Crimean Tatar folk song, the unofficial anthem of the Crimean Tatars "Ey, güzel Qırım" ("Beautiful Crimea") for a mixed choir a cappella, which I am happy to present to your attention. I wrote this work at the request of Yulia Puchko-Kolesnyk, conductor of the girl's choir of the M.V. Lysenko Kyiv State Music Lyceum, on the occasion of the tragic anniversary of the deportation of the Crimean Tatars. The melody and lyrics of the song "Ey, güzel Qırım" cannot leave anyone indifferent and move to tears. All the eternal longing of the Crimean Tatar people with their tragic fate - being exiles in their native land - was concentrated in them. All of us, both children and adults, all who worked on this project, fell deeply in love with this melody, this language and culture, putting the sincere warmth of our hearts and souls into our work. Because Crimea is Ukraine!
I thank everyone who was involved in this wonderful recording: to the leaders-conductors and choirmasters of the choir - Yulia Puchko-Kolesnyk, Ruben Tolmachev, Vira Shemchuk, Vladyslav Tarakhan; soloists - Ruben Tolmachev, Oleksandra Stetsyuk, Valeriya Husak, Mykyta Tsyganov; to all members of the girls' choir of the M.V. Lysenko Kyiv State Music Lyceum and the chamber choir "Gaudeamus" of the P.I.Tchaikovsky Charitable Foundation for the Development of NMAU. Huge thanks to our beloved and constant sound engineer Andriy Mokrytskyi for his traditionally impeccable work.