Every day, the Doros choir performs Russian spiritual songs in Russia's best-known church, St. Basil's Cathedral on Red Square. An RBTH correspondent met the singers to find out how they manage to keep up the ancient traditions of choral singing and what foreigners make of Russian church music.
Under one of the domes of the iconic St. Basil's Cathedral there is a toy cockerel left by a four-year-old boy. One winter day, the boy's mother brought her son Petya on an excursion to the cathedral, where he heard Russian hymns being performed. The ensemble was singing the Lord's Prayer.
Little Petya was so captivated by the singing that his mother could not persuade him to leave for a long time. He was sitting quietly, listening intently to the music. In the end, he presented the singers with his toy cockerel.
The Doros ensemble, whose name translated from Greek means ‘spiritual gift’, performs at St Basil's Cathedral all day every day, with just several minutes' intervals between pieces. "We are real Russian men and we do not complain that our vocal cords get tired.
When you do work like this, you need to have a strong core inside," says one of the choristers. Each of them has his own story of how he became fascinated with music, mostly starting from early childhood.
