The mention in the text of «a wind blowing off the sea» nods to the song «The Wind Blew From the Sea,» which, at the time the novel is set, was only just about to become one of the brightest hits of Russian pop.
About the Singer Natali
Natalya Anatolyevna Rudina (née Minyaeva), better known by her stage name Natali, was born March 31, 1974, in Dzerzhinsk. By 1996, she was already married to Alexander Rudin and working on building her music career.
Natali’s musical path began in her school years. She graduated from music school in piano, and in 1990 became a soloist in her school’s vocal-instrumental ensemble, Chocolate Bar. Around the same time, she joined the amateur youth group Pop-Galaktika, with whom she recorded several songs of her own composition.
In 1993, Natali moved to Moscow, and in 1994 released her first album, «Little Mermaid,» on which she performed and wrote nearly every song. In 1996, around the time the novel is set, her second album, «Snow Rose,» came out, selling in greater numbers than her debut.
The Story of «The Wind Blew From the Sea»
«The Wind Blew From the Sea» has a particular history. By Natali’s own account, she’d known the song since childhood — she’d been performing it since age 13, having first heard it at the Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya pioneer camp, where she spent her summers and learned to play guitar.
The decision to record «The Wind Blew From the Sea» came while working with composer Alexander Shulgin. The album sleeve credited it as «Author unknown,» which later led to a flood of people claiming authorship of the song.
The song became a genuine phenomenon of Russian pop. The magazine Afisha included «The Wind Blew From the Sea» among the 99 brightest and most memorable Russian pop hits of 1991–2011. The song turned Natali into one of the country’s most popular singers, and she was sometimes nicknamed «Natali Vetersmoryadulova» after the song’s title.
Authorship of the Song
The question of who wrote «The Wind Blew From the Sea» remains one of the most contested in the history of Russian popular music. After the song came out, a flood of people claimed authorship — by Natali’s own count, around 17 people, each insisting they’d written the song back in 1973.
Among the legally recognized authors are the poet Yuri Malyshev and the singer Elena Sokolskaya. Alexander Rosenbaum claimed he’d already been performing the song in 1972, calling it a courtyard song dating back to the early 1960s.
The music video was shot in 1997 by director Igor Zaitsev. Soloists from the group Nénsi, Anatoly Bondarenko and Andrei Kostenko, took part in the filming. Production of the video cost $17,000–18,000.