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Acknowledgments
I wish to thank all people without participation of whom this Portal would never have been possible:
- My college-time friend, that we even used to be the roommates, Alexander Bystrov for his generous help and magnanimous
grant of his
White Album software that he has developed himself using 4images package
to Russian Records;
- Writer and researcher in the area of pre-Revolutionary Recordings in Russia, Alexander Tikhonov for his wholehearted support
of this Project and his agreement to publish on our site the whole family of his wonderful articles previously published
by “Mysykalnaya Zhyzn” (“Music Life”) and “Zvukorezhisser” (“Sound Producer”) magazines. Currently, we are working on translating these articles into English; both versions:
English and Russian will appear on our pages soon;
- Dm. Pokrovsky ensemble soloist, author and presenter of the family of musical shows “78 Ob/Min” (“78 RPM”), “Krasnaya Kniga” (“Red Book”), "The Night Retro-Ether of "Echo of Moscow" and etc.,
Russian recording history expert and Collector, and just a Good Man Dmitry Fokin for his support of the Project on a very early stage,
and for being a Russia - USA bridge for all that time;
- Devoted Russian pre-Revolutionary records collector, Dmitry Golovko for his support of the Project, his advises, comments,
and for granting digital copies of some of the most rare records from his collection to Russian Records;
- My wife Ludmila for her help in article translating from Russian to English and vice versa, for her infinite patience, support and understanding that I have to spend
nearly all spare time working on this Project;
- all Good People, that I was happy to collaborate on the different stages of the Project.
Foreword
When I hold in my hand a Gramophone Record manufactured in the beginning of the last century, I experience some kind of a mystic feeling.
My heart sinks of realizing the fact, that this fragile looking thing has outlived those who have been recorded on it, those who made it, and those who used to listen to it.
It looks to me like a time machine that allows one to be transferred on hundred years back: just close your eyes and you will feel like attending a famous concert,
or you can discover for yourself an unknown artist… Gramophone Record is an intimate experience of that epoch that can be substituted neither by book, nor by movies,
nor even by grandma tales.
The realization of how much we have changed during those 100 years has always stunned me. Everything was different there: the emotions, the intonations,
and the jokes that sometimes are bad enough to make you weep, just like many modern ones as well. At the same time, there was some sincerity, naivety, and simplicity.
Maybe we forgot something in a rush of the technical progress?
What is Russian Records?
First – It is an encyclopedia of the Russian pre-Revolutionary Recordings. We hope that over the time we will be able to collect the most
comprehensive information about Russian companies, foreign companies that supplied records for the Russian market, foreign companies that manufactured Russian ethnic
records for emigrants. We plan to publish digital copies of old magazines, catalogs, librettos, photos and other stuff as well as the articles of modern Russian and foreign
writers. We’ll do our best to make all encyclopedic information bilingually available: in Russian and in English while keeping original languages of information sources.
Second – It is an electronic Records (and other artifacts) catalogue and repository, filled up by participants.
The special feature of our site is the ability to upload not only Labels with text and graphics, but also Record soundtracks.
Fortunately, many records of such age are already free from the copyright limitations, so we can freely present such music files and printing works for public access.
Over the time, we hope to collect the most completed and trustworthy catalogues ever existed, but the success solely depends on your participation.
Third – It is a Social Club. There are three complementary ways of interaction: The Fist way is via Comments and Ratings of the Repository
records. Based on these Ratings, Votes, Hits, Downloads and Comments the system automatically selects the best items and places them in a special “top catalogue.”
Another way of interaction is using our internal forum. There are many different topics like “Announcement board” where everyone can place their announcements,
“Recording History”, where we can place well-known and unknown facts, hypothesis, and discuss some arguable points, “Writers’ workbench”,
where every participant can submit there articles, and, of course, the Humorous chapter for funny tales and anecdotes.
And, finally, the Third way of interaction is via our shoutbox in online mode
Club membership - is free! The only condition is that the member should be a real enthusiast (read: the inactive accounts will be removed)
Goodness to Everyone !
Yuri Bernikov © 2006
USA - Russia |
