends", which was eagerly sung by the guests of the 4th World Festival of Youth and Students.
In October 1958, at the invitation of the Tula regional Department of Culture, Vladimir Guryan and Anatoly Novikov came to Tula to write the suite "Tula is My Homeland," which later became the Tula Suite.
It is no coincidence that Tula invited composer Anatoly Novikov. Back in 1940, after the war with the White Russians, he wrote the song "Samovars-Samopals" based on the words of S. Alymov, which glorified Tula gunsmiths and sounded with special force on January 21, 1942 on Central Radio, when the counteroffensive of the Soviet troops began, and the fascists were driven out of Tula and Moscow.
After the war, there was a need for new songs. For three months, poet V. Guryan and composer A. Novikov studied Tula and the glorious history of the city. We wandered the streets, talked to people, listened to Tula legends and melodies. It was then that they first noticed the unusual names of Tula streets – Bayonet, Kurkovaya, Oboronnaya, Arsenalnaya. As a result of intense creative work, ten parts of the suite were created – "Tula Epic", "Ballad of the Tula Communard", "Any Street is defensive", "We are sending a song to India", "Tulitsa", "Lane", "Tula gingerbread", "Green Stick", "Hot Dispute""Let's turn swords into plowshares!" The authors dedicated the suite to the memory of the ardent revolutionary, former chairman of the Tula Gubernatorial Committee Grigory Naumovich Kaminsky.
For the first time, the Tula Choral Chapel performed the suite in the presence of the authors. The artists of the Tula Philharmonic have included individual songs in their repertoire as independent works. Later, the Tula Suite was included in the program of the All-Union Red Banner Alexandrov Song and Dance Ensemble, and was recorded on a record.
However, in the late 60s of the last century, opponents of the Tula Suite appeared, who began to criticize it for being too "militaristic" in nature. For some reason, they began to avoid defense issues. It came to a joke. When in January 1976, the head of state, Leonid Brezhnev, came to Tula, which had become a hero city, to present the Golden Star and visited the famous Tula Arms Factory, all the newspapers wrote that he had visited a machine-building plant. Of course, this clumsy attempt was criticized by Western journalists. And this criticism benefited the song "Tula Defense". She sounded new, fresh and bright.
The state system in the country has changed, but the song has not been forgotten, on the contrary, it was proposed to make the official anthem of the city. The text has undergone some changes only as an anthem. The last verse was removed:
I need to tell some diplomats,
Let them certainly take into account the gentlemen —
Nowadays, every Soviet soldier is being watched.
They stand in an iron formation as always... (Chorus)
In addition, in a later version of the hymn, the last dates of the third verse were changed. Instead of:
There are young craftsmen in the new workshops
New glory is being forged for the people...
Now they are singing in the anthem:
Having raised thousands of new craftsmen,
Obviously, the words had to be changed because there was no need for new workshops – different times, different technologies.
