Aleksandr Galich, "Nomera"

Russian video yesterday, late afternoon--Aleksandr Galich, Nomera, with old film clips of Galich--standing and singing, with guitar, in jacket and tie, later talking with young people, or alone, at a table, smoking thoughtfully, all beginning with a scene at his Russian Orthodox gravesite... And most mysteriously, the ice skaters in Moscow, grainy black-and-white footage, looped in place, in the same way the refrain from the song returns to a telephone number from long in the past--and a whispered invitation to go skating--"tonight, at eight...

- Пять-тринадцать-сорок три, это ты?
Ровно в восемь приходи на каток!

(Five--thirteen--forty-three, is that you?
Right at eight, come to the rink...)

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For the full video: Александр Галич. Номера

(Note: for the image we're indebted to Mandelstam ("Leningrad")--but Galich's song is very much his own--and these things seem to be the property of all Russians...)