Archive for December, 2009

Thanks so much to all of you for your very nice comments and your attention to our web site! Recently, Leonid Kharitonov asked us to wish a Happy New Year to all of his fans and friends and those who admire his creative work! He enjoys hearing from you very much, and we, the web site’s administrators, are interested to know your thoughts and suggestions for our web site as well.

We hope you’ll enjoy this special New Year’s performance of Dark-Eyed Cossack Girl. This song was written especially for Leonid Kharitonov in 1966. This specially made video uses a very rare 1971 audio version of the song.

“Ej, Uhnem!”, (Russian: “Эй, ухнем!”), roughly translates to “Yo, Heave Ho!” This well-known Russian folk song is also known outside of Russia as “The Song of the Volga Boatmen“. The burlaks (boatmen) first appeared in Russia in the late 16th century. A burlak was a hired laborer who walked along the bank of the river as part of a crew, dragging ships against the current with a tow rope. The work was extremely heavy and monotonous. The song became widely known thanks to its performance by the great Russian bass, Fyodor Ivanovich Shalyapin, and has since become a favorite part of the repertoire of many singers and performers, both inside and outside of Russia. The famous painting by Russian artist Ilya Repin, “Burlaks on the Volga” (shown below), was inspired by the song.