Hello Mudcat, here's something on "Dorogoj dal'neju":

The Russian title of Those Were the Days is in English something like 'along a road, long ago' (I've also seen and heard 'D. dlinnoju' which would mean along a long road) and the idea is somewhat the same as in TWtD: the youth's in the past, it cannot be but remembered. Here's a brief translation of the version that we used to sing when studying Russian at school some 30 years ago:

travelling on a troika (=sleigh/carriage driven by three horses) with bells
flickering fires/lights in distance
if only your company, me lads
could evaporate the pining of/from my soul
ch:
long ago along a road by the light of the moon
with song that echoes into the distance
with that old semistrunnaja (=seven stringed gypsy guitar)
that used to torture me at night times

how could I without pain
remember those years that flowed away
and your silvery hands
that flew away for ever on a troika
ch

now I need nothing more
there's no way to get that troika to return
perhaps someday my beloved one
you come and meet me at my grave
ch

It is more than propable that there are additional verses still, russian - or like in this case gypsy - folk songs, too, tend to be epic in nature and three verses is maybe not enough to make a good story.

Iwan Rebroff, German singer off emigrant parents, has recorded a version with the title 'Takije dni' (=such days) which is kind of re-translated Those Were the Days in Russian, including the endless sitting and drinking in taverna etc.

greetings from Joensuu, Finland
Arto K Sallinen