The lyrics to the original USSR national anthem were written by Russian author Sergey Mikhalkov in 1943.

In the fifties, Comrad Nikita deemed the original lyrics a little too fixated on Staline’s awesomeness and ordered them changed. “No problem, never liked the guy in the first place”, Sergey Mikhalkov presumably chirped, while writing a new Staline-free version in 1977.

By the year 2000, Mother Russia, now a lot less communist but still short on funds to compose a new anthem from scratch, went looking for new lyrics again, preferably without mention of the great Lenin illuminating the path to freedom for the Union. A job that Sergey Mikhalkov gladly took, because really, he never cared for that communism stuff and was just in it for the music.

In 2020, when president-for-life Putin finally commissions a new version of the national anthem praising his skills at bear-fighting and bare-chested salmon-fishing, I have a good idea of who will be writing it.