Joan Baez sings Okudjava

This post in Russian with a different clip is here

I didn't know Joan Baez recorded songs in Russian. I've always remembered her as a 'protest' or folk-song performer and was delighted to find out she did a few songs by the legendary poet-singer Bulat Okudzhava. Here is Joan Baez singing the Union of Friends (Союз друзей, also called Старинная студенческая песня The Old Students' Song, 1967).

Joan also wrote a song dedicated to Natalia Gorbanevskaya, the hero of the Soviet dissident movement who took part in the 1968 demonstration in the Red Square protesting against the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia. 

And here is a translation of the poem from this Okudzhava fan-site (you may need to change your browser Text Encoding to view cyrillics):

He who will dare our union mar

deserves the most severe sentence,

I wouldn’t give a grey guitar

for his damned life and his repentance.

So fervently the age intends

to knock us down with a feather...

Let’s join our hands my dear friends,

we won’t get lost, if we’re together.

At alien feasts on festive days,

amidst the shaky truths and fairness,

before we hear the words of praise

we will spruce up and preen our feathers.

While our stupid plume portends

a lasting journey, full of care,

let’s join our hands my dear friends,

let’s join our hands, friends, I declare!

When the partition day arrives

we will not covet bread for gratis

and we won’t get to paradise,

instead, Ophelia will bless us.

Before the crucial day descends,

before we for the road prepare

let’s join our hands my dear friends,

let’s join our hands, friends, I declare!