Poems and Songs of Vladimir Vysotsky. Serving the Elements.
Commentary to “A Ballad of the Ship’s Boy”.
The words “the last gentleman of fortune”, which Vladimir Vysotsky wrote about the hero of this ballad, relate not only to the awaited messenger, but also to the poet himself, who was a Christian, but was not a religious man in common sense of this word.
The ballad was written in 1973 for the film “The Sea Gates” (1974).