Terribly Far

This is the premiere of Terribly Far, a new program by Lyudmila Savitskaya.

We will talk about what is happening to people who are terribly far from Moscow and St. Petersburg. Who are terribly far from the congresses, conferences and conflicts of opposition leaders. Who are terribly far even from popular YouTube channels and shows. Who are also terribly far even from Telegram.

Why does this matter? It matters because otherwise we won’t understand how the country got to this point and why some Russians volunteer to fight in the war.

In this episode, you’ll learn what worries Russians more than Prigozhin’s rebellion, why the Baltic Sea in Kaliningrad is becoming bloody, in which city it is easiest to encounter wild bears on the streets, and the job you have to land to make a dream salary of 8,000 rubles [approx. 80 euros] a month.

00:10 Why this program is needed

02:05 “We support the president, but where is the water?!” On Prigozhin and the water in Kostroma

06:06 There is no money to pay mail carriers in Buryatia

09:26 People in Kaliningrad are trying to save the Baltic Sea from pig’s blood

12:44 People in Tomsk are fleeing from bears on the streets

15:20 Taxis in Penza risk sinking underwater even after a normal rain shower

16:18 Why all this matters even in wartime

Subscribe to our channel, where we talk about the problems of ordinary people. And if you live beyond the Moscow Ring Road and are facing trouble right now, write to us at:

strashnodaleki@gmail.com

We will definitely tell our viewers about it. Because we do care.

Source: “Terribly Far No. 1: Pigs vs. People | Prigozhin and Hot Water | Bears on the Streets,” Open Media (YouTube), 7 July 2023. In Russian, with Russian captions. Annotation translated by the Russian Reader

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The Usvyaty District of the Pskov Region belongs to the ethnographic area known as Poozerye (Lakeland). There used to be many folk musicians there, the most famous of whom was the singer Olga Sergeeva (1922-2002).

Ekaterina Trusova (maiden name Kozintseva, tracks 1-7) is a garmon (Russian button accordeon) player living in Usvyaty. She was recorded at the Usvyaty House of Culture on December 12, 2021.

The other two musicians featured on this album belong to a previous generation and were recorded by Ekaterina herself in the 1990s on a home cassette tape recorder. The cassettes were digitized by Alexander Yuminov (KAMA Records) in 2022.

Sofya Rubisova (tracks 8-13) is a folk singer from the village of Sterevnevo, Usvyaty District.

Dmitry Kozintsev (tracks 14-17) is Ekaterina’s father, a garmon player from the village of Pysi. Unfortunately, the recordings of him are of poor quality, as the tape in the cassette turned upside down. But we still decided to include them in the album.

Another album from the area, from the village of Tserkovishchi, can be found here.

Source: Antonovka Records (Bandcamp), 8 July 2023. I’ve lightly edited the original annotation to make it more readable. ||| TRR

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Branded “foreign agent,” Yaroslavl media outlet announces closure

YARNOVOSTI announced it was suspending its work on July 7. The publication had been running for over ten years. It covered the inhabitants of Yaroslavl, corruption, problems with public amenities, and politics.

In June, the Justice Ministry had declared YARNOVOSTI a “foreign agent.” None of its employees agreed to work under this label. The editors said that during its entire existence it had not received “a kopeck” of foreign funding.

“Of course, we expected to continue working, but, as Vladimir Putin said, nothing lasts forever. We are still getting to the bottom of what happened on June 2: we have made all possible and even impossible inquiries, and have drawn up the paperwork for the court,” the media outlet’s editorial team wrote.

Source: 7 x 7 (Telegram), 7 July 2023. Translated by the Russian Reader. As of this writing, YARNOVOSTI seems to have shut down its website, but its page on VKontakte is still functioning. In its latest post there, published on 7 July 2023, it informed readers of the decision to suspend its work.

Erzyan Morot: Fiddle Tunes from Erzya Mordva Villages of Samara Province

78th release from Antonovka Records

Armas Otto Väisänen (1890-1969) was a famous Finnish ethnomusicologist and ethnographer.

In 1914, when his native Finland was still part of the Russian Empire, he traveled around Samara province and recorded music of traditional fiddlers from local Erzya Mordva villages on wax cylinders. These recordings have been preserved in the Finnish archives.

The album Erzyan Morot (“Erzyan Melodies”) presents those tunes played by modern Russian fiddlers as close to the original as possible .

The number in the brackets after each melody is its number in the collection Mordwinische Melodien (“Mordovian Melodies”, Helsinki, 1948) compiled by Väisänen.

Performers:
Sofia Balueva (tracks 1-4), recorded August 14, 2021 in St. Petersburg
Sofia Fayzrakhmanova (tracks 5-10), recorded at the same place
Tatyana Yamberdova (track 11), recorded on October 23, 2021 in the town of Velikiye Luki

The idea of the project by Ksenia Goncharova and Andrey Davydov.

Source: Antonovka Records, Facebook, 25 November 2022

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Armas Otto Aapo Väisänen (9 April 1890 – 18 July 1969) was an eminent Finnish scholar of folk music, an ethnographer and ethnomusicologist.

Väisänen was born in Savonranta. In the early twentieth century he documented, in recordings and photographs, traditional Finnish music and musicians. With a scholarship from the Finno-Ugrian Society Väisänen traveled to Russia in 1914 to collect Finnish folk melodies. He made field trips to Mordovia, Ingria, Veps, Russian Karelia. His activities also marked the a new stage in the history of collecting Seto folk songs in Southern Estonia. After the first trip in 1912 he made 6 field trips to Estonia between 1912 and 1923.

A. O. Väisänen’s dissertation was presented in 1939 on Ob-Ugrian folk music in German: Untersuchungen über die Ob-ugrischen Melodien: eine vergleichende Studien nebst methodischer Einleitung.

Between 1926 and 1957 Väisänen hold the position of the head of the folk music department at the Sibelius Academy, Helsinki, Finland. He was the professor of musicology at University of Helsinki from 1956 to 1959. He died in Helsinki, aged 79.

Source: Wikipedia

A Nu-Ka Babushki: Tserkovishche (Russian Songs from Pskov Region)

72nd release from Antonovka Records

The village of Tserkovische is known as the place where the famous folk singer Olga Sergeeva lived the most of her life. Here she sang the songs included by Andrei Tarkovsky in his film “Nostalgia” and called by him “the sign of the Russian”.

Our album is released in 2022, the year of the centenary of the birth of Olga Sergeeva and the ninetieth birthday of Andrei Tarkovsky.

A Nu-Ka Babushki (meaning “Come On, Grandmas”) Ensemble consists of fellow villagers of the celebrated singer. The age of the participants ranges from 60 to 90 years, which makes them, on average, the next generation after her.

Song genres: wedding (1-5), lyrical (6, 7, 9, 14), harvesting (, Maslenitsa (Winter Carnival — 10, 11), dancing (12), wedding/dancing (13), table (15), folk romance (16), Kupala (St. John’s Day — 17), modern (18), witty ditties (19-22).

A Nu-Ka Babushki Ensemble, from left to right on the album cover photo:
Anna Ivanova: vocals (1-15, 17-22)
Anna Karpenko: vocals (1-15, 17-18)
Valentina Poleshchenko: vocals (1-22)
Irina Malysheva (manager): vocals (1-15, 17-18)

Session musicians:

Ivan Strutinsky: button accordion (19, 21, 22)
Polina Gotsmanova: fiddle (20)

Thanks to all performers, Ksenia Goncharova, Dmitry Solomin.

Source: Antonovka Records, Facebook, 26 April 2022. Embedded recording courtesy of the Antonovka Records Bandcamp page