Albina Alpanaeva

Albina Apanaeva / Альбина Апанаева

Published: May 10, 2017

Albina Apanaeva (Альбина Апанаева in Russian) is a Tatar singer. She performs pop music in the Tatar language, and occasionally in Russian. She also currently works as an event organizer, though she’s best known as a singer—she’s sometimes even called the most popular Tatar pop singer.

Apanaeva was born in Naberezhnye Chelny (Яр Чаллы in Tatar), a big city in Tatarstan, Russia. She attended the Kazan State University of Culture and Arts (Казанский государственный университет культуры и искусств) and released her debut record, The Roads Are All the Same (Барыбер кадерле), in 2005. She released two others in 2007 and 2013, but she seems to have taken a break since then to focus on other projects (both family- and work-related). She worked with the Kazan recording studios Oscar Records and Bars Records, and DVD recordings of her concerts are available online.

Apanaeva has taken part in the Tatar Song (Татар җыры) festival, an international celebration of Tatar music that takes place yearly in Kazan, several times. She won an award there in 2004, when she performed her song “Чын дустым” (translation unavailable). She’s collaborated several times with Dilya Nigmatullina (Диля Нигматуллина), whose fans proclaim her “the queen of Tatar pop music.” Nigmatullina studied with Apanaeva in Kazan and calls her one of her best friends.

Apanaeva is now largely marketing herself as an event organizer on VK and Instagram, though her various Internet fan clubs still pay homage to her music. She runs an event hall called Apanay (Апанай), where she leads events. One review, supposedly quoting a government representative, praised her in particular, calling her “a person with an open soul” whose “songs and smile reflect her inner world.”

 

A live performance of “Син минем матур кызым”:

 

Lyrics for “Син минем матур кызым” (in the Russian, not Tatar, alphabet!)

Ин беренче туган кен!
Буляк бирятырган кен!
Матур сузляр,зур телякляр,
Алып килятырган кен!
Бехетляр телийм сина
Шатлыклар телийм сина
Минем хер бер жан сулышым
Хер янв кенем сина…….

Син минем матур кызым
Син минем тан йолдызым
Син минем жаныкаем
Син минем алтынкаем!
Син минем бягеркяем
Син минем бехеткяем
Син мтнем Асыл кошым
Син минем матур кызым,син….

Хыдайга размят укыйм
Сине китергян очен
Шул кадярле матур хисляр
Буляк иттергян оче
Кузлярен,иренняиен,Елмаеп келюлярен
Шул кедярле матур синен
Тепиляп йорюлярен…..

 

“Бәхет икебезгә берәү,” a duet with Dilya Nigmatullina:

 

Lyrics for “Бәхет икебезгә берәү”:

Дилә:
Ул – минем сулар сулышым,
Ул – минем сулар һавам.
Ул – минем йөрәк кагышым,
Ул – минем йөрәк дәвам.

Альбина:
Язмышның ялгышымы бу,
Ялгыштыкмы үзебез?
Икебез дә бер кешегә
Гашыйк булып йөрибез.

Кушымта:
Бәхет икебезгә берәү
Кем аның өчен туган?
Я син бәхетсез буласың,
Я мин бәхетсез булам.

Альбина:
Сөю андый булмас иде,
Мәхәббәт түгелдер бу.

Дилә:
Көнләшүдән арыналмый
Интеккән күңелдер бу.

Бергә:
Бу дөньяда егетләр күп,
Син иң якын дускаем.
Аны бүлешә алмабыз,
Табыйк оныту җаен.

Кушымта

About the author

Julie Hersh

Julie studied Russian as a Second Language in Irkutsk and before that, Bishkek, with SRAS's Home and Abroad Scholarship program, with the goal of someday having some sort of Russia/Eurasia-related career. She recently got her master’s degree from the University of Glasgow and the University of Tartu, where she studied women’s dissent in Soviet Russia. She also has a bachelor’s degree in literature from Yale. Some of her favorite Russian authors are Sorokin, Shishkin, Il’f and Petrov, and Akhmatova. In her spare time Julie cautiously practices martial arts, reads feminist websites, and taste-tests instant coffee for her blog.

Program attended: Home and Abroad Scholar

View all posts by: Julie Hersh