С днём рождения … меня!
Thank you Olya, for my new Soviet calendar. What better day than my birthday, to read all about the balalaika, на русском языке - and celebrate the birthday in 1723 of proto-Marxist Baron Holbach
Балалайка у русского … как мандолина у итальянца, гитара у испанца, банджо у американского негра..
Old-world style almanacs and miscellanies are all the rage again these days: maybe someone should set about translating one of these in time for 2007.
Soviet nostalgia is just nostalgia for our own past. The fondly remembered artefacts of our own recent past are not so different. The past just lasted a bit longer in the Soviet Union!