“Mother Land, white birch-tree / For me, it’s Holy Rus, for others a splinter,” Tatyana Kurtukova sang from the stage at Moscow’s Poklonnaya Gora, the site of a museum dedicated to the Soviet victory in World War II. Thousands of voices from the crowd chimed in as she sang the folk-inspired hit “Matushka” a capella. Kurtukova was performing at a festival marking Moscow’s birthday, where one of the co-headliners was Lyube, the rock band widely believed to be President Vladimir Putin’s favorite. “People don’t listen to this ironically anymore — they genuinely enjoy it. Everyone is starting to look back at our roots, at Russia’s cultural values,” one woman who attended the concert told The Moscow Times.
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