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Thursday, January 3, 2008

I had a very Russian New Year...in Mongolistan!

At the stroke of midnight-celebrating!
Filipino cover band, at Strings, in Ulaanbaatar, MONGOLIA!
My friends and I decided to go to Strings, a club in UB for New Years Eve. We had contortionists, clowns, and a Filipino cover band for entertainment. I should say, it was a mostly Filipino cover band, as the bass player was from Colombia. The most interesting part for me (aside from the dancing and drinking I did) was the amount of Russians and/or Russian speakers at the club. Every person who talked to me started in Russian, and then stared at me blankly when I responded in Mongolian telling them I didn't speak Russian. I guess we were all making assumptions. As it turns out, most of the people I was befriending were in fact Russian Buryats. Buryats are a Mongolian tribe that are mainly concentrated in, or around Ulan Ude in Russia. A few of the encounters were awkward as Buryats are ethnically Mongolian, so I was speaking to them and get really weird looks back. There were some Mongolian Buryats there to bridge the gap, but it was funny to be talking to someone, assuming you have some shared language, only to find out that you don't. All in all it was a fun New Years party. My new Moldovan-American friend actually won a bottle of champagne in the raffle (see video below).
So I have 2 videos for you. The first is the Filipino band appeasing the majority Russian crowd by playing this Russian pop song that I hear everyday. They even invited a Russian lady on stage to sing with them. Sorry I don't know who sings this song, maybe my Russian friends can fill in the blank here...

The next video is "Edgardo Elegante" accepting his award!

Happy 2008 Everyone!

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

That song is by Ulya Savicheva- Esli v serdce jivet lubov. She was in Mongolia last month for a show. It's from that TV show with the plain girl who turns into a beautiful girl and all of the guys fall in love with her. Geez Annie, don't you anything about Russian music???

Ulaana said...

Leah, you are the smartest Ruski-musicologist, ever!

Azamat said...

Ulaana, it is so Kyrgyz, Central Asian for that matter. Happy New Year!

JPRiordan Bagram said...

Should have listened to your wise older bro and studied Ruski in your spare time! Slacker. Love you Rear. JPR

Ulaana said...

HA! I guess I had a pan Central Asian New Years then! This Mongolian language is gonna save my life when the Mongols reclaim their territory!