Coco knew nothing of Nandos until, consequent upon an interest in Southern Rhodesia, he was provoked by an advert for a six pack on YouTube. It is now a private video but you may be one of the few who have been invited to view it, or be able to find a copy of it.
It was not so much the advert that caught Coco’s attention as the music and a dim recollection of it.
It was eventually tracked down to Dorogoi Dlinnoyu a wistful Russian tale of a man or woman looking back over many years as the days close in.
The link to Nandos was quietly forgotten.
Ехали на тройке с бубенцами,
А вдали мелькали огоньки.
Мне б мне, соколики, за Вами,
Душу бы развеять от тоски.
[припев]
Дорогой длинною, да ночью лунною,
Да с песней той, что вдаль летит звеня,
И с той старинною с той семиструнною,
Что по ночам так мучала меня
Так живя без радости, без муки,
Помню я ушедшие года,
И твои серебряные руки
В тройке, улетевшей навсегда
Да, выходит, пели мы за даром
Понапрасну ночь за ночью жгли
Если б мы покончили со старым
Так и ночи эти отошли
Дни бегут, печали умножая,
Мне так трудно прошлое забыть.
Как-нибудь однажды, дорогая,
Вы меня свезете хоронить.
В даль родную новыми путями
Нам отныне ехать суждено
Ехали на тройке с бубенцами
Да теперь проехали давно
They were in a troika with bells riding,
In the distance there were glimm’ring lights.
I’d rather go now with you, my dears ones,
To distract my poor soul from all my grief
[Refrain]
Along a long, long road, and on a moonlit night,
And with that song that flies away with tears,
And with that ancient one with all its seven strings
That tortured me so very much at night.
Living neither with joy nor with torture,
But I do remember the past years
And your silvery hands which held a troika
That flew away with us forever more.
But it turns out that our song was futile,
Burnèd we in vain night in and out.
But now, if we have finished with the old,
Those nights shall flee away from you and me!
The days run on, multiplying sorrows,
It is so hard to forget the past.
Soon, my dear, the day will come of parting
When you must put your hero in the ground
Out into our native land by new paths,
We’d been fated to go until now!
You rode on a troika with its sleigh bells,
But you have long since passed by the last time!
Words: Konstantin Podrevskii and Aleksander Vertinsky
Translation: Stuart Moffatt
Music: Boris Fomin
The copyright of the notation of the music is held by Stuart Moffatt © 2011.
The midi file was produced using Noteworthy Composer.
The mp3 was produced using Myriad software.
A copy is held on ChoralWiki.
Performances of this work by Fomin may be found in many places:
are but a few. The Nando’s version is now a private video, so you may have to look elsewhere for it as Coco suggested above. The quality of some is questionable.