Smuglyanka (Смуглянка), song from the film Only «Old Men» Are Going to Battle, soon in the RLC

Smuglyanka (Смуглянка "the girl with swarthy skin", also Смуглянка-Молдаванка Smuglyanka-Moldovanka "the dark Moldovan girl") is a Russian song written in 1940 by Yakov Shvedov (lyrics) and Anatoliy Grigorevich Novikov (music)

It is written in the mood of a Moldovan folk song.

The song was intended as glorifying the girl-partisans of the Russian Civil War. The lyrics tell how the singer met a pretty girl gathering grapes and fell in love with her, but she answers that she is a partisan, and convinces him to join the partisans as well.

Later is was taken as a reference to the then-contemporary Soviet partisans of the Great Patriotic War (WWII).

Smuglyanka was used in the 1973 Soviet film Only «Old Men» Are Going to Battle (В бой идут одни „старики“), an "easy movie about love, airplanes and girls". In the film, a young fighter pilot introduces the song to his squadron and so gets nicknamed "the dark girl". 

The film was first shown on 27 December 1973. Hero of the Soviet Union Alexander Pokryshkin was reportedly wiping his eyes as the lights came back on. The film became a blockbuster, seen by 54 million viewers within five months, and Smuglyanka as a consequence became known throughout the Soviet Union, entering the standard repertoire of Russian folk songs.

The full text of the song.

Как-то летом на рассвете

Заглянул в соседний сад,
Там смуглянка-молдаванка
Собирает виноград.
Я краснею, я бледнею,
Захотелось вдруг сказать:
"Станем над рекою
Зорьки летние встречать".

Припев:
Раскудрявый клен зеленый, лист резной,
Я влюбленный и смущенный пред тобой,
Клен зеленый, да клен кудрявый,
Да раскудрявый, резной!

А смуглянка-молдаванка
Отвечала парню в лад:
"Партизанский молдаванский
Собираем мы отряд.
Нынче рано партизаны
Дом покинули родной,—
Ждет тебя дорога
К партизанам в лес густой".

Припев:
Раскудрявый клен зеленый, лист резной,
Здесь у клена мы расстанемся с тобой!
Клен зеленый, да клен кудрявый,
Да раскудрявый, резной!

И смуглянка-молдаванка
По тропинке в лес ушла.
В том обиду я увидел,
Что с собой не позвала.
О смуглянке-молдаванке
Часто думал по ночам...
Вдруг свою смуглянку
Я в отряде повстречал!

Припев:
Раскудрявый клен зеленый, лист резной,
Здравствуй, парень, мой хороший, мой
Клен зеленый, да клен кудрявый,
Да раскудрявый. резной!

Few years ago the popular radio station 'Our radio' organised a New Year concert where many rock and rock'n'roll stars of Russian music sang old songs. So 'Smuglyanka' was renewed by Moldovian group Zdob si Zdub 

The information is taken from the Wikipedia and from the web-site about Leonyd Bykov

'Amazing May', the 8 of May, Only «Old Men» Are Going to Battle

Only Old Men Are Going to Battle (В бой идут одни «старики») is a 1973 Soviet film about World War II fighter pilots, written and directed by Leonid Bykov, who also played the lead role as the squadron commander. The story is based on the memoirs of Russian fighter ace Vitaly Popkov.

The title comes from two scenes in the film, where the squadron is facing very hard dogfights with German fighter planes, so only "old men" (i.e. veterans) are sent up, while those fresh from flying school have to wait on the ground together with the mechanics. Soon, of course, the newcomers have replaced most of those veterans and have become "old men" themselves, taking to the skies while a new group of newcomers wait on the ground with the mechanics...

The film won the first prize in the 7th All-Union Film Festival in Baku in 1974.

Screenplay by Leonid Bykov, Yevgeni Onopriyenko and Aleksandr Satsky.

In 2009 a colorized version was released for TV and DVD, which resulted in a legal battle in Ukrainian courts between the copyright owners, Leonid Bykov's daughter and Ukrainian Dovzhenko Film Studios, and the company behind the colorization, as the copyright owners claim that the colorization has been done against the wishes of Bykov, who intentionally chose to do the film in black and white, in order to match newly shot scenes with the newsreel material in the film. In May 2011, the District Court of Kiev ruled that the colorization was a breach of copyright and that the colorized version can't be showed or rented in Ukraine.

Cast

  Leonid Bykov - "Maestro" Titarenko, commander of the 2nd "Singing" squadron

  Sergey Podhornyi - "Darkie", fighter pilot

  Sergei Ivanov - "Grasshopper", fighter pilot

Famous quotations from the film

... Арфы нет, возьмите бубен. /Титаренко/

... Макарыч, принимай аппарат! Во! Махнул не глядя!... И в тот же миг влюбленное созданье, включив форсаж, умчалось на свиданье. /Кузнечик/

... Как сказал Шекспир в восемнадцатом... нет, в девятнадцатом сонете: "Гуляй, Вася!" /Зоя/

... Тебя я понял, умолкаю! Не то по шее получу и подвиг свой не совершу! /Кузнечик/

... Пилотом можешь ты не быть, летать научим все равно, но музыкантом быть обязан. /Титаренко/

- Ну как у тебя там? Как у тебя там, Маэстро?
- Нормально... Падаю... /Комдив - Титаренко/

... Не махни на танк, "не глядя"... /Комдив/

... Самое тяжелое в нашей работе - ждать... /Макарыч/

... Нет, это ты хорошо придумал, гм... Самое главное - вовремя... /Титаренко/

...Будем жить! /Скворцов/

A thing that became greatly famous after this film is a song ‘Smuglyanka’ which is sang in the film. Read the next post about it.

You may watch this film in our Russian cinema club. The screening will take place a day before the Victory Day, on the 8th of May in the Russian language center, at 7 pm

Admission is free, however please contact us in advance to reserve a seat ( 2598 8389 2598 8389 or 2teacher@rlc.hk).
The screening will take place at the following address: Room 701, 7/F, Arion Commercial Centre, No. 2-12 Queen's Road West, Sheung Wan.

the information is taken from the Wikipedia 

the quotations and the photos are taken from the web-site dedicated to Leonyd Bykov

St. George's Ribbon campaign started!

St. George's Ribbon campaign started! You can get your St. George's Ribbon from the Russian Language Center or the Consulate General of the Russian Federation. Learn more about this campaign in the article below.


Apr 23, 2012 11:15 Moscow Time

A traditional St. George Ribbon campaign has been launched all over Russia ahead of the May 9 Victory Day celebrations.

The residents of the island of Sakhalin in Russia’s Far East are the first Russian citizens to wear the ribbons.

Since early morning 50,000 ribbons have been handed out there.

These days the motto of the campaign: “I remember, I am proud” can be heard not only in Russia. St. George Ribbons have been dispatched to 92 countries.

They will be handed out in the streets till the Victory Day which is celebrated on May 9.

The first St. George Ribbon campaign was held in 2005, the year of the 60th anniversary of the Victory over Nazism becoming a sincere gesture of respect and gratefulness to the veterans of the Second World War.

(TASS, RIAN)

источник

Amazing May in the Russian cinema club

I've got an idea: what if we could..." -- "We couldn't." -- "I see... Then, maybe we should..." -- "No, we shouldn't." -- "Okay... In that case, maybe I'd rather..." -- "Why not, you could try that one." (The Diamond Arm (Бриллиантовая рука))

_________________________________________________________

Dear friends!

We invite you to the ‘Amazing May’ in the Russian cinema club!

Every Tuesday in May come and watch the funniest comedies and the sincerest films, let’s make this May amazing  

All films run with English subtitles

All films start at 7pm

May, 8 – To the Victory Day: Only Old Men Are Going to Battle (В бой идут одни «старики»)

May, 15 - The Diamond Arm (Бриллиантовая рука)

May, 22 – Kidnapping, Caucasian style or A she-prisoner of the Caucasus (Кавказская пленница)

May, 29 - Ivan Vasilievich Changes Profession (Иван Васильевич  меняет профессию)

Read more about the films in the attached file or in our blog http://govorim-po-russki.blogspot.com

Admission is free, however please contact us in advance to reserve a seat (            2598 8389                  2598 8389       or 2teacher@rlc.hk).

The screening will take place at the following address: Room 701, 7/F, Arion Commercial Centre, No. 2-12 Queen's Road West, Sheung Wan.

Samara

Samara (Самара) is the sixth largest city in Russia. It is situated in the southeastern part of European Russia at the confluence of the Volga and Samara Rivers on the east bank of the Volga. 

see on the map 
source 

From Russia with love

Lana, a design blogger from the amazing city of Cape Town, South Africa is writing s blog dedicated to all things beautiful and inspiring.


She has an interesting post about Russia


Why Russia, you ask, have I even been there? No... but a good friend of mine, Bronwyn, recently got back from an inspiring trip there and her photos were just amazing! Everything is so different to here, the architecture, the culture, the fashion, the people, I thought you'd enjoy doing a little armchair travel with me.

More at her blog

Spring ...

by Vladimir Vasiliev 

Moscow from old poscards

Chudov monastery

The Chudov Monastery (Чу́дов монасты́рь) (more formally known as Alexius’ Archangel Michael Monastery) was founded in the Moscow Kremlin in 1358 by Metropolitan Alexius of Moscow. Themonastery was dedicated to the miracle (chudo in Russian) of the Archangel Michael at Chonae. The Monastery was closed in 1918, and dismantled in 1929.


View of the Kremlin, Levinson Co (c)

The chapel of Virgin Mary Iverskaya, Kushnerev and Co (c)

Next few photos are taken from the album of the old photos collectioner Nicholay Naidenov. All photos below show Moscow of the year 1891

Okhotniy Riad

Kitay-gorod, the monument to the heroes of Plevna

Kuznetskiy most, view from Rozhdestvenka street

source - community 'Photos of tsar's Moscow'

Useful links. On-line dictionaries

We decided to share some useful links with you in order to make the process of learning Russian a little bit easier. Let's start from dictionaries!

• multitran,  multilanguage on-line dictionary
• explanatory Dictionary of the Living Great Russian Language, the dictionary by Vladimir Dal - famous great collection of Russia words
• explanatory dictionary by S.Ozhegov and N.Shvedova, one more famous Russian-Russian dictionary
• slovesa - dictionary of associations (Russian)
• gramota – all about norms and rules of Russian language (Russian)
• slovopedia - collection of Rusian-Russian dictionaries 
• dictionary of epithets  - it helps to choose an appropriate 'pair' for a required word to create a good word combination
• dictionary of stress - check up if you pronounce the word correctly
• Russian-English dictionary of idioms 
• English-Russian financial dictionary
• English-Russian dictionary of idioms, proverbs and sayings  

Easter holidays, family and country traditions. Photo-report

Happy Easter! This is a phrase that we may repeat every day this week and next 40 days.
WE already discussed the traditions for Easter, what and how to prepare and to cook,

Now let's see some results!



Painted eggs and kulich

by talented designer and photographer Oksana Podgorodetskaya aka vinsa and her family (Moscow)

Easter baskets and kulich

by Russians from Hong Kong (photo by Kira Pozdnyaeva)

The eggs from the festival 'Living Art' ("Живое искусство") in Moscow in Lavrushincky pereulok, near  the Tretyakov Art Gallery

  

more photos from the festival

Shall we learn Russian? New courses of Russian language in Hong Kong

The Russian Language Center offers NEW COURSES, starting after Easter holidays

For further information please visit the official web-site of the RLC www.rlc.edu.hk

We also remind you that you may learn Russian on-line by Skype with the teachers of the Russian Language Center WHEREVER and WHEN is convenient for you

Happy Easter! Christos Voskrese!

Today the Orthodox world celebrates Easter. In Russia the priest says 'Christos  Voskrese', all people answer 'Voistinu Voskrese', which means 'Christ is risen' - 'Truly is risen'

And here is an Easter basket of Easter 2012 from Kira Pozdnyaeva (Hong Kong)

Христос Воскресе! 

基督复活了 

Kristus nousi kuolleista! 

Le Christ est ressuscité! 

Christ is Risen!

Preparing for Easter. Decorating eggs, creative ideas

We continue speaking about the ways to decorate the eggs for Easter. Now let's see some hand-made variants

1. LACE and ELASTIC band (by Anna Golub).

  First cook hard-boiled eggs.

  Then mix 4 tablespoons of vinegar with 12 drops of blue food dye, and 2 cups of hot boiled water.
  Wrap the egg with lace cloth and fix it with elastic lace on the egg.
  Using a spoon, dip the egg into the vinegar first, then into the dye.
  Allow the eggs to dry.

 

2. Using punch and coloured paper (by Anna Golub)

3. Leaf pattern (by the member of the community)

For this method of dyeing eggs we need various leaves (parsley, coriander, basil), the old nylon stockings, thread, and onion peel (for the main colour). 

Fix leaves with a piece of nylon, carefully remove after coloring.

4. Decorate Easter eggs with beads and strass (from the member of the community).

Glue strips of double-sided tape to the egg. Sprinkle with colored sand for needlework. Shake off extra sand. 

Glue the tape for the stripes of another color. Sprinkle with sand, shake off extra sand.
Put a layer of the acrylic lacquer spray to the egg.
 

Instead of colored sand you can take beads or strass. Glue them with silicate glue randomly or make a particular pattern. The easiest way to draw stripes, crosses and flowers. 

Preparing for Easter. Decorating eggs, natural colours

You all may already know that in Russia we also are fond of decorated or painted eggs for Easter. We cook and decorate them in advance, then bless in the church and after that eat, give as present or 'play' with it. You may read about this traditions and about the history of the 'Easter egg' in one of our older posts.

In Russia Easter eggs were put over fresh green oats, wheat, and sometimes pale green tiny leaves of watercress, which are specially pre-germinated for a holiday.

As was the custom to keep the eggs during the whole year until next Easter, later eggs were made of wood and painted with ornaments and designs. Also there appeared  eggs made of porcelain, silver and precious stones.

Today I will show you the ways you may decorate the eggs. The ideas are taken from very nice community 'Leisure of orthodox children' and from the web-site www.kuking.net

1. The most traditional way is to paint them with onion peel

Collect the peel in advance. Depending on the color of peel the color of eggs may vary from light red to dark brown. If you want the color was more saturated, you must take more peel, and boil it for half an hour before you put the egg into the 'broth'. Almost purple colour for eggs is obtained from the peel of red onion.

In order that the eggs do not burst during cooking,  hold it for an hour in  a warm place; when boiling in the water add a tablespoon of salt.

2. Some other natural colours for the eggs

 gilding
 Add to hot water 2.3 tbsp turmeric, boil, so that the color was more intense.

  pink
  Soak cooked eggs in beet juice, or cranberry.

  purple
  Add flowers of violets to the hot water and soak overnight. If you add the water a drop of lemon juice, you get the color of lavender.

  green
 boil the eggs with spinach.

  lavender
  Soak eggs in grape juice.

  Umber
  Boil the eggs in 250 ml of coffee.

Easter is coming soon, time to prepare! Cooking 'Paskha'

Happy Easter to all friends who celebrate it today! Easter (or as we call it Paskha - Пасха) for Russians, who are mostly Orthodox Christina, comes next week, on Sunday, the 15th of April.

As for the Easter traditions, you might remember the post about traditions in Russia. You may also refer to the post about the Easter postcards and congratulate your orthodox friends with a beautiful vintage Easter postcard.

Let's see what and how do we cook for this kind spring holiday.

1. Paskha, cottage cheese (tvorog, творог) cake or curd
2. Kulich, or Easter cake
3. Painted eggs

Usually all cooking starts on Thursday. Then on Saturday the food it taken to the church to be blessed. And on Sunday it's time to eat all that!

Let's see how to cook no.1, Paskha

Пасха - Paskha is a kind of curd made of cottage cheese, eggs, sugar etc which is cooked once in a year - only for the fest of Resurrection. It's original shape is cut pyramid, that's representing the Tomb of Christ. Together with other traditional dishes, Paskha is taken to the church on Great Saturday and is blessed. You may eat it when the Great Lent is over, on Sunday - the day of Resurrection.

Indeed there are many ways to cook it as well as to cook the cottage cheese itself, but here is one of the recipes.
the recipe is taken from gotovim-doma

Ingredients

cottage cheese (fat) - 500 g,
Eggs - 2-3 pieces,
sour cream - 200 g,
Powdered sugar - 70-100 g,
butter - 100 g, candied fruit, almonds, raisins

Preparation


Rub Cottage cheese through a sieve or twice through a meat grinder.
Put on a little thick-fire pan and melt the butter in it. When the butter is soft, add cottage cheese and stir until the mixture becomes more liquid. Then add sour cream and mix well carefully. At the very least add the eggs one at a time and stir until smooth mass.

Cook on low curds heat, stirring constantly to avoid burnt. Once the mass begins to boil, remove the pan from the heat and put on ice or in cold water, and stir to cool.
Add powdered sugar and vanilla sugar.

Prepared mass is put into the pasochnitsa (it's a kind of a bowl whith s special shape, that will make the shape of your future cake) which is moisten with water and laid with cotton towel. Fold the edges of cloth, put the oppression on it, and put into a cool place not less than for 12 hours.

When ready, Easter cake is carefully extracted from pasochnitsa, bend the edge of the napkin and put it on a dish. Decorate Easter with candied fruits, raisins and marmalade.

Traditional decorations are letter ХВ, first letters from the phrase Христос Воскресе which means 'Christ is risen'; and three-bar cross


There are many other variants of its taste, like Easter with condensed milk, Easter with almonds and raisins, Easter with pistachios, Easter with cocoa, Easter with pumpkin,  Easter in sweet custard etc