Beth Lewis, Soprano and Sviatlana Reidel, pianist performing Vladimir Vlasov's The Fountain of Bakhchisaray, lyrics from a poem by Alexander Pushkin

Fontan lyubvi, fontan zhivoy!
Prinyos ya v dar tebe dve rozï.
Lyublyu nemolchnïy govor tvoy
I poeticheskie slyozï.

Tvoya serebryanaya pïl
Menya kropit rosoyu khladnoy:
Akh, leysa, leysa, klyuch otradnïy!
Zhurchi, zhurchi svoyu mne bïl ...

Fontan lyubvi, fontan pechalnïy!
I ya tvoy mramor voproshal;
Khvalu strane prochel ya dalnoy;
No o Marii tï molchal ...

ENGLISH TRANSLATION:
Fountain of love, fountain of life!
I bring you two roses as a gift.
I love your never-ending song,
your tears so full of poetry.

Your silvery spray
sprinkles me with cooling dew:
oh, flow on, spring of pleasure!
Sing away, tell me your stories.

Fountain of love, fountain of sorrow!
I have questioned your marble form
and heard praise of a far-away land,
but of Maria you are silent ...

English: Andrew Huth © 2009

The True Story behind the song :
The story of The Fountain of Bakhchisaray begins in the city called Bakhchisaray, Crimea, Ukraine in the 1700's. One of the last Crimean Kahns, Quian Girey, was a fierce Mongolian warrior who had a harem full of women. After one violent raid he took a group of young Polish women prisoner. Quian, a brutal, unfeeling man, fell in love with one of the fair skinned women named Maria, and tried to win her affection. His love for this outsider enraged his favorite wife in the harem and she plotted to kill Maria. Despite his unmoved cruelty, he was grievous and wept when Maria died, astonishing all those who knew him.

When the Kahn found out his favorite wife was the murderer, he ordered her death as well. Then he commissioned a marble fountain to be made in memory of the two beautiful women he loved, so that the rock would weep, like him, forever.

(the first part is partially speculation, but it is a fact that the fountain was commissioned by the Kahn for his love, Maria, and originally stood at the location of her gravesite)

The fountain is fashioned from the side of a marble wall. The water flows from the wall, pooling in small marble cups as each overflows to the next, like the tears of the Kahn.

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