Folklore ensemble of the village of Lebskoye in the Arkhangelsk region of Russia

The village of Lebskoye lies on the River Mezen in the Arkhangelsk region in Northern Russia. In 1977 Soviet folklorists Y. Kustovsky and S. Ayvazyan invited the local folklore collective to Moscow and arranged a recording session at the All-Union Recording Studio. In 1978 these songs were published as an LP by the Soviet record company "Melodiya". 13 of the original recordings are stored in the phonoarchive of the Institute of Russian Literature in St. Petersburg.

The LP cover contains no additional information on the ensemble or the songs they are singing. As you can hear, the singers are all elderly women, and both the songs and the manner they are presented in are highly traditional and authentic. My personal favourite is no 12, "I feel awfully sorry for those that aren't here", sang in a sort of "Honkey Tonk Women" fashion.

The little "a" in the catalogue number S20-09875-76(a) reveals that this printing was meant for export. It would be interesting to know, how many copies did they actually print and sell?

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