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RUSSIAN GRANNY ENERGY

Remember the 1990's and girl power? The 2010's is all about granny power :-) The Udmurtian grannies from Buranovo village did not only win the Russian national selection for Eurovision and become an internet sensation overnight (over 1 million views on eurovision.tv alone) and one of the hottest, if not the hottest favorite in Baku 2012 but they also woke up the interest in the Udmurt language and roots among the young people in region. Udmurt, a Finno-Ugric language has been suffering in the ex-Sovjet Union just like Carelian and all the other Finnish and Hungarian related languages when people were forced to move around and there was Russian language only policy. Many of those language are basically dead or nearly so but the grannies will make sure at least Udmurt will have a momentary breath of life.
While waiting for their trip to Baku their life goes on as usual in Buranovo. They tell: "We wake up at six o'clock and go milk the cows and feed the animals. Then we have breakfast and go on with other work, shovel the snow and such. Then we go to grocery store, have dinner and then it's time for the rehearsals. If it's the season of planting potatoes or harvest we don't accept any performance offers" The grannies rehearsal in the small club house they have in the village that houses also a tiny museum. "We want to preserve our culture, what is left of it. We have been through some hard times. We had to dream of bread before for some many years. It's like living in a paradise these days" Alevtina Begisheva tells.

Watch a report from Buranovo here (in Finnish)

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