This was my first introduction to the contagiously listenable Russian folk group Отава Ё (Otava Yo). A kind commentator on YouTube explained that the music video is a reference to a 1960's Soviet film called The Republic of ShKID, where one of the characters sings the song; I have no idea if that explains all the highjinks that are going on here. But it's fun to watch, excellent music, and of course I thought the use of bagpipes was most tasteful! There's a little CC button in the lower corner of the video which you can click for English subtitles to this very good (and very catchy) advice on how you should not treat a cat.
It's a good sound, isn't it? Eventually one quiet day at work, I left a YouTube generated playlist of Otava Yo recordings going, which I was enjoying a good deal (despite not being able to check for subtitles) and the video below crept into the mix. And thinks I to myself, "Wowww, that's a perfect fit for the pipes. It's almost like. . .what's that tune? 'Merrily Kiss the Quaker!'. . . Oh, maybe because it is 'Merrily Kiss the Quaker.'" What I didn't know about this group was that the founding members had busked, specializing in Celtic tunes before settling into Russian folk. (You can read a nice, fairly recent interview with Alexey Belkin, the piper, here.)
As far as I can gather, the pipes that are being played in these videos are a Russian type. If I find out more about them one fine day, I'll return and update this post.
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