“Kalinka,” the most famous Russian folk song, may hav eexisted well before the Soviet Union’s Red Army Choir, for generations of those who lived under Soviet rule they may as well have been one and the same.
Let’s start our time in Russia with an icon. Kalinka is a mid-19th century Russian song that has had multiple lives: as a pre-Soviet standard, an officially sanctioned autocratic Soviet-era folk anthem, a post-Soviet elctro-pop hit and, not at all least, the soundtrack for “Tetris.” It has also become an internationally popular folk dance that you may recognize from a wedding, bar mitzvah or random late night college party. This version, by the ensemble formerly-known-as the Red Army Choir, is the mother lode.
