Moscow Nights



"Moscow Nights" (Подмосковные вечера) is a Russian song, one of those best known outside its homeland.

The song was originally created as "Leningradskie Vechera" ("Leningrad Nights") by composer Vasily Solovyov-Sedoi and poet Mikhail Matusovsky in 1955 (when both had well-established careers), but at the request of the Soviet Ministry of Culture, the "Подмосковные вечера" (transliterated as "Podmoskovnye Vechera"; more or less "Evenings in the Moscow Suburb") version was prepared, with corresponding changes to the lyrics.

In 1956, Podmoskovnye Vechera was recorded by Vladimir Troshin, a young actor of the Moscow Art Theatre, for a documentary about the athletic competition Spartakiad of the Peoples of the RSFSR, for a scene where the participants rest in Podmoskovye, the Moscow suburbs. It went little noticed in the context of the film, but gained considerably popularity thanks to radio broadcasts.

In 1957, the song won both the international song contest and the first prize at the 6th World Festival of Youth and Students held in Moscow, quite to the surprise of its creators. The song spread around the world, achieving particular popularity in mainland China; Van Cliburn's 1958 piano performance of the tune contributed to this international spread.

The British jazz group, Kenny Ball and his Jazzmen, had a hit with the song in 1961 under the title "Midnight in Moscow". This version peaked at number two on the UK Singles Chart in January 1962 and also reached number two on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 chart in March that year, while it spent three weeks at number one on the American Easy Listening chart.

In 1962 at the height of the folk revival in the United States, the song was recorded by The Chad Mitchell Trio on their popular live performance album At The Bitter End on Kapp Records. The group were "one of the top singing attractions on the campus and club folk circuit" and introduced the song with its original Russian lyrics to the American mainstream audience during the Cold War era of strained relations between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R.

In the Soviet Union, the tune became the time signal sounded every 30 minutes on the Mayak music and news radio station in 1964.

The shortwave radio station Radio Moscow's English-language service has played an instrumental version of "Moscow Nights", between informing listeners of frequency changes and the hourly newscast since the start of its 24-hour English Service in 1978.

In 1999 German heavy metal band U.D.O used Moscow Nights for the guitar solo in the song "Shout it Out" from the album Holy.

The Chinese composer Gao Ping used the song in 2003 as the basis for one of his Soviet Love Songs for Vocalising Pianist, "Evenings in Suburban Moscow." By his use, he was confirming the popularity of the song during the Communist era of China, a time when cultural exchanges between the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China were particularly strong.

A special piano version was used to accompany the ribbon routine of Russian rhythmic gymnast Evgeniya Kanaeva who became an Olympic champion at the Beijing 2008 Summer Olympics.

The Russian pop singer Vitas recorded a version of the song with his counter-tenor voice. He performed it at several Chinese festivals before its release in November 2010.

The song was used in a folk style combined with Katusha in a medley in 2012 by Uzbek rhythmic gymnast Ulyana Trofimova for her ball routine and in 2014 for Russian rhythmic gymnast Yana Kudryavtseva in her clubs routine.

The lyrics were shown on 9 March 2017, in Cyrillic script, as the vanity card of The Big Bang Theory episode "The Escape Hatch Identification" (Season 10 Episode 18).

Other sources

 * Yevgeniy Dolmatovsky, "Tales about Your Songs", Moscow, Detskaya Literatura, 1973. Долматовский Е. Рассказы о твоих песнях.- М.: Детская литература, 1973.