A Fond Farewell to Anna and Igor, from Dick and Jill Miller:
 
In 1989, Jill and I hosted Sergei Baranoff of St. Petersburg, Russia.  
We didn't know that yet, because it was still Leningrad.  We also didn't 
know that his goddaughter, the child of his best friend, was Anna 
Pogosyants, but during that visit we helped bring her to America.
 
Sergei, Jill and I all specialized in Forth programming.  He wanted to 
visit the Artificial Intelligence laboratory at MIT, so we arranged the 
visit and I drove him in.  Cellular Automata Machines were high on his 
list (and he subsequently edited the Russian edition of the classic CAM 
book by Toffoli and Margolus), but so was finding a sponsor for "a most 
deserving student."  Sergei taught at the University of Leningrad and 
also presided over St. Petersburg's high-school "Computer Olympics," so 
he was in a position to know who was deserving.  His mission succeeded; 
a few months later he asked us to keep an eye on his goddaughter, Anna, 
who, with husband Igor Slobodkin, was newly arrived in Boston.  We did, 
and never regretted it.
 
We thought Sergei was too ethical to have chosen his goddaughter instead 
of the most deserving student.  And when I met Anna, I could see that 
she was both.  Over the next years, we shared dinners and good times 
with Anna and Igor at their homes in Boston and then in Cambridge, and 
they were regular guests at our annual backyard Independence Day parties 
by Lake Cochituate in Natick.  We explained the nuances of English and 
of America to them, and they helped us to understand more about Russia.  
And we all enjoyed the outdoors, folksongs, and the guitar.
 
Anna and Igor were delighted that we knew the traditional Russian 
folksong, Stenka Razin, and Igor was astonished to find that we not only 
had an English translation, but that it was quite accurate.  We had to 
present them with a copy (from IOCA Songfest, by Dick and Beth Best, 2nd 
Edition -- 1955), and perhaps that already has travelled to many of you.  
This tune is so famous that many Russians are bored by it.  But if 
you've ever heard Stenka Razin sung by the Red Army Chorus, you'd take 
notice.  We weren't THAT good, but the four of us enjoyed singing it 
together.  Beautiful and harsh images, from a land far, far away.  
Stenka Razin is the song that reminds us most of Anna and Igor, when we 
sing it now.
 
 
  STENKA RAZIN, a Russian folksong
  (The second half of each verse is repeated once.)
  
  From beyond the wooded island,
    To the river wide and free,
  Proudly sail the arrow-breasted
    Ships of Cossack yeomanry.
  
  On the first stands Stenka Razin,
    With his princess by his side.
  Drunken, holds a marriage revel
    With his beauteous young bride.
  
  From behind there comes a murmur,
    "He has left his sword to woo;
  One short night, and Stenka Razin
    Has become a woman too."
  
  Stenka Razin hears the murmur
    Of his discontented band,
  And his lovely Persian princess
    He has circled with his hand.
  
  His dark brows are drawn together
    As the waves of anger rise,
  And the blood comes rushing swiftly
    To his piercing jet-black eyes.
  
  "I will give you all you ask for,
    Head and heart and life and hand."
  And his voice rolls out like thunder,
    Out across the distant land.
  
  "Volga, Volga, Mother Volga,
    Wide and deep beneath the sun,
  You have never such a present
    From the Cossacks of the Don."
  
  "So that peace may reign forever
    In this band so free and brave,
  Volga, Volga, Mother Volga,
    Make this lovely girl a grave."
  
  Now, with one swift mighty motion,
    He has raised his bride on high,
  And has cast her where the waters
    Of the Volga roll and sigh.
  
  Now a silence like the grave sinks
    To all who stand to see,
  And the battle-hardened Cossacks
    Sink to weep on bended knee.
  
  "Dance you fools, and let's be merry,
    What is this that's in your eyes?
  Let us thunder out a chantey
    To the place where beauty lies."
  
  From beyond the wooded island
    To the river wide and free,
  Proudly sail the arrow-breasted
    Ships of Cossack yeomanry.
 
 
Let us thunder out a chantey to the place where beauty lies.
 
--Dick and Jill Miller
--
A. Richard & Jill A. Miller            | MILLER MICROCOMPUTER SERVICES |
e-mail  DMiller@gis.net                | 61 Lake Shore Road            |
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