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Our Kalinka is Kickin’

If you know one traditional Russian folk dance, you probably know the Preesyadka.

We recently met “Kalinka,” the iconic Russian folk song that is usually accompanied by “Preesyadka,” an acrobatic squat and bouncing dance. The little kiddos reeeeeeally enjoy dancing to Kalinka in class, singing about the pine tree and the snowberry and kicking our legs up in the air. Maybe we’re not technically impressive, but what we lack in all skill we make up in the unnatural ability to look silly without feeling embarrassed.

Kalinka thanks the Red Army

“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.