Evgeny Belyaev

Evgeny Mikhailovich Belyaev, also written as Yevgeny Belyayev (Russian: Евгений Михайлович Беляев), (Klintsy, September 11, 1926 – February 21/22, 1994) was a Russian tenor soloist of the Alexandrov Ensemble under Boris Alexandrov. He is remembered in the Soviet Union as the Russian Nightingale and in the West as one of the definitive singers of Kalinka.

Biography

Early years and private life

On September 11, 1926, he was born in Klintsy in the Bryansk Oblast. As a child, he was known by the diminutive, Zhenia (the soft "g" of Bryansk). As a schoolboy he won a singing competition at the Artek (camp) (Young Pioneer camp) near the Black Sea.

During World War II he served in the subdivision of zenith troops and gained the Army Olympiad Prize. He fought in Czechoslovakia and served as a Lance Corporal in the first Red Orders of Suvorov and Kutuzov division of the Carpathian Military District of the 4th Ukrainian Front under the command of General-Colonel Andrei Yeremenko. He is also said to have been in an anti-aircraft warfare unit and to have finished the war as a sergeant. He is said to have sung in the lulls between the fighting. (NB: The Suvorov and Kutuzov division later became the 93rd Mechanized Brigade (Ukraine)).