Вальс тридцать седьмого года [Val's tridtsat' sed'mogo goda] [English translation]

1

Music has spilled to me like a dark-blue rain,

Onto the road by Neglinka 2

Please, don't take off the gramophone record, I'm begging you,

We used to dance this waltz in year 1937.

Snowstorm is reeling in three beats,3,

A gun bolt is pulled back and released in three beats,

I'm forgetting… This happened to someone else,

A bonfire is dying out in the night in three beats.

Ancient waltz takes my shoulders and embraces me,

My callous hands remember everything:

They remember the warm juniper evening

Filled with the music of our love.

The waltz of separation carries letters all over the country,

Unfortunately, they don't have the return address.

And our thoughts are floating all over the world,

And the waltz of hope is floating across all the prison camps.

Music has spilled to me like a dark-blue rain,

Onto the road by Neglinka

Please, don't take off the gramophone record, I'm begging you,

We used to dance this waltz in year 1937.

1. sung by a prisoner2. i.e. Neglinnaya River, left tributary of Moskva River in Moscow3. as if in a waltz