Русское зазеркалье (двуязычная версия)

‘Tenderness’ was composed in 1965. The music was written by Aleksandra Pakhmutova, with lyrics by Nikolay Dobronravov and Sergey Grebennikov. It was originally recorded by Maya Kristalinskaya in 1966 and was covered many times by many female and—surprisingly enough—male artists in the Soviet Union and Russia. The English Wikipedia has a special article on the song—a fact not many Soviet songs can be proud of; you can find the article putting Nezhnost’ into the search field. After less than five minutes of Google search, I have found three different translations of its lyrics into English, all of them being not so bad, although I would agree with Vladimir Zakharov who in his capacity of a professional translator states that even his own translation ‘miserably fails to convey the piercing power of the original lyrics.’ Here is his translation of the first verse, by the way.

Earth is empty when you’re not around;

Minutes flow like hours, and hours like days.

Still, the orchard leaves keep falling down,

And the cabs keep rushing on their ways.

Oh, how empty has the world become without you.

And you, you keep flying, and stars

Share with you all their tenderness . . .

I must note at this point that ‘Tenderness’ was dedicated to all Russian aviators and cosmonauts. We can only guess if it really was Yuri Gagarin’s favourite song as the Wikipedia article claims, but we know for sure that the first astronaut in human history did love it.

I hope I will be able to play a short video with the first performance of this song by Maya Kristalinskaya which Vladimir Zakharov characterises as ‘lyrical, sensuous (but not sensual), breath-taking, and throat-lumping.’ ‘Notice,’ the translator says, ‘how Kristalinskaya, with nothing but her eyes, makes all the underfed and underclothed starlets of our time pale in comparison.’ I absolutely love what he writes.

I could go on and on naming you other famous Soviet artists who have covered the song at various times, including Lyudmila Zykina and Tamara Gverdsiteli—the thing is that you almost certainly would dislike their very stately, very matronly manner. It is worth noting that in contemporary Russia, the song was performed live separately by each of the two female founding members of the Nochniye Snaypery rock band, being Diana Arbenina and Svetlana Surganova, who are also said to be… well, they have never come out as lesbians, so let us please respect their right not to do so. Yet another worthy performance of it is that of Dmitri Hvorostovsky, a Russian opera singer who passed away less than two years ago. Hvorostovsky, accompanied by a symphonic orchestra, unperturbedly sings away the original lyrics without even trying to tell this story from the perspective of a man, and it is precisely his calm and dignified operatic manner, completely devoid of any sensuality, rising above all gender trivialities, that makes his performance so fascinating.