Yesterday night we were watching Eurovision 2007 song contest final. Ukraine was represented by well-known in CIS countries show man - Verka Serduchka. Verka is a stage-name of an actor who plays a bad-educated, utter ignorant lady who originally worked as a train conductor. Verka speaks an illiterate, sometimes, rude language - “surzhik” stands for mixed Ukrainian and Russian languages. The jokes are extremely primitive and not for intellectuals. Most of intelligent people with good taste consider Verka at least as an offensive show to Ukrainian spectators. In spite of this facts, Verka is extremely popular among vast amount of people. I think that it is bright sign of culture crisis on post-soviet Ukraine.
When the final results were summed up, and Verka won 2nd place, I to fell into a snare. Of course, I was happy that Ukrainian singer took 2nd place, but I couldn’t believe that it did Serduchka.
I’m not good at speaking on culture specific problems, so it is enough for this post.
read more: Verka Goes to Helsinki!

For the last two weeks I’ve been listening primarily to an amazing Georgian jazz singer Nino Katamadze. Her performances are just exciting. The music is mix of the classic jazz with ethno-music style. Listening to the clear deep mellow voice is a real pleasure (like a mug of Guiness beer in the Friday’s evening ). Also she improvises very inventive and non-trivial. You can listen to her singing at the official web-site.