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My name is Larissa. I’m Russian and I’m from the Urals originally which is North East from Moscow. Let’s say, it’s just before Siberia starts.
The song which I used to sing to my daughter a long time ago, is not a lullaby but a song which could be used for a lullaby because it’s a very slow and monotonous but the context is the major attraction to me. It’s a dialogue between a peasant woman and a soldier who was fighting against the French at the beginning of the 19th century fighting during the Russian French war.
They met each other while he was fighting not far from the village where she was from - and they fell in love. His military unit is moving away from the village, and she’s saying to him: ‘Please take me with you and I’ll be your wife wherever you will go’. He says, ‘I’m sorry. I love you very much but I’ve got a wife,’ and so she says, ‘Please take me with you and I’ll be your sister.’ And he says, ‘I’m sorry, I love you very much, but I have a sister.’ And she says to him, ‘Please take me with you. I will be a stranger’ to which he replies, ‘Well I’m sorry, I love you very much but I don’t need a stranger.’
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