Ukraine - The South

 Next stop on our virtual journey through Ukraine is the industrial city of Zaporizhzhia, famous for having the largest nuclear power station in the country and currently under Russian occupation, which is cause for concern.  

Photo credit: By Ralf1969 - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=7343361

This is where Guitarist Estas Tonne was born in 1975.  He is of Jewish and German ancestry, but now lives a nomadic lifestyle, moving from place to place all around the world performing at concerts, on the streets and at festivals.  He calls himself a modern-day troubadour and is classically trained and plays his own finger-picking style inspired by classical and Roma styles often on a 10-string acoustic guitar.  Here is a tune called The Song of the Golden Dragon, which features on his 2023 album Anthology Vol. III, which is currently available for free on Bandcamp: 

Next we are heading to the Crimean peninsula annexed by Russia in 2014, but internationally still considered a part of Ukraine.  Crimea has a long and complicated history, ruled by many different powers and even enjoying periods of independence.  The original inhabitants of the peninsula were the Crimean Tatars, a Turkic ethnic group with their own language and mostly adhering to Islam.  Throughout the various occupations of the region they were often discriminated against and in 1944 most of them were forcibly removed by Stalin and resettled mostly in Centra Asia.  Once the peninsula became an autonomous region of an independent Ukraine, the local government was very much pro-Russian, understandable in the context of the native population having been mostly evicted and replaced by Russian speakers.

In that context the 2 artists that I have chosen to represent Crimean Tatars were actually not born there.  We start with the 2016 Eurovision Song Contest winner Jamala, whose real name is Susana Jamaladinova.  She was born in 1983 in Kygyzstan to a Crimean Tatar father and an Armenian mother, who were both musical.  In 1989 they did move back to Crimea, where Jamala's musical career started at the age of 9 and where she attended the Simferopol Music College.  She also trained in opera, but sadly decided to make her career in relatively bland pop.  At the supposedly non-political 2016 Eurovision she caused a stir with her song 1944, obviously referring to the year when the Crimean Tatars were forced to leave their homeland by the Soviets.  Apparently she is now 'wanted' by Russia, presumably not to represent them at Eurovision.  Here's the song that gave her international fame:

Jazz guitarist Enver Izmailov is another Crimean Tatar who was born in exile in Uzbekistan in 1955.  He incorporates Crimean Tatar folk elements in his composition, often using typical time signatures.  He plays his custom-made 3 necked electrical guitar tapping the neck of the guitar with his fingers.  Here is a tune called Yalta, after the famous seaside resort, from his 1999 album Minaret: 

Next we are heading to the Podolia region which covers parts of western Ukraine and northern Moldova.  The region has historically been a melting pot for various ethnic groups, including Ukrainians, Jews, Moldovans and other Balkans.  Hence the traditional music of the region is a blend of all those influences.  Brass band Konsonans Retro was formed by members of the Baranovsky family in the town of Kodyma right on the border to Moldova.  Their music has more than just a hint of Balkan wedding music and klezmer to it.  Here's a tune from their 2011 album A Podolian Affair called Moldavskaya Hora:

That's it from Ukraine, next we are heading for a quick visit into Moldova.  Meanwhile, as usual you can follow my virtual ramblings on my Tripline map.