Celebrity death week went worldwide when the most famous Russian folk singer and the namesake of an asteroid – Lyudmila Zykina died on July 1st, just weeks after her 80th birthday. Even when I was a kid, she seemed old, I was actually surprised that she was only 80, I thought she was eighty in 1976. It’s probably safe to say that there is no person who grew up in the USSR who doesn’t know who she was or couldn’t recognize her distinct voice. She was everywhere – concerts, radio, TV and at that time not exactly someone my generation wanted to listen to, but in a system with 3 TV channels and a few radio stations we got our share of her singing. Seems pretty good now, not so much when I was 10.

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CXg5h_lzG_A

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jFHOO72GoMA