Russian Anthems museum >

Pycckuù

FAQ

1. Clear your browser cache. Then, wait 1 hour and try to download the file again. Sometimes the hosting I am using for media files is down, but this rarely continues for longer than an hour.

2. If the file downloads but you have problems playing it, install WinAmp (it’s a free audio player) and use it to play the file. I am testing all MP3 files in WinAmp before posting. A few MP3s do not play in QuickTime browser plug-in.

3. If the problem persists despite the above steps, email me (makarov@vad1.com).

I am always searching for details on every recording (artist, album, year, etc.). If no details are listed, this means I don’t have them. Whenever new details to an existing recording are found, I publish them immediately. If you eventually find the info you seek, please forward it to me too.

If a recording is available on-line, please email me a link to it. Do not send me links to YouTube videos: they are, as of the time of writing this, of low audio quality.

If you have it on an audio CD, rip the track into MP3 format and send me the file. Read the following before you rip:

• Please make MP3 with 320 kbps bitrate, joint stereo mode (why 320 kbps?). Do not encode in variable bitrate (VBR or VBRI) mode. Do not use a bitrate lower than 256 kbps. Please choose CBR (constant bit rate) mode and joint stereo. Please also check that normalizing, audio level compression, equalizer and any other automatic audio adjustment you may have as a feature in your ripper and encoder are all switched OFF. Of course, you may instead upload me files in a lossless format.
• Recommended CD ripping tool: Exact Audio Copy (free software, extracts audio data from CDs reliably and tries to fix possible errors by multiple reading). Recommended MP3 encoder: LAME (search for binary executables; with LAME 3.96.1, the settings listed above would translate into the command line option "lame --preset insane").
• If you don’t understand any of the above, just make a file in a way you can and send it me anyway :)

If you have the recording in a file, please send it me intact in whatever audio format it happens to be.

Video recordings are best sent to me in MPEG-2 format (at the bitrate of 9.8 Mbps, or extracted from a DVD without transcoding). If you, however, have a video in another format, send it me as it is.

In ANY case, please send me email (makarov@vad1.com) that includes all the details you know about the recording. Specifically, please try to find the name of artist, orchestra, conductor, year of recording, the title of the CD or plate, the year of issue, and other interesting details. Even if you know no details and upload the file via FTP, please send me email anyway. Questions always arise, so I must have a way to contact you.

Large files can be uploaded via anonymous FTP to ftp://hymn.ru/incoming/ (please notify me via email of any and every upload you make). If the total size of files is smaller than 10MB, you can email them me.

It’s also possible to mail me a physical media: mailing address.

I do appreciate information about songs and music pieces that should be included in the museum, and am eager to listen to your suggestions. However, requests which are not accompanied by information where I can get the recording are usually very hard to fulfil. Please send me all the information you know about the recording you suggest.

I’m sorry, the museum only collects live recordings. The only exception from this rule is when some piece of music has never been recorded from a live performance, but is available in MIDI format created from the score. A change in this policy in the future is possible, but then you shall provide me a good explanation on why I should start collecting MIDI files.

Those recordings which I also have on an audio CD or in a lossless format are usually published in the museum at 256 kbps bitrate and above. For the rest of the recordings, the published audio file is all I have.

I would not be able to compose such a large collection if I set the quality threshold very high. If you, however, have a better quality version of some recording in the museum, you can send it me. There is no limit on the size of files you can upload via FTP, and you are welcome to upload large audio files in any format (though see above for recommendations on the preferred format).

Here is a recording taken from your museum encoded into a different format / at a different bitrate: Thank you I don’t need it. I have all the tools for transcoding and editing. Please only send me a recording if it is of a better quality, i.e. not created from the file already existing in the museum. (However, cleaning noise from old recordings could be discussed.)

Not from me. I can’t sell CDs for two reasons: first, I don’t have time to prepare them, and second, selling a CD version of the museum would put me in a precarious position because of copyright to the songs. If you really have such a big problem downloading all the files via the Internet, try to find someone who can download and burn them to CDs for you.
(I can make an exception from this rule for Russian researchers and for active contributors to the museum.)

If you want to buy some Russian music, may I recommend these places: allofmp3.com (downloadable music), russiandvd.com (physical CDs), ozon.ru (physical CDs).

This is a sore point indeed. Getting more submissions and tips than I can process is a permanent state of affairs since 2003. I manage to add only some of them, finding time for this activity sporadically (which, by the way, seems to be a typical situation in lives of many people whom I know). I would like, of course, to add everything without a delay, but this is just not possible. The museum grows steadily, even if at a rate a few of you find to be too slow.

Some recordings you send me are added quickly, some are added after a long delay, and some stay in the queue indefinitely... I can’t say now whether I eventually get to process them or not, and how exactly I pick those to be added first. I sometimes do return to and make good of old submissions that were skipped at the time.

This is not meant to discourage new submissions, but I hope for your understanding if you don’t see the recording you’ve sent me added to the collection. I expect the museum to be a long-term project; hence a delay in publication shouldn’t be a big problem.

You may rest assured that I read all the incoming correspondence, and archive everything I receive.

Adding a recording to the museum usually takes one to three hours of my time, depending on how difficult it is to find information to properly annotate it in two languages. The museum is fully bilingual, in English and in Russian.

No (not unless Frank Rennicke asks me to do so). The recording is labeled appropriately. The museum represents all uses of a given musical work. I personally neither support nor condemn recordings. Think of the museum as a corner of a large library. You can find all sorts of books in a library, filed on shelves, no matter what the librarian or some readers think of them.

Copyright-related questions

I own no rights to the recordings included in the museum (besides occasional permission from the performer to use his recording in the museum, for some newer records). I can neither grant nor deny you the permission to use audio recordings from the museum. Therefore, you are free to use whatever you like at your own discretion and in accordance with the intellectual property laws of your country. Certain educational uses of audio recordings do not requre permission from the rights holder in most countries; for other uses, please check the law.

If you decide to use recordings from the museum online, please don’t link to my audio files, but copy them to your server.

I would appreciate a link back to the museum if you copy more than a few recordings.

Please do not copy, however, entire sections of the museum. Link to the museum instead.

How to download MP3 files to your disk: right-click on the link and choose Save Target As...

How to download RealAudio files to your disk: RealAudio songs consist of two files. The file the link points to (.ram) is a small text file that contains the URL of the large audio file (.ra). To download the song, you should save the link target to your disk, open the saved .ram file in a text editor (e.g. Notepad), get the URL of the .ra file and download it. How you download the .ra file to the disk instead of playing it, depends on your browser... some ingenuity may be required.

If you are making a large-budget movie or working in a prefessional theatre, there is no excuse not to contact your intellectual property lawyer. He’ll find out if and what the studio or theatre has to do to safely use a particular recording in your production. By the way I would appreciate if you let me know of the legal stuff you find out about using recordings of the Russian anthems in other works, because I’ve received this question more than once.

A hint for your lawyer: there is a clause in the Russian Copyright Law that says in the Article 8 roughly the following: “state symbols are not objects of author’s right”. It may be relevant. (You may also check an unofficial English translation of our Copyright Law.)

Some of the recordings in the museum are recent, and it should be easy to contact the performer.

If you are a small independent producer or an individual making a low-budget movie... well, I am not a lawyer and cannot assume any responsibility for the following informal suggestion. If you want to use an old Soviet recording and you see no easy way to contact the performer, you can safely use it in your production. The chances for you to run into a trouble later are very low.

According to the Russian Copyright Law (see the previous question), the anthem lyrics and sheet music are ineligible for copyright. Moreover, there is no legal responsibility for disrespect and obscene behavior towards the anthem (unlike that towards the Russian flag and coat of arms, for which there are penalties as detailed in the Russian Criminal Code § 329). Therefore you may use the lyrics and sheet music of the anthem as you like, without asking for permission and without any payments. I would appreciate, however, if you send me a recording of your finished work for the museum.

Things I’ve never been asked about but want to say anyway

I am neither a historian nor a musicologist, and do not work with original historical documents and sources. The museum is a popular resource maintained in my spare time. The information in it has mostly been found on the Internet, in books, and sent me by other people (most of them hobbyists, too). A good part of this information has surely not been checked properly. If you are doing serious research, I recommend that you take everything you read here with a grain of salt and verify the facts yourself if you can.

Having said that, I strive to keep the contents of the museum balanced and accurate. If you find a factual error or a serious omission, please report it to me.

Maintenance of the museum costs me about $200 in hosting fees annually (and some more when I’m purchasing media with new recordings). I am open to donations that would help offset these costs. Alternatively, you can offer the museum free hosting for audio files.

Unfortunately, there is no convenient way for me to receive tiny monetary donations (for example, PayPal only works for residents of the United States and a few European countries which I don’t live in). You can mail me a cheque or wire money to my Norwegian bank account; please contact me for details.

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